Assessment

Assessment

Synthesis:

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 19

Chapter 19 discusses the issue of struggling readers and especially in regards to assessment. It emphasizes the need for frequent assessment with feedback in order for students and teachers to view growth and to be successful. Assessment data must be applied to teaching. The chapter focuses on the CARI method of assessment as well as vocabulary. Basically, students are assessed through the use of multiple questions to be answered by students, peers, and teachers. Literacy must be defined, measured, and tracked for each content area course. These assessments need to be authentic and meaningful. Teachers need to work within the ZPD in order for students to be successful. This chapter includes several helpful questions in the forms of tables and check-sheets for general education, reading and thinking skills, and content area skills. Also the vocabulary charts and KWLH strategies for each content area are very useable.

Afflerbach

Assessment of reading skills is a complicated task. It often involves teachers asking the correct types of questions. Assessing reading comprehension is very difficult. Usually, a multiple-choice test does not really measure all that a student knows about the content. This text covers different types of assessments. The four main types are: performance, portfolios, observation & questioning, and standardized tests. Performance assessments require rubrics and examples to efficiently implement as well as clear expectations. Student performances are an authentic and engaging way for students to show their understanding of concepts and skills. Portfolios help to show progress and growth and can be arranged in many different ways: either in print format or saved to technology. In addition, observation and questioning can be very in-depth and time consuming but also yield results that show accurate and reliable data from which instructional changes can be made. This can be difficult to do and is greatly helped with written and verbal assessments. Standardized testing has its own pros and cons. Although they are designed to give all students the same equal experience; it does not always adequately measure students reading ability or learning. Some of these tests may still be around for the sake of tradition, and are not always useful for teachers to use the information.

Moje and Hinchman

This text discusses the issue of having cultural responsive practices in pedagogy. Teachers need to know their students. They need to know not only their strengths and weaknesses, but also what kinds of experiences are relevant to them and what cultures shape their identities. Teachers must be careful not to assume these things about their students because they might risk alienating them or embarrassing them. Teachers need to be able to design lessons that center around problems that students find both authentic and interesting: usually these have to do with community issues. Students need the opportunity to experience different perspectives and cultures. Focusing on what students bring to the world and what they are interested in helps them to genuinely become a part of their learning. It is crucial to build a positive classroom in order for students to be successful and to be able tp participate in this type of learning.

Response:

Text to Self: As a hopeful future reading specialist, the Chapter 19 from Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas is enlightening about the subject of assessment. The Afflerbach text was also helpful in that it went into detail about the different types of assessment which would be useful to me both as a reading specialist and as a teacher to know what options are available.

Text to Text: This text discusses several of the issues we have read about before in regards to struggling students, questions to ask, content area problems, and vocabulary instruction.

Text to World: Assessment is a big part of today’s schools whether we like it or not. Standardized high stakes tests are especially relevant as they have been a source of controversy in recent years. Nevertheless, it is important to look for accurate, reliable, and useable ways to assess student learning. Most importantly, we must be mindful of audiences and include the student in their own learning. Metacognitive thinking should be a crucial aspect of their learning in order to foster accountability.

Questions:

1. How do you engage students in metacognitive thinking in your classroom?

2. What types of assessments do you use/would you like to use?

3. What types of cultural responsive practices do you use/would you like to use?

Multiple literacies/New Literacies/Multimodality

Multiple literacies/New Literacies/Multimodality

Synthesis:

http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentdefinition

The 21^st century brings many new technologies that require new and multiple literacies. Literacy is defined by the society and the mediums at hand, so literacy today is very complex and varied. These literacies require readers to make broad, cross-cultural connections, to problem solve, and to constantly adapt to the new technology. People must interact with multimedia to critique, analyze and create it. Purposes and audiences vary greatly in today’s literacies. In addition, readers and writers must be aware of the ethical responsibilities that accompany the mediums.

