Task 2 In the community

1. Where/what will you visit? Why did you choose to go there?

The places I chose to visit were a direct result after my interactions and conversations with my students as well as with my CT. One place I visited was Funtyme located in Okemos. Funtyme is a popular place for children, teenagers and families to go to have fun or celebrate special occasions such as birthdays or team parties. Two girls in my class have done writing pieces about their birthday parties at Funtyme. It seems like a place where a lot of children make memories and I thought it would be a good place to visit since it is a popular place in Okemos.

I also chose to visit a local dance school located near Okemos High school. From the parents I have met and from talking to the students many of them are involved in extracurricular activities and sports and a three girls that I know of in my class attend dance classes. Okemos is a very family oriented city and as a result of parent involvement and a higher economic status(the median income is around 69,000) the kids have more opportunities to participate and enroll in extracurricular activities.

Another important site to the Okemos community is the Meridian mall. In my opinion and from my experience this seems to be a pretty central part to Okemos as a result of all the various businesses in the mall and the surrounding area. Especially in the last few weeks of summer I saw many families doing their back to school shopping in the mall and in stores nearby such as target and Meijers. Although I am with first graders and they may not be doing the shopping they do identify the mall as a landmark and a place they frequently visit with parents or older siblings.

2. What do you expect to see?

From my previous experiences in the Okemos area I would expect to see a lot of families and kids and teenagers, especially at the locations I chose to visit. Also since it is very close to MSU I would also expect to see a lot of MSU students at the mall and in the surrounding area and restaurants. I also think that I expect to see so many people out and shopping or spending money at funtyme since Okemos overall has a fairly high median income compared to the surrounding cities, perhaps these families have more money to spend on luxuries.

3. What do you think an “outsider” would see? Does what an outsider might see differ from what you think you will see? If so how? If not why not?

I think depending on a few different factors, what an “outsider” might see will differ from my expectations. I think an outsider might notice the historical aspects of Okemos, I know that when I first started driving to my elementary school I noticed historical signs relating to the origin of the city. I also think they would notice and probably pass some of the schools while driving through Okemos and seeing schools will probably make a connection that there are a lot of families in the area. There are a lot of shopping places and restaurants and it becomes a pretty busy area near the mall and I think that would be noticed as well. If an outsider coming to Okemos is from a very racially diverse city they might notice the lack of racial diversity in Okemos, although there is a pretty large Asian population I think Caucasian middle class families would be the most dominant group that an outsider would see.

4. As a result of all the various extracurricular activities that occur in Okemos I believe that students will acquire a wide range of literacies depending on what they are interested in. For example, students that attend dance classes will most likely use “dance language” and know certain vocabulary words that other students not in dance will not know. This also goes for students playing football and understanding the football language and being able to read football playbooks and students playing a musical instrument and reading and maybe even writing music and being able to talk about music. There also is a lot of reading, speaking and writing when it comes to going to the mall and reading signs and price tags, communicating with the employees in the store and possibly writing checks or writing a signature or filling out email contact information in stores. My other location, Funtyme is filled with signs and pictures and names of games and prices. There is also a need to communicate especially when playing games like putt-putt and writing down scores.

All of these activities are social activities so I conclude Okemos to be a very active social town and there is an interconnectedness with reading, writing and oral speaking in such a family oriented active city.

Task 4

For the most part the expectations of what i thought i would see were true. Especially from visiting the mall, I think of Okemos as being a white middle class family oriented community and from going to the mall and that surrounding retail and restaurant area that is not really the demographic that stands out the most. In my opinion the MSU students do stand out the most. I expected to see a lot of families at the locations such as Funtyme and there were. This project help me to see what Okemos actually consists of, some of these locations I think i just thought of as East Lansing and I never really saw Okemos as a whole separate community. Even after this project there was nothing that really surprised me, I am originally from a community very similar to Okemos and from living in Lansing the last few years i think I have had a lot of interactions in the Okemos community perhaps without really realizing it. This was extremely helpful because i saw the historical side of Okemos which I believe can be one of the most beneficial aspects of this community in relation to incorporating it into the community. Some of these places I visited and my other group members visited I had heard about from my students or read it in their writing pieces so it was beneficial for me to have some experience with these places as well.

I have already used places and activities in Okemos to talk to students and to help them think about writing topics when they have free choice. Although having freedom to choose a writing topic is great for some students my CT still models the thinking process and thinking of a few different ideas and then narrowing them down. One of my main tasks during writers workshop has been to go around to students who are struggling just to think of a topic and help them by prompting ideas such as; "did you have soccer practice last night?" "Did you go watch the high school football game?" etc. Also by getting to know individual students interests has been great to incorporate in books whether kids in a book are playing soccer or trying to relate math questions and problems to the students as well.

Carolyn