Chapter 1 Reflection

Literacies nourish each other. One literacy helps another to grow. Literacies
contain each other and require each other. Literacies are embedded in each
other. Long before children can write or read they are getting ready by exploring,
scribbling, talking, drawing, listening, and looking, and wondering. Susan Rich
Sheridan

After doing some further research on multiple literacies, I came across this quote
from Susan Rich Sheridan. It struck a cord with me because I havent thought
much about how literacy would be important for me to consider while teaching
physical education until now. During my first internship day, my mentor taught a
circuit activity involving multiple literacies. The students had to first, read
instructions at each station and then perform the specified activity. They then had
to calculate their achieved points as well as articulate what they learned. This is a
perfect example of multiple literacies in the Physical Education content area.

Now, after reading the discussion in our text, it is significant to me how vital it is
to include multiple literacies in our content area. In order for students to truly
grow in their knowledge and understanding of a particular content area, multiple
literacy strategies must be implemented. Having the students direct themselves
in an activity and then having them articulate what they learned, not only gave
them a sense of achievement, but also motivated them to want to learn; and
learning literacy occurs best when students have the need to know. For a lot of
students, physical education is a wonderful escape from the classroom and the
perfect chance for teachers to use their energy and interest in the content to
teach literacy.

A concept that also stood out to me, as being significant was that idea that a
deficit perspective creates a self-fulfilling prophecy about what a particular
student or classroom will be like and what the students can do. As teachers it is
important that we avoid this deficit perspective and instead realize that each
student is subject to the power of the situation. It is our job to find out what their
academic identity is and how to adjust classroom instruction to accommodate
them.