Week 2 Blog: Boys and Girls Club

I really enjoyed making connections between the article Building a Pedagogy of Engagement for Students in Poverty by Paul C. Gorski and my experience at the Boys and Girls Club. My time spent with these students in poverty is truly eye-opening and this article helps me imagine putting my ideas into practice in a classroom setting one day with children similar to the ones I have at the Boys and Girls Club. One point that stood out to me in the article was promoting literacy enjoyment. My students have a hard time engaging in my writing activities, so I told them that they would get time on the computer to type their writing pieces if they finished them for me. This motivated them to complete their writing piece, and it was a great way to promote a love for literacy because they were using what they love- technology! However, I had a misconception that these students knew how to use the computers (because I see them playing games on them during computer time) but typing a document on the computer was a whole new experience for them. This artifact I collected shows my student putting at least 10 spaces between his words so I thought this was extremely interesting. I wish I had more time with them so I could teach them these important computer skills, but nonetheless I think this use of technology promoted their literacy enjoyment for this assignment.