Reading Matters Winter 2019

these reviews when trying to select a new book to read based on peer reviews. Additionally, by allowing students to use their smart phones for various educational apps or for question/ response type apps such as Poll Everywhere, Flipgrid, Quizlet, Padlet, Socrative, or Kahoot ensures students are still on task while on their own devices. Figure four is a teacher-created discussion question using Padlet.com. These discussion boards can be anonymous or used as a classroom assignment.

Creating Spaces for Identity Development Teachers can support their students’identity development by creating spaces for them to explore, learn, and internalize their identity (McHugh, Horner, Colditz, &Wallace, 2013). Students should be able to feel a sense of ownership within their classroom. Creating spaces such as interactive walls or other areas in the classroom that students can communicate to each other or to the teacher allows students to know that this is their classroom too (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). This interactive area could be a large white board, a post-it parking lot, or somethingmore private like personal folders, shelves, or bags for individual students. Although these‘spaces’may already exist for student communication online, these‘third spaces’or hybrids between the personal and home environment, still need a physical space within the classroom (Faircloth, 2012; Gutiérrez, 2008). The multimodality of the physical, digital, and third spaces allow numerous opportunities for students to interact with one another and develop their identity. Marginalized students especially need a safe environment because they may feel the need to suppress their identity in order to be accepted by the dominate culture in the classroom (McCarthy & Moje, 2002; Moje, 2000). This feeling of suppression often occurs with students who are in constraining or unwelcoming environments. Taking the time to get to know students one-on-one through brief, informal interviews could help facilitate a safe environment and lets all students know that they are welcomed and valued in the classroom. A focus on classroom relationships. A safe space within the classroom should focus on the positive relationships between the students and the teacher. Students should know that their teacher cares for them, is attentive to their needs, and is available for them in order to build a relationship founded on trust (McHugh et al., 2013; Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). One way of facilitating positive classroom relationships between the teacher and students is to incorporate a teaching style that occasionally positions the teacher in socially similar situations to their students. Teachers can share a story or situation in which they experienced something similar to what their students may already be experiencing. This act breaks down this supposed barrier between students’school and home identity (Hall et al., 2010). Instead of a separation between these two worlds, students’identity should be synchronous between them. Peer-to-peer relationships, the mutual respect between the teacher and students, and the ability for everyone to learn with and fromone another is tantamount in facilitating positive classroom relationships (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). Although tedious, the benefits of having this safe environment and positive relationships among its participants is a pinnacle component for students to share and learn fromone another, and ultimately develop their identity through literate practices in the classroom. Identity and Choice Behind most suggestions for integrating student’s identity in the classroom, perhaps the most impactful for students’ identity development is the opportunity to enact student-choice. Researchers often consider choice as a motivating factor for

Reading Matters Choice Matters

Figure 3. Google website for book reviews. Teachers can create a classroomwebsite for students to write book reviews in order to help other students find books they would be interested in reading. Screenshot taken from Google Sites (https:// gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/sites/#!/).

Figure 4. Padlet discussion board. Teachers can use Padlet. com to create a classroom discussion board. Screenshot taken from Padlet.com (https://padlet.com/).

It is important to take the opportunity when using social media in the classroom, to take the time and still teach/remind students how to use these platforms responsibly, regardless of students’ proficiency with these tools. Some students many not be social media natives and many adolescent students could use a friendly reminder in how to be a responsible social media participant. Setting classroom participation expectations early and reiterating protocol routinely should eliminate any disparities if any rules are broken. (See a more comprehensive list of ideas to integrate technology in the references section).

| 16 | Reading Matters | Volume 19 • Winter 2019 | scira.org

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