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Over the past few weeks, I've been trying to train myself to ask the following questions in relation to teaching students: Can you read about this topic and understand? Can you effectively write about it? Can you participate in a discussion about it? Can you do so with authority? I think that all of these things are determined by how literate you are in that particular discipline. My role, my responsibility, as an ELA teacher is getting students to the point where they can do all of those things. I understand now that there should be a balance between content literacy and disciplinary literacy. I think about students going out into the world after high school, and not possessing the skills to think critically, solve problems, advocate for themselves, let alone others, and it kind of makes my heart hurt. If I'm not serving my students by teaching them those skills, then what am I even doing?
Literacy has to be a part of every lesson. In my weekly journal, I wrote about how reading math or chemistry are like reading different languages--you need reading strategies in those languages to comprehend it. Or, take my passion for crochet as an example. If I walked into my classroom and said, "Okay class, so take your hook and make a slipknot. Now chain twenty, and then turn. In the third loop from the hook, make a double crochet. Chain one. Continue this pattern to the end of the row." If I haven't taught my students how to make a slipknot, what I mean by 'turn', how to identify the third loop from the hook, or what a double crochet is, how could I possibly expect them to get through this lesson, or any that came after? I could also use this example to talk about equity in relation to disciplinary literacy. The directions above might start to make sense if students had the skills I listed (slipknot, turn, double crochet, etc.), but what about students who are ELLs? What about students with various disabilities? There are parts of language, idioms and turns of phrase, that are completely unfamiliar. I have to be aware of any assumptions I have of students upon entering the classroom, and make sure I throw them out before I even start speaking.
These are the things I'm considering now when I think about planning lessons or how I'm going to contribute to the success of my students. My biggest source of anxiety regarding disciplinary literacy in my future classroom is the content standards, making sure I'm getting my students to the finish line with the skills they need to move ahead.
I also wonder about possible conflicts between disciplines for allocation of resources. I hadn't considered it before it came up in Week 2. The more I think about it, the less I think I'll be able to avoid that kind of conflict.

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Me, in my office, on my first day of the MiT program.

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This summer has been a whirlwind. I've crammed so much content into my brain, reflected on myself, ELA, students, the school system, politics, capitalism...that I don't quite know where the last three months have gone. When I was a kid, I'd often catch my dad staring pensively out a window, for so long sometimes, that I'd wonder if he was okay. I find myself doing it daily, and I understand that he was doing the same thing I am doing now--pondering, reflecting, questioning himself, his students, the nature of education.
This course, specifically, has had me doing a lot of thinking about who I am as a student of teaching; I feel like I'm in this weird limbo: not quite a student, not quite a teacher. It has led me to analyze my dispositions, the way I speak and act around others, the clothes I wear, my identity now, and my future identity. The article we read last week by Elizabeth Y. Stevens on teacher identity really resonated with me. We all have this sort of blurry outline of what a 'good' teacher looks like, talks like, dresses like, behaves like...and a tension exists in trying to reconcile oneself to this blurry image in our consciousness. I called my brother after I read that article and stared pensively out the window while reflecting on it. I told him about the vague teacher image in my head, and asked him, "Where am I in that image?" I'm still unsure of it. I know it will take time to sharpen that teacher image in my head, I think it's just important that I don't ignore the need for that reconciliation.
I took the picture above because I was proud of myself for being in grad school, but I wanted to point out a couple things about that photo.
1. Behind me on the wall, are pictures of Mr. Rogers, the Dalai Llama, Mother Teresa, and Gandhi. They are meaningful figures to me, people who made it their life's work to initiate change in the world. I want them to be with me in my classroom.
2. I did my hair the way I did and wore the sweater that I did because it is part of the blurry picture I have in my head. I've been building my 'teacher wardrobe' lately, but it all feels so...not me. I've never had to wear anything other than a t-shirt and jeans. My identity, the one I'm comfortable in now, is not present in the wardrobe I'm building. Not yet, anyway.
3. I'm in front of one of my bookshelves. This is in part, because of the layout of my office, but it's part of what I want to present to the world about who I am and what is important to me.
4. Not pictured: A sign that my dad made, that hung in his classroom, that I inherited when he retired, that reads, "Even worse than unanswered questions are unquestioned answers." I believe wholeheartedly in these words.

