We recently read an article about a literacy project called the Donut House. A classroom teacher in Kentucky found a way to engage her diverse group of students in an impressive range of literacy experiences through creating and operating a donut shop in their classroom. The students actively participated in every step from hiring a contractor to "build" their shop to finding shareholders to creating operating instructions for making donuts. The students wrote thank you letters, loan applications, lists, invitations, and interviews all to create their donut shop. Hall makes the point in this article that the literacy valued in classrooms (novels, plays, poems, etc.) is not the literacy valued in life. This donut shop brought the literacy of daily life into the classroom.
The donut shop project looks like a great way to get kids interested in literacy without dropping a giant reading textbook in front of them. Using a project like that in the classroom would be a wonderful way to practice a wide variety of skills at once. I'm sure planning and working in the donut shop was more engaging for many students than interpreting poems. I hope though that every student also has the opportunity to explore rich literature and the fun of writing their own stories.
In this way, students got to develop various literacy skills using real life applications. I assume this teacher did not have to answer "When am I going to use this?" very often during the donut shop activity. In fact, in Chapter 1 of Catching Readers Before They Fall Johnson and Keier emphasize how important it is to know how to engage your students in the material. Furthermore, the authors of this article say that students are able to develop self-worth by practicing these types of real-life applications. I can see how this is possible, especially as the article says, with at-risk students who perhaps do not see themselves as skilled readers or writers.
For class, we went on a "literacy dig" in which we evaluated a local business for it's literacy practices. We were instructed to choose somewhere children might go frequently. Our group chose a local, co-op grocery store. We looked at concrete examples of literacy such as written signs and price tags, advertisements for community events, coupons, and receipts. We also observed that in order to most effectively navigate this place, one would need the social and cultural literacy of a grocery store. For instance, a customer must know to get a basket or cart and begin selecting products off the shelves themselves. A customer must also know though, that for certain items like fresh meat or fish, a store employee must get those items for you. Spoken literacy is prevalent in this store as well. There is a somewhat scripted interaction between the check-out clerk and the customer. The employee will ask if the customer found everything they were looking for and ask if they have a member number. The customer will most likely say that they found everything and tell the cashier their member number if they have one. This conversation is usually casual and polite. We also found that there is a great deal of vocabulary specific to shopping for food, especially at this grocery store which specializes in natural foods. Understanding terms like organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, BPA free, and eco allow better understanding of the products for sale. Further, because this is a co-op business words and phrases like cooperative, stronger together and member-owner are seen in various places throughout the store. So, how does all of this help us teach elementary school literacy better? Like the students did in the Donut House, we had to think about all the different types of literacy we would need to use in order to shop in or work at a business like this.
Our group discussed what running an in-the-classroom grocery store would look like. Students would need to create many of the same types of documents as in the donut shop article such as permits, letters to investors and design plans for the shop. For a grocery store, students would learn to design a logo and slogan, create signage for each department and price tags for the products. They could create a checklist of responsibilities for employees, receipts, and a newsletter for the community. The students would need to think about how best to inform the community of their business which might involve sending letters encouraging certain people to get involved in the planning and investment of the store. Students could also design advertisements and plan a grand opening event. There would be many opportunities to practice written, spoken, and visual literacy based on a necessary real-life task.
We also discussed the cross-curricular opportunities for a project like this. Running a class grocery store could be the basis for various math lessons like using money, creating a budget, addition, subtraction and multiplication in order to plan an inventory, or learning to use a scale in the produce department. Designing a logo, signs and advertisements would be great, practical art lessons. Science lessons could focus on why certain foods expire before others and the importance of keeping foods like dairy and meat in refrigerators.
However, there are literacy skills that are not as well served using real-life applications like the donut shop or a grocery store. Students are not able to create a character, setting or plot from their imaginations in this type of project. Exercises in writing short stories or poems, while not based as much in daily life, give students an opportunity to think outside the structures of a form, list or procedure. If we are going to encourage students to flex their creative muscles we must give a variety of opportunities to do so. I believe a project like the donut shop would be incredibly beneficial to any classroom. Exposing students to the many ways they will need strong literacy skills in their everyday life is very valuable. We must not though, become so focused on literacy skills based in the real, adult world that we skip giving our students the opportunity to create worlds, adventures and heroes of their own devise.
For class, we went on a "literacy dig" in which we evaluated a local business for it's literacy practices. We were instructed to choose somewhere children might go frequently. Our group chose a local, co-op grocery store. We looked at concrete examples of literacy such as written signs and price tags, advertisements for community events, coupons, and receipts. We also observed that in order to most effectively navigate this place, one would need the social and cultural literacy of a grocery store. For instance, a customer must know to get a basket or cart and begin selecting products off the shelves themselves. A customer must also know though, that for certain items like fresh meat or fish, a store employee must get those items for you. Spoken literacy is prevalent in this store as well. There is a somewhat scripted interaction between the check-out clerk and the customer. The employee will ask if the customer found everything they were looking for and ask if they have a member number. The customer will most likely say that they found everything and tell the cashier their member number if they have one. This conversation is usually casual and polite. We also found that there is a great deal of vocabulary specific to shopping for food, especially at this grocery store which specializes in natural foods. Understanding terms like organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, BPA free, and eco allow better understanding of the products for sale. Further, because this is a co-op business words and phrases like cooperative, stronger together and member-owner are seen in various places throughout the store. So, how does all of this help us teach elementary school literacy better? Like the students did in the Donut House, we had to think about all the different types of literacy we would need to use in order to shop in or work at a business like this.
Our group discussed what running an in-the-classroom grocery store would look like. Students would need to create many of the same types of documents as in the donut shop article such as permits, letters to investors and design plans for the shop. For a grocery store, students would learn to design a logo and slogan, create signage for each department and price tags for the products. They could create a checklist of responsibilities for employees, receipts, and a newsletter for the community. The students would need to think about how best to inform the community of their business which might involve sending letters encouraging certain people to get involved in the planning and investment of the store. Students could also design advertisements and plan a grand opening event. There would be many opportunities to practice written, spoken, and visual literacy based on a necessary real-life task.
We also discussed the cross-curricular opportunities for a project like this. Running a class grocery store could be the basis for various math lessons like using money, creating a budget, addition, subtraction and multiplication in order to plan an inventory, or learning to use a scale in the produce department. Designing a logo, signs and advertisements would be great, practical art lessons. Science lessons could focus on why certain foods expire before others and the importance of keeping foods like dairy and meat in refrigerators.
However, there are literacy skills that are not as well served using real-life applications like the donut shop or a grocery store. Students are not able to create a character, setting or plot from their imaginations in this type of project. Exercises in writing short stories or poems, while not based as much in daily life, give students an opportunity to think outside the structures of a form, list or procedure. If we are going to encourage students to flex their creative muscles we must give a variety of opportunities to do so. I believe a project like the donut shop would be incredibly beneficial to any classroom. Exposing students to the many ways they will need strong literacy skills in their everyday life is very valuable. We must not though, become so focused on literacy skills based in the real, adult world that we skip giving our students the opportunity to create worlds, adventures and heroes of their own devise.
The donut shop project looks like a great way to get kids interested in literacy without dropping a giant reading textbook in front of them. Using a project like that in the classroom would be a wonderful way to practice a wide variety of skills at once. I'm sure planning and working in the donut shop was more engaging for many students than interpreting poems. I hope though that every student also has the opportunity to explore rich literature and the fun of writing their own stories.
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