Teaching in a Diverse Multiple-Literacies Society: A Letter to my Students.
To My Students,
The goal of this letter is to outline my values and beliefs surrounding student literacy. More specifically it is my intention to describe how important all students’ literacy is to me, some strategies and resources we will use to achieve this goal, and how we will create an inclusive language and literacy climate in our classroom community.
As you well know one of my strongest beliefs is that no student gets left behind. We all learn at different rates and all have different strengths as learners. Some of us are strong in Language Arts and literacy activities, some of us are not. But I promise you that we will all improve our literacy skills from when we begin in September, to when we end the year in June. We will create an inclusive classroom community by not only acknowledging those that excel, but providing constant support and positive encouragement to those that may feel as though they are struggling. Students of all levels of literacy will be valued in our classroom and we will all learn from each other.
I will do my part in fostering an inclusive language and literacy classroom community by employing a principle known as differentiated learning. This means that I will do my best to ensure that there are multiple ways for students to attain the same goal. Some may want to achieve a goal through reflective journal writing, while others may want to try their hand at an oral retelling of the story. Some may want to act out a scene to reinforce their understanding while others may want to construct a model in order to show what they know.
In short, it will be my goal as your teacher to provide you with the freedom to explore your own learning so that we may all have the chance to excel. When this occurs we will be sure to recognize those individuals that have been successful without losing sight of those that gave their best effort. Through the power of differentiated learning all students of all levels of literacy will be included in our classroom community and no student shall feel left behind.
Truly yours,
Mr. Cantelon
The goal of this letter is to outline my values and beliefs surrounding student literacy. More specifically it is my intention to describe how important all students’ literacy is to me, some strategies and resources we will use to achieve this goal, and how we will create an inclusive language and literacy climate in our classroom community.
As you well know one of my strongest beliefs is that no student gets left behind. We all learn at different rates and all have different strengths as learners. Some of us are strong in Language Arts and literacy activities, some of us are not. But I promise you that we will all improve our literacy skills from when we begin in September, to when we end the year in June. We will create an inclusive classroom community by not only acknowledging those that excel, but providing constant support and positive encouragement to those that may feel as though they are struggling. Students of all levels of literacy will be valued in our classroom and we will all learn from each other.
I will do my part in fostering an inclusive language and literacy classroom community by employing a principle known as differentiated learning. This means that I will do my best to ensure that there are multiple ways for students to attain the same goal. Some may want to achieve a goal through reflective journal writing, while others may want to try their hand at an oral retelling of the story. Some may want to act out a scene to reinforce their understanding while others may want to construct a model in order to show what they know.
In short, it will be my goal as your teacher to provide you with the freedom to explore your own learning so that we may all have the chance to excel. When this occurs we will be sure to recognize those individuals that have been successful without losing sight of those that gave their best effort. Through the power of differentiated learning all students of all levels of literacy will be included in our classroom community and no student shall feel left behind.
Truly yours,
Mr. Cantelon