Critical Incident

Critical Incident

            One significant incident around literacy instruction that I have experienced in the last year has been watching the fifth graders that I intern with participate in a theater program called Rosie’s Kids.  It is significant because as I watch, I see my struggling readers, two in particular in a new light.  They are totally different kids in this program.  There is literacy going on because the teacher is teaching them new words used in the theater, lyrics from songs, and has them making connections and inferring about characters in shows.

            This incident first happened the first day of Rosie’s Kids about three weeks ago.  It took place in the auditorium of PS.11.  There were two fifth grade classes combined during this.  My goal of this lesson that was observing was to see if literacy was taking place during theater in a non-conventional way.  This class was about forty minutes long. 

            During this time, Teklah the teacher was standing in front of the stage while the students were sitting in front of her on the stage.  Teklah asked questions about the definitions of Italian words that are used in theater.  She made references as to when they were used and why and how they are used.  For example, one word she used was piano which means soft in Italian.  She then had the students practice the word by singing some rhyme about it.  I wonder if this helped the students to remember the word better?  My struggling readers were right up in the front.  I had never seen a smile on them like this before.  I feel as though they felt that they were at the top of class and no one was judging them. 

            The first thing that I thought about was how all students learn in their own unique way.  I wish that we could cater to everyone’s’ needs at once, but it seem to be so hard.  I felt happy that these students were able to express themselves in this sort of literacy outlet.  This situation stand out to me because I wish that we could teach to everyone’s’ specific needs all of the time.  I wonder if it is possible to do this somehow?