Sunni Brown "Doodlers: unite!"

Long Blog

http://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown.html

For this blog post I watched the TED talk, “Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!”. Sunni Brown is leader to what has become known as the “doodle revolution” who’s mission is to validate doodling as an important creative outlet and problem-solving tool. In this talk Sunni discusses the negative connotation associated with doodling in school and the workplace and how we must not fall privy to this belief. Doodling has always been seen as something one is “caught” doing, attaching to it a stigma of embarrassment. Doodling is traditionally considered to be “anti-intellectual and counter to serious learning.” She goes on to explain how doodling is literally defined as, “to dawdle, to dilly-dally, to monkey around, to make meaningless marks, to do something of little value, substance, or import, or to do nothing.” Sunni suggests that the new definition of doodling be, “to make spontaneous marks to help yourself think.” 

She expresses that we as a society have become so focused on verbal information that we cannot see the value that doodling brings to our thought process. While doodling has been seen in the past as a careless act, it has been proven to be an extremely effective tool in processing and retaining information as well as problem solving. Studies show that people who doodle during exposure to verbal information are proven to retain more of said information than those who do not. It is a common fallacy that doodling is an act one partakes in when they have lost focus or interest, when in fact Sunni states it is a “pre-emptive measure to stop you from losing focus.” The four learning modalities are visual, auditory, reading/writing, or kinesthetic. For learning to occur, two of these modalities must be simultaneously engaged, or one modality plus emotion. Sunni argues that doodling is one of the most effective learning tools we have at our disposal because it engages all four learning modalities with the added possibility of emotion. By doodling we are able to ignite our whole mind. In her opinion, doodling should not be banned from schools, meetings, the workplace, etc. Her argument in this talk is that doodling should be put to use as a learning or brainstorming tool in, “situations where information density is very high and the need for processing that information is high.” Her closing statement is that doodling can be used to increase our verbal literacy as a culture. 

above: doodle drawn by Bill Gates during press meeting. 

I am recommending this TED talk because a significant part of learning how to read and reading comprehension has to do with a students verbal literacy and ability to process information. One thing we learned in this class is that students who come from low SES have extremely low verbal literacy because they are simply not exposed to as many words as their higher SES counterparts. One quote that related in the reading was, "Children enter school with wide differences both in their exposure to text and in what they know about text" (pg. 154) The book goes on to explain how some students have little trouble grasping the concept of reading because they are constantly being exposed to language, and do not even remember the act of “learning to read.” These students are lucky, because there are also those who never truly learn to read and struggle to get by. Ms.Brown stated, those who doodle while being exposed to verbal information are better equipped to process and retain what they are hearing. It could be useful for students from low income neighborhoods to doodle the images they have in their mind while being read to, when a word is unfamiliar to them. After doing so, we could go back as a class and talk about the words we had never heard before and what we believed they meant. By doing so, we could drastically increase a students word knowledge, making them better readers. 

This could also be a helpful method for visual learners to make sense of a text that does not already contain illustrations, perhaps by doodling what they believe is being depicted in the book and sharing with each other in small groups what they came up with. These activities would help negate the “embarrassment” associated with doodling by making it an acceptable learning outlet. 

 

chapters 10: scaffolding students comprehension of text

In chapter 10 we looked at methods in which to scaffold students’ reading comprehension. It describes the four frameworks of scaffolding and different procedures to promote higher-order thinking. The text explains the three factors- who is reading, what is being read, and why the reading is being done- as interconnected and important in planning every classroom reading experience. Students’ background knowledge is the most important aspect in understanding the text. The book states that we as teachers must “link new ideas, skills, and competencies to prior understanding.” In some areas we must do pre-teaching about topics students are unfamiliar with. We must find out what the student’s pre-existing knowledge of the topic is and expand upon that so they can make meaning of the text. Another important pre-reading activity would be going over any unfamiliar vocabulary that may be present in more challenging readings. After the readings the class should discuss the things they learned from the text including any new ideas or knowledge. 

The text states that when selecting reading material, we should think of it in terms of a unit rather than individual selections. The authors suggest organizing units by topic, genre, author, or theme. The idea of using selected readings in a unit is crucial to the idea that reading is not only meant for students to “skim the surface” of a topic but as the book states, “take students beyond the literal into a deep understanding of topics or themes.” (Graves, 282.) This chapter discussed how students need to read a variety of materials about different cultures, interests, genres, writing styles, and in a varying level of difficulty. It also explained how the lessons must be flexible and differentiated. I feel as though most teachers have a very difficult time differentiating lessons so students are either not being adequately challenged, or are falling behind in the lesson. The chapter explained how if a student is having difficulty with one of the more challenging readings, they need supplemental instruction, and activities that may help improve their fluency and comprehension. 

Whenever we read it is to gain something we want or need be it entertainment, information, knowledge, or for pleasure. One quote that stuck out to me from the reading was, “Reading is a conscious, deliberate act prompted by a plausible purpose.” (Guthrie&Anderson, 1999.) I enjoyed this quote because I know a lot of kids do not enjoy reading so explaining to them why they are reading something rather than going with the “because I said so” method may really improve their comprehension of the material. Having a purpose motivates a student to really understand what they are reading and could help them look for cues to mentally sort out the relevant from irrelevant information in the text. 

The chapter states that the four frameworks for scaffolding are Directed Reading Activity, Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, Scaffolded Reading Experience, and Guided Reading. My question would be, which of these methods is the most effective overall? If I had to guess I would probably say the Scaffolded Reading Experience because the text explained it contains aspects of both the directed reading activity and directed reading thinking activity and it can be used for reading at all levels. 

English Language Learners

Chapter 14 of the Graves text discusses English language learners and the difficulties they face in learning to read. The chapter goes into challenges ELL face in the classroom such as the differing degrees of overlap in their native language and English, don't have internalized knowledge from growing up in a literate culture, knowledge they have from their own culture may need to be altered, and the fact that their verbal skills may not be up to par with what the student actually knows. This comes as a challenge to teachers because with an increasing number of English language learner's in their classes, they struggle to give each student the individualized attention they need. The teacher has trouble in evaluating the student’s understanding of concepts because sometimes even though the student has gained mastery of the skill, they can not verbalize their knowledge. This can have a negative effect on the student’s learning because if the teacher believes they are not grasping a concept, they will adapt their future work with the student in order to work on it, rather than addressing the real issue which is the students inability to verbalize their thoughts in English. 

One of Kamil and Bernhardt’s techniques for working with English Language Learners in the classroom is giving the student the choice to respond with whatever language they are more comfortable with when conducting assessments. One idea that I liked using this method is having the student do the response in whatever language they feel most comfortable with, then translating into English. I think this is a great idea because it gives the students the freedom to respond in a way in which they know there ideas will come across clearly, and then gives them the opportunity to practice their English language skills. I think using this approach would make for much more effective assessment. 

Another approach that was introduced in this chapter was by Maragret Thayer, using the “buddy system.” In this method, a native English speaking student is paired with an English language learner and work as a team to complete assignments, discuss readings, and work on homework. Thayer states that often times using this method, the native English speaker acts as a tutor for the English language learner but one of the most effective practices is switching roles and having the English language learner act as the teacher. I love this idea because not only does it give students of different backgrounds an opportunity to get to know one another better, but it also is time efficient giving students “individualized” instruction without taking up all of the teachers time. 

An idea that has been debated in this and other classes is whether or not ELL need to drop their old language and learn English in school, or if we as educators must adapt and include their culture in our lesson planning. The question I would pose would be, what is an appropriate balance in the classroom of maintaining a culture’s identity and assimilating to the English language?