Kim and Kamil

This text covers some studies about using computers in the classroom. The studies found that in regards to literacy learning, students learn best with mandatory assistance programs put in place. Students do not learn as much or utilize the materials if such programs are voluntary. These programs need to have supports built in and they need to be highly structured. Direct, explicit instruction is crucial for student success. Students need direct instruction in regards to visuals. Many adolescents do not know how to read or understand visuals. Most children and a lot of adults don’t even look at visuals unless directly instructed to do so. Computers can cause students anxiety. This can be reflective of experience, age, and gender. Also, socioeconomic status has an impact on the availability of experience and exposure to computers. However, novelty can also have an impact on motivation. Older children may not be able to see the viability of learning with technology as much as younger students. The more experience students have with computers, the less likely they are to experience computer anxiety. Students need to be comfortable using both the hardware and software on the computer. Interestingly, there is a stereotype that students whom like to use the computer are the smart kids. Also, boys have more positive responses to the computer than girls do, but it is not clear why. Motivation to write greatly improves when children have access to computers, but direct instruction and guidance is still needed. Computers allow students to participate in many social learning activities. However, students might not always see the link between the various forms of writing they do on the computer and their learning for school.

Coiro

This text emphasizes the fact that technology is drastically changing. Teachers need to keep up with the changing technologies that are related to school work and personal use in order to keep current with their students and be able to best assist them with learning tasks. Whenever possible, students should be allowed to work collaboratively. The teacher should work as a facilitator when possible: this is when the most learning occurs. However, teachers also need to explicitly teach and model thinking patterns and strategies for students. Talking out loud can be very useful. Students learn best when the technology skills are focused around a specific content area task. They should use technology for math, science, social studies, and reading. In addition, online reading skills sometimes do not transfer from students print reading skills. These connections need to be explicitly taught. Students also need to be taught internet text features and how they are the same and different from other informational texts. Students need to be taught the process of effectively searching for and evaluating texts found online.  Students own experiences and interests with various internet texts need to be valued and used when possible to make connections. Students need to work together on problem-based questions in order to research and better develop both technological skills and reading skills.

Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 4

This chapter discusses the various discourses that students encounter. The primary discourse is usually their home discourse while their secondary discourse is usually their school discourse. Oftentimes, students perceive some degree of mismatch when these two discourses are perceived as different. Students have various reactions to this mismatch. The degree of the mismatch can influence the degree of their reactions. Students bring all sorts of knowledge, behavior expectations, world views, personal preferences, experiences, social norms with them to school: this is part of their primary discourse. When this does not match the discourse that is given at school students can reject the second, shut down, go back and forth, or reject the home discourse in order to become more accepted. In addition, there are also borderland discourses which seem to occur among peers and they are somewhat of a mix between home and school discourses in which students can negotiate these identities.

Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 16

This chapter talked about the issue of multimodalities. This refers to using various types of texts in order to offer different perspectives when learning about content. The chapter followed the case study of a teacher who was teaching a unit on the Little Rock Nine: she used books, articles, movies, and photos. Teaching this way can make abstract elements in printed text more explicit by first showing how they work in a visual like a movie or a photograph. Using multiple modalities can make content more realistic and engaging for students.

Response:

Text to Text: Chapter 4 especially reminds me of the readings for my culture, language and literacy class that discusses how students of diverse cultures and ELL students learn English and schools and some of the problems that they face. The chapters are all interconnected to learning and diversifying: changing with the times of diverse people and diverse technology and media.

Text to Self: These texts remind me that I need to be more mindful of teaching technology explicitly and not just expecting the kids to know how to use it. These texts inspire me to work towards a more open classroom concept when technology is available.

Text to World: The world is changing and there are new technologies sooner than schools can adjust; however, when students enter the workforce employers will expect them to be able to find, analyze, and use information to their advantage. SO, teachers need to prepare them to be flexible and to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers.

Questions:

1. What are you favorite technologies to use in the classroom? Different grade levels?

2. Compare/contrast- How do we teach school discourse effectively in the higher grades and lower grades?

3. How do you/would you teach internet credibility and internet safety?

Students Learning English

Students Learning English

Synthesis:

Garcia and Godina

ESL/ELL students face lots of difficulties in today’s schools. Oftentimes, they must move around or work and thus they miss many days of school and do not have a consistent education. Students may be first or second generation immigrants. Their parents may not speak English at home. Also, they may be refugees or come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. ESL students come to American schools from many different backgrounds. This can make it difficult for teachers to help them; not many teachers are bilingual. Students are expected to learn English even as they must use English to learn academic content. Teachers should not give up on students just because they are ESL. Instead, teachers must get to know the various aspects of their students’ background in order to plan and support efficient learning in their classrooms. Students do better when the can activate strategies for higher-level reading skills. Students may have difficulties if they were not particularly literate in their first language. Explicit vocabulary and comprehension is crucial for students’ academic development. Students who enter American schools at the middle school or high school level may have a particularly difficult time; event students who are coming from elementary schools might struggle as the content and language become increasingly harder as they reach secondary schools.

