Blog Post #5 for 7/30/2016

The readings this week in essence functioned as support for the idea that making accommodations for students with learning disabilities or other factors is akin to planning lessons based on your students like normal. Many of the suggestions were not specific to one type of student, but applicable to any lesson. That said, there are certainly some themes to keep in mind. Empowerment is probably the biggest common ground: at-risk students need to see that they are capable of succeeding, gifted students need opportunities to attempt more challenging tasks, students with physical disabilities need us to trust that they can handle school work, and ELLs need to know how to use any tools they can to overcome their barriers. 

In a few of the articles, I struggled to find an overall point or walk away with a concrete idea that was usable. For instance, in Cheryl McLean's "A Space Called Home: An Immigrant Adolescent's Digital Literacy Practices," much of the article is spent focusing on how the student interacted with friends on social media and demonstrated fluency, but it felt more like a study of ELLs than anything else. If, for example, I assigned my students a project involving using Facebook as a means of synthesizing information, in my mind the student using non-academic lingo is doing them a disservice when it comes to preparation for future writing. Yes, I could assess their knowledge of the ideas, and there would be no problem with them discussing said knowledge in a non-academic manner, but they do need to make that leap. Perhaps it is easier for ELLs who already have trouble speaking standard English to do this, but it feels like a case where giving the student special treatment or allowing the other students to write journal entries on Shakespeare in texting language is lowering the standards they are capable of reaching. Accommodations do have to be made where necessary, of course. If having this freedom to write in a comfortable format is engaging, it could work out.

Though I would be loathe to build a unit around Twilight, Carol Smith makes many interesting points in her article "I Can't Believe We Read This Whole Book!" The idea that allowing at-risk students to make big choices about the curriculum is an interesting, if idealistic, one. There is a definite carrot on a stick appeal to drawing interest with a film, transitioning to synergistic texts, then getting to the actual text. It isn't far off from a typical Reader Response to High Blooms trajectory lesson format. I think it's always good if one can find common ground with students. I would probably aim for a text with less of an offensive perspective on relationships and sexuality than Meyer's, but the idea is sound. I particularly liked the project involved Remember the Titans, in which students wrote on the Titans' message boards and got responses. This obviously can't be done with every text, but it's a great method of encouraging inquiry if there is an author or subject willing to participate.

The last article that I felt particularly moved by was Patricia Dunn's "EJ in Focus: Re-Seeing (Dis)Ability)." This article encourages teachers to have a positive attitude concerning accommodations, treating them as challenges or useful tools for oneself and the students instead of band-aids. All students can benefit from audiobook access, not just sight-disabled students, for instance. Dunn also makes the point that having a wider variety of assessment types naturally acts as a form of accommodation, while also encouraging students to learn in many different ways. Her point about taking the direct approach and simply asking special needs students what helps them learn is also quite valid (24). In most cases, these students are not new to their disabilities. They are the best resource available to us for learning how to accommodate.