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This is awesome. I've been reading some wonderful articles available to me through my membership. I'm excited to be a part of the NCTE.

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I have read a lot. I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't reading. I've read countless books, poems, plays, short stories. And I still feel like I've only scratched the surface of what is out there. If I'm honest, I don't see myself as an expert in my discipline. The way I see it, I know enough right now to get started. I have a "mile wide, inch deep" kind of knowledge of literature. It is enough to tread water, so to speak.
I can't even say I'm exceptionally knowledgeable about any one aspect of my discipline. I know some about Shakespeare, British Renaissance literature, British Romantic Literature, but I still see my level as 'Novice'.
I think to become an expert in any discipline takes a lifetime, and then you're still not done. There's always more to read, more to analyze, more to discuss, more to write, different approaches...there's always another 'why?' on the horizon. This is the way I'll continue to learn within my discipline: read, write, wonder, question, analyze, critique, ponder, speak, listen. Live literacy.

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I've written in the previous two sections about the origins of my interest in English Language Arts, but my interest is not just because I'm from a primarily academic family. The moment I realized that literature could be read as a reflection of the world, I wanted in. To this day, I am in awe at the sheer amount of written text there is in the world, about people's experiences in any given context, in every era, from perspectives of every race, every gender. I mean, it is baffling how much content that exists. I love literature because I can learn about and vicariously experience anything I could possibly want to through the written word. That is amazing. I can see so many different perspectives, use them to change my mind, my view of the world, my view of myself. That is powerful.

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Some books my dad bound in leather. I salvaged a lot of these from his classroom when he retired. 

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My dad taught English and the Humanities for over thirty years. My earliest interests in reading, writing, speaking, and listening came from him. One of the examples of people and their literacy artifacts from Varga-Dobai (2018) was of a woman named Nina. She chose a picture of her childhood home as a representation of her own bias of people who lack education. However, Nina "realized that, in fact, she retained many of those artistic qualities as her funds of knowledge. For example, the picture frame she had recently turned into a necklace holder reflected that family trait of repurposing artistically" (123). When I read this paragraph, I immediately thought of my dad's leather-bound books. My dad was always so crafty! He would find a worn-out, soft leather jacket at a thrift store and cut it into book covers to preserve the books in his classroom library. When I was young, I thought he was just trying to fit into the idea that having many leather-bound books makes you look rich, high-class, elite. We weren't ever rich, and my dad was using second-hand leather for a DIY project.
When he retired, he let me go through his classroom and take what I wanted. I wanted those books. To me, it represented his resourcefulness, his creativity, his own funds of knowledge, and somehow, his respect for those books.
My husband and I have been married almost one year. Traditionally, the first anniversary gift is paper. My anniversary gift to him is a set of his favorite book series, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, which I bound in leather. I bought the books second-hand on thriftbooks.com, and I sourced the leather from the scrap bin at Tandy Leather. This "family trait of repurposing artistically" is present in my family, too.

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My current crochet project, which is only possible because I am (finally) literate in crochet patterns.

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My mother taught me to crochet when I was about eight. I quit in frustration; I couldn't get the tension right and my projects always turned out wonky. Probably about five years ago, I picked up the hobby again. YouTube was tremendously helpful in learning new stitches and techniques because I could pause videos and practice, and work at my own pace. Eventually I started looking at written crochet patterns, which are full of hobby-specific terms and abbreviations: hdc (half double crochet), fpdc (front post double crochet), and about a million others. Over the years, with a lot of practice reading and following patterns, I've become literate in crochet. The picture above is the beginning of a complex pattern called "Sophie's Universe", where each row is a different stitch. It is the beginning of a blanket that I'm making for my 13-year-old stepdaughter. It is an example of my favorite non-academic literacy practice and also an example of a literacy practice in my everyday life.

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My brother, Ethan Madarieta, posing with the homemade crochet blanket I gifted him last year. 

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This guy. He has been my motivation to be a lifelong learner, thinker, wonderer, reader, writer. His academic resume spans twenty years. A lot of the work I've done to expand my knowledge of the world and my relation to it, comes from him. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he has been my motivation to become literate in academia. I can talk to him about ontology. I haven't always been able to do that. I lacked the vocabulary, the foundations of metaphysics. However, studying theory and reading philosophy--and then discussing it with him--has helped me to participate in abstract, theoretical conversations. I am semi-literate in academics.