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas

This text talks about how students should be called students who are learning English as an additional language or EALs. This phrasing emphasizes that students are not just learning English, but that they have some form of other language already known to them that influences their learning in English. This term seems to be structured around stating that educators understand that the other language has value as well. Students come from many different cultural, socioeconomic, educational and linguistic backgrounds. Some strategies that can help students to learn both language and content include jigsaws, fill in the blank academic notes with partial information, juicy sentences, consensus boards, content-area conversations and close reading. Students need to be given the opportunity to use oral language in the class room in addition to writing and listening. When it comes to academic content, students should be given access to models and appropriate scaffolding.

Response:

Text to Self: These ideas are relevant to me as a secondary English Language Arts teacher. Students come into my classroom with varying degrees of English skills and I need to be able to help them. These skills will be extremely helpful as I continue my educational career both in a regular classroom and hopefully one day as a reading specialist. I need to find tactful ways to find out about my students. Question: How do I determine if they need more help or if they are just flying under the radar? Each school year brings a new group of students that I must help with their own unique educational needs. 

Text to Text: These texts are very similar to the materials that I have read and watched for my other class this semester: Culture, Language, and Literacy. These texts focus on building academic vocabulary, knowing your students, being open to other cultures, and working towards learning both language and content. These same themes have been covered in readings for this class as well.

Text to World: The American population has always been a melting top, but in today’s society it is becoming more and more diverse every day. Despite often negative political climates, teachers need to work to help students reach their highest potential while they are in school. The nature of bilingual education must become more student friendly, and the issues discussed in these texts will become increasingly relevant. Above all, teachers must be aware of their students’ backgrounds and abilities.

Questions:

1. What is ELL/ESL education like in different schools that you have noticed?

2.  Have you had any relevant experiences with ELL/ESL students? Specific strategy ideas to help them?

3. Have you used any texts that you felt were particularly relevant to them?

Struggling Readers

Struggling Readers and Writers

Synthesis:

HInchman and Sheridan-Thomas

Chapter 5

Students develop reader identities very early on. Once they are determined, it is very difficult for them to change their thinking about themselves. Students get hung up on the fact that they think there can be only one correct answer. They are afraid of getting the answer wrong, of messing up on a word, or of appearing dumb in front of their peers. This is often why students do not ask for help or participate in class discussions. Teachers can help students by showing how they themselves as well as other students can struggle with texts. Then, they show them how to improve. Also, ideally, teachers weave comprehension and connection questions with problem questions so that it becomes a normal part of the classroom environment. Students often think that they are alone in their struggle and need to see that others have trouble and that they can work together toward their goals. Students and teachers should both work toward identifying and working toward reading goals for the school year.

Chapter 15

This chapter discusses the issue of textbook reading. Most students are not particularly interested in reading textbooks, no matter what the subject. However, textbooks can be useful tools for both teachers and students. Students need to have textbook reading strategies embedded in their learning that is explicit. These strategies should include a gradual release of teacher guidance so that students can learn to glean information from dense expository texts (such as college textbooks or work training manuals) in the future. Students should be taught the helpful features and how to use a textbook for their particular class. Teachers can make it more relevant to them by focusing content around big questions, using anticipation guides, and proposing problems. In addition, teachers can use technology and other non-textbook materials in order to supplement the material. 

Chapter 18

The text covers three main ways to help teachers to differentiate. The three main lenses are multiple intelligences, universal design for learning, and sheltered instruction observation protocol.  Differentiated literacy means the way that teachers respond to learner differences. The theory of multiple intelligences includes the idea that there 3 main learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. It also refers to the 9 complementary spheres that students can have varying degrees of intelligence: verbal-linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, musical, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalistic, and existential. Universal design for intelligence comes from brain research. It is a design to help all students that was originally meant to specifically help students with physical and cognitive disabilities. Now, it is a way in which teachers can help all students achieve success through high expectations. It has three key principles: multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement. UDL tries to focus on using technology in learning to help all students in unique ways that can be focused on individual needs. The final method for differentiation discussed in this text is Sheltered Instructional Observation Protocol (SIOP). This is a method that strives to teach subject-area content to ELLs while they are learning English. This method has also been useful to the learning of all students, not just ELLs. This method focuses on elicit instruction and leveled scaffolding. SIOP has 8 steps: lesson preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice/application, lesson delivery, and review and assessment. This method firmly believes in focusing on content and vocabulary for each lesson.

