Assessments
As this class progresses, I am finding myself asking how have I been taught Literacy throughout my life.  I realize more and more that teachers may not have directly taught the subject, like in the area of math, but some of the same techniques described in this class are reflecting how some of my teachers taught throughout my years in school.  


So what does this mean?  Should a teacher just take information and present in a way that the teacher understood the material?  The simple answer is no.  A teacher needs to take material and present it in a way that is for his/her students.  Teachers must include the students in creation of presenting material as more than just the audience.  We must consider the students as an active part of the presentation.  To create a lesson based on this, teachers must be ready to adapt the lesson based on how the class reacts to the materials presented and be flexible when we present.  


Assessment is the key to staying flexible.  As a teacher, I need to always be assessing my students, not just formally, but informally through activities and the questions asked by students.  There is no real way to prepare for what I think that students will do, because every teacher that I have had has told each class I am in that we are always different each day.  There is no real way to prepare for this, so I just look to be ready for anything each day.  

Literacy in Math
Taking a reading class this semester seems a little surprising for this math major.  My concern heading into this class was the question:  How does reading affect my students?  To me, math and reading only share language together, so the start of this class was a little surprising to me.  Literacy in math seems like a weird combination, but over the first few weeks, I feel like I have started to open up to the idea.

Literacy is something that I really do not know how to describe, really because I have never thought about it before this class.  As of right now, I am really looking forward to learning how literacy affects not just my subject, but all subjects.  From what I have gathered so far from this class, each subject has its own literacy.  These separate Lits. are all built upon the same basic blocks that allow for development across all areas.

Since this is a reading class, we are reading books that relate to our content areas.  Since I am a part of the math group, I get to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.  I really look forward to reading this book, and from what I've heard about it, it is a classic.  I'm a fan of Sci-Fi, and from what I've read from the first couple chapters, it's going to be a good book for me.