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A challenge: hold a conversation and see how long you can go without Googling something to make your point, clarify your position, or provide an example. This is discourse.

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When I got my BA in English Literature, my sister-in-law made me this chocolate pie. It was the perfect way to describe what I love about college, academia, learning in general. I. Love. Discourse. I am talking about speaking and listening without rancor, speaking and listening to understand more fully. Speaking and listening for the sake of speaking and listening.

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Many Basque people came to this region for sheepherding and ranching opportunities, and ended up raising their families here. This means that the Basque community is pretty large in this area. As kids, we were all very proud of being Basque, and I remember times, sitting with my Basque friends, and arguing over who was the most Basque. I am half. My friend Michelle said she was three quarters, which meant she was more Basque than me. I remember a jealousy welling up inside me, a frustration I could do nothing about. Of course, we were just children arguing over something intangible, inconsequential.
On top of arguing who was more Basque, I remember hearing the adults talk about who was really Basque. Things like how many generations ago did your family come to the U.S., whether you were from the Spanish or the French side of the Basque country, how involved you were with the city's Basque Association--all of these things seemed to impact how Basque you were. I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now. I mean, I understand that a lot of it was about the politics of the community, but I guess I just don't understand why it was important enough to fight over.
As a child, I was very proud to have this rich heritage. I was vain about having a prominent heritage to talk about and participate in, when I had classmates that had no idea where their families came from originally. Again, it was a very immature relationship I had with my Basque heritage that has evolved over the course of my life. I am proud of being Basque, but it's a pride in being part of an ancient culture with a language of unknown origins. For me, it doesn't go much farther than saying, "I just think that's pretty cool."

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I was born in 1985, the youngest of four children. My family name is Madarieta, and my great-grandparents were the first Madarietas to arrive in the United States, in 1901. I was raised to be very proud of my Basque heritage, its unique language, and vibrant cultural practices.
I don't know a lot about my family's history before coming to the United States. There are many Madarieta families in the Basque country, Euskara, but I know that my family came from the towns of Ea and Ispaster in the province of Bizkaia. As far as we have been able to figure out, the name Madarieta means something close to "Many Pear Trees", but again, that part of my family history is fuzzy.

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When I was young, maybe 10 or 11, I was part of the Mountain Home Basque dancing group. We learned dances like these, their origins and significance to Basques throughout history, and performed each year at the Mountain Home Basque Picnic. Dancing in that group is one of my fondest memories from childhood. It was like tapping into the history of my family and keeping Basque culture alive--something I couldn't quite articulate at 10 or 11, but that I'm very aware of now.

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Oinkari Basque Dancers of Boise at Alive After Five

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This is my father's mother and stepfather, although he was the only real father my dad knew, and the only real grandfather I did.

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The caption on the back of this photo reads, "Basqueos on the way to Silver City, ID to celebrate the birth of a baby boy (notice the cigars), 1910 or 1911."

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My great uncle is the man on the far left.

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My great-grandparents, Isidro and Isidora Madarieta, on their wedding day, 1910.

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My great-grandfather had a colorful history. He arrived in New York from the Basque country in 1901. He worked as a sheepherder and rancher, and later ran a Basque boarding house in Boise. In 1916, he was arrested for bootlegging whiskey, and again in 1922.

From a blog about Basques in America and pulled from The Idaho Statesman:
In 1917, he bet against Elías Gabica, of Nampa, in a horse race. As he was not sure of his victory, he had two racehorses brought from Aguscalientes, Tijuana. Madarieta won because, among other reasons, Gabica, scared by the money at stake, changed jockey at the last minute. In October of that year, Madarieta returned to compete. This time against Tomás Muruaga, from Nampa. For the occasion he rented a horse called "Little Fanny". Muruaga did the same with "Jupiter". The bets began 90 to 100, in favor of Muruaga, although they ended 1000 to 900 in favor of Madarieta. A kind of collective fever was aroused among members of the Basque communities of Boise and Nampa, so much so that the banks were emptied that they ran out of banknotes, according to the local press. There were many Basque women who gambled, hoping to “buy a silk dress”. "Little Fanny" won.