My literacy journey!

HI, I am Kylie Edmister!  I grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia with my parents who taught me the importance of honesty, loyalty and commitment. Deeply rooted within these core values is the framework that has encouraged me to set goals and accomplish them.  While my parents taught me a lot about morals it was being able to look up to my older brother and experience life with my identical twin sister, I learned the importance of understanding and compassion.  Growing up with my twin sister was an extraordinary experience.  We were (and still are) best friends.  Three years ago we experienced the inevitable, THE SEPARATION. 

                Prior to her move 3 year ago, we followed very similar paths.  After graduating high school, we attended Wheeling Jesuit University and obtained our Bachelor’s of Arts degree in elementary education.  Soon after graduation, we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where we found our first teaching job where we taught together for 3 years.  At the time she decided to move away, I felt there was a need for change in my own life, so I transitioned to a year round elementary school. Even though separating from my sister was extremely challenging, I immersed myself in a journey of self discovery.  On this journey, I have learned that through hard work and dedication anything is possible.   In November, I became a National Board Certified teacher this process along encompasses the work ethic and determination I put into setting and accomplishing my goals.  This accomplishment enticed me to continue seeking opportunities to grow, which is why I decided to enroll in the Curriculum and Developmental Supervision master’s program at North Carolina State University.                 

As a child, I vividly rememberthe time my mom and dad spent reading with me.  My earliest memory of loving to read came when I found the Amelia Bedelia collection by Peggy Parish.  The play on words and ‘careless’ nature of Amelia would engage any 7 year old.  However, my attitude toward reading quickly changed in the classroom setting.  I became disinterested due to the mundane routine of “round robin reading” and being assigned questions from the book to respond to.  I remember calculating the paragraphs I would be responsible to read as my classmates were reading..  My lack of engagement resulted in serious reading comprehension problems.  Even though my struggles persisted throughout elementary and middle school, I emerged from these problems in high school when my freshman year English teacher required the class to read a John Grisham novel.  As I read this novel, I was amazed at how easy it was to become ‘hooked.’ The content was engaging and meaningful.  Her deliberate instruction on themes, characters, and plot directly linked to experiences in the world around me.  Furthermore, she allowed for students to interact and share their own thoughts, which provided an opportunity to learn from each other.  This atmosphere of learning was drastically different from the isolated feelings I experienced while answer text book questions. My love for reading developed even more during the summer of my sophomore year when I became hooked on the Oprah Book Club series.  I found that I love to read realistic fiction books where I can become engrossed in the drama and excitement of other people’s problems.  After completing 11 books that summer, I realized that reading was fun.

                Looking back on these experiences, I am proud to say I have developed a true love for reading and thoroughly enjoy the gratification of completing a book.  The idea of engaging in the personal struggles, triumphs, and drama aside from reality makes reading entertaining.  Since my struggles in elementary school, I would now consider myself a true book worm.   As an educator, I look at my journey, as a struggling reader to becoming a bookworm, to help my own students find an interest in reading.  It is important that the students are not simply assigned and told what to do, but are given a choice in their comprehension activity.  Therefore, I have incorporated several differentiated tic tac toe activities and contracts that engage students around Garner’s multiple intelligences for them to display their understanding.

                Understanding the struggle I had with reading, one would think my writing problems would follow the same suite.  However, writing at school was a frustrating process.  I never found the process of writing to meet my needs.  Unfortunately, my teachers lacked understanding in differentiation and never sought to meet my needs in a different way.   Although my interest in writing at school never truly blossomed, it was my love of writing poetry on my bed, looking out my window that I realized my talent.  I have run across several of my old poems and am amazed at the mature understanding I had of the world around me as a child.  While writing poetry was a favorite growing up, I also enjoyed writing about my own experiences.  I started feeling like a writer early on in life when I represented my fifth grade class as our D.A.R.E essay winner.  This recognition gave me confidence to believe in my writing.  Unfortunately, my confidence dwindled away as writing assignments shifted from personal experiences to research.  This was a temporary frustration, while I still do not prefer to read and write research, I have adapted to this style of writing more now than I ever did before.  

As I look back on my writing experience, I am drawn to my middle school language arts teacher.  Even though she did not spend much time teaching explicit styles of writing it was through her grammar classes that I developed strong syntax.  Additionally, she delved deeper into teaching her class how to connect ideas and transition thoughts using conjunctive adverbs and transition words.  Using these ideas made me feel scholarly and was motivation enough to make improvements in my writing.  Moreover, as my love for reading increased, I started to notice the influence it was having on my own life        Currently, my writing and reading is in its prime.  Being a graduate student and working full time I feel that I am constantly reading and writing.  For instance as an educator, I am engaged in writing e-mails to parents and colleagues.  Many people may consider this an effortless and meaningless writing experience, I do not.  Being able to communicate clearly, respectfully, and compassionately in an e-mail is an art.  I consider e-mail writing part of my writing repertoire because I engage in it often as I build my classroom community and connection between home and school.  Moreover, as a graduate student, as many of you know, writing reflections and research are continuous.  Even in the past 3 classes I have taken my writing has improved tremendously.  It is amazing how enhanced my vocabulary has become since beginning graduate class.  Furthermore, reading is key at this level.  While reading text books is not a past time of mine, it does keep me engaged in the reading process.  Unfortunately, I do not have as much time to pick up my ‘beach reads’ that I love so much.  So, sadly my Kindle has now become a night stand accessory.   

                Having the opportunity to reflect on my reading and writing experience throughout my life has reminded me why I am so passionate when planning activities for my students.  I have refused to adopt the assign and tell reading environment in my classroom.  It is through my elementary experiences, I am able to choose reading and writing assignments that serve a purpose and encourage the students to display their understanding in a meaningful and creative way.  This reflection has reminded me why I am so particular and thorough in the activities I develop for students to engage in.  It is important for them to experience novels and activities that stretch their minds to make them metacogintive thinkers.

My experience has influenced my teaching; however, my understanding of content area literacy has played a role. In my own classroom, I utilize strategies such as CROPQV in which the students are required to make a connection, reactions, opinion, question, and visualization about what they have read.  This can be used as a before, during, or after reading strategy to in developing metacognitive skills that are essential in interacting with text. Often, a variety of multiple intelligence activities are offered.  These are typically given in list form or on a tic tac toe board.  To develop vocabulary, the students work through 5 vocabulary centers where they are responsible for creating sentences, listing synonyms and antonyms for their words, and drawing pictures to make connections between their words and the experiences they have had.

Writing about my own experiences has allowed me to better understand my reasoning for reading and writing instruction.  Lying within my reflection is the definable theme of providing engaging reading and writing experiences to my students.  Making learning fun is very important to me.  Knowing a student is not engaged or enjoying activities in my classroom encourages me to work even harder for them.  Therefore, the themes that have developed from this paper are my tenacity, determination, perseverance, and care for my students and the experience(s) they have with the curriculum.    Finally, for this class, I hope to learn more strategies and ideas that will enhance my students’ literary experience, stay calm when times become overwhelming, and patient with myself as I move through times of disequilibrium.  I’m looking forward to learning all about the world of content literacy in and out of text.