Philosophy of Literacy

To me, teaching literacy is not about teaching students to be good readers or good
writers, it is about teaching students to be literate and to develop critical thinking and problem
solving skills to participate in our ever-changing world (Lazar et al., 2012). In order for students
to grow physically, cognitively, and socially, English Language Arts is essential in facilitating
this development. My classroom will be composed of diverse learners with a wide range of
abilities. Every student has the right to be literate; literacy should not be about privilege. It is my
goal to use literacy as an instrument for social change. To achieve this goal, I will utilize the
gradual release of responsibility model, an integrated curriculum with culturally relevant texts,
and small group collaboration.
To be of service to my students’ development of critical thinking and problem solving
skills, I will provide modeling and scaffolding to facilitate them in this process. I will implement
the gradual release of responsibility model beginning with a focus lesson, next would be guided
instruction, then group collaboration, and lastly students would work independently (Fisher,
2010). This model will provide students with support to develop critical thinking skills.
Along with modeling and scaffolding needs to be an integrated curriculum with culturally
and linguistically relevant texts (Gibbons, 2015). My students need texts that actually represent
who they are, so that they all have a chance to be represented. This will aid them in connecting
with the literature, and in the process they will gain a repertoire of many texts and genres. The
wide range of texts and genres that students can connect with will provide them with additional
support in the development of participating in our changing world.
My classroom will contain diverse learners with multiple perspectives, and collaboration
amongst small groups will lead to the advancement of the whole. According to Gibbons (2015),
group work increases comprehension, deepens understanding, provides opportunities for student
output and peer scaffolding, and most importantly increases students’ confidence. It can serve as
an outlet for students to express themselves and collaborate with their peers.
I plan to use group collaboration to flow through the literacy block of beginning with
focused lessons in the whole group, then moving to homogeneous groups of students, then to
heterogeneous groups, to independent work, and then back to the whole group. Homogeneous
groups of students will aid me in facilitating them to further develop unique needs of each group.
For example, students who need more practice on a certain topic area would be able to get that
intervention support, and students who would benefit from enrichment would be able to get that
support as well. Heterogeneous groups of students would be beneficial for students to collaborate
with and learn from each other. We would move to independent work, and then end the literacy
block back in the whole group setting to debrief what was learned. This group collaboration flow
would provide students with support in critical thinking and problem solving skills.
In conclusion, it is my desire to influence students to leave me better than before they met
me. To facilitate each of my diverse learners towards reaching their full potential, I will
implement the gradual release of responsibility model, provide them with an integrated
curriculum with culturally relevant texts, and facilitate small group collaboration. This
philosophy will support my goal of using literacy as a tool for social change among my students,
aiding them with developing critical thinking and problem solving skills needed to participate in
our world.