Fisher and Frey-Struggling Writers

Many students struggle with writing. This article covered several different ways to help students with writing. An important issue that the text addressed was that writing instruction can often be overlooked. Writing instruction needs adequate time for students to develop their skills: just like reading. However, sometimes in classes reading takes more precedence. One way that students can find more confidence in writing is through interactive writing. This is a skill that is usually mainly focused toward elementary school students, but could also work well with older students. This involves sharing the pen and students and teacher work together to work through the process of writing. Another strategy is power writing in which students write as many words as they can think of about a topic in order to generate lots of ideas.

Response:

Text to self: As an ELA teacher, dealing with struggling readers is an issue in my classroom every day. I must learn to work toward establishing a more positive attitude towards reading through helping students to reestablish positive reading identities.

Text to text: These chapters relate to one another because they all deal with different types of students who struggle with different elements of education. In addition, these chapters discuss other topics that have been addressed in our earlier readings; including, vocabulary, academic texts, and gradual release of student work.

Text to world:

The world of secondary education poses many problems for children. However, with adequate, explicit instruction that is embedded in the curriculum, students can be successful. With any skill, much of the battle is focused in self-esteem. A positive environment is crucial for students to thrive.

 

Questions:

1. How can teachers work from the beginning to build positive reading identities for all students?

2. How do you differentiate?

Narrative and Argumentative Writing

Narrative and Argumentative Writing

Synthesis:

McKeough- Narrative Writing

This text goes through the basic stages that children go through when they write a narrative. The two most important elements of narratives are character development and “trouble”. Students whom are younger have less developed skills in these areas than students who have been in school longer. This text pairs writing samples with standards of CCSS. It talks in great detail about the lesson of trickster tales and how the understanding and expectations grow as students mature. Trickster tales require a great deal of understanding when it comes to character development and trouble or breach. One strategy that teachers use to teach writing is Reading with a Writer’s Eye. This involves learning how to write using texts as a guide for effective writing. This requires students to evaluate the text and to imitate the techniques so that they can learn how to improve certain aspects of their writing. Narratives are one of the primary forms of communication that children start with; they replicate what they hear, what they imagine, and what they hear about in their lives.

Ferretti and Lewis-Argumentative Writing

This text focuses on the concept of argumentative communication with a focus on writing. Even young children can be adept at arguing. Very often, many of their initial conversations are argumentative as they try to understand the world and its rules. Arguments are dialogic, so students can often benefit from talking about and debating their arguments along with writing them. This way, students can begin to think about opposing viewpoints and how to address them. Self-regulated strategy development is a way for teachers to help students learn how to improve their argumentative writing. This chapter also covers other strategies such as: TREE, STOP, and DARE. These strategies help to break down the parts of argumentative writing and to give students something that is not intimidating but is also functional. The chapter covers details on how to write different types of arguments that might occur in different disciplines. Students rarely participate in literary arguments. Students need to be taught to analyze and evaluate texts before they can write argumentative texts about them. However, this kind of learning gets them to the crucial points of literature, instead of questions that are mainly directed in such a way to merely find out if they read the text or not. Historical and community appeals also lend themselves to argumentative discussion and writing. These issues stir both controversy and need for explanation. Students need adequate strategies, support, and time to develop the skills that are needed.

Response:

Text to Self: As a secondary Language Arts teacher, these texts are very relevant to me. Narrative and argumentative writing are important skills that students need to master. However, they can be very difficult for students to grasp, or to understand how to efficiently formulate them. I feel like I am not as familiar with how to teach narrative writing, sometimes I think you can be too close to something as a new teacher and it can be difficult to adequately teach the topic.

Text to Text: These chapters relate to the reading from last week because they deal with writing and the teaching of writing. In addition, they deal with strategies which have been discussed many times throughout this semester. Students will develop overtime when given the tools and encouragement they need to succeed. Teachers modeling how to accomplish different steps are very important.

Text to World: Both of these types of writing are central to our nature. They help us to express and understand. These ways of communication build from childhood and develop through our lives. As the world becomes more connected through technology, effective communication and the wider audience increases the need for effective writing instruction.

Questions:

1.   Has anyone taught a dialogic lesson? Or have any ideas?

2.   What are some of your favorite things when teaching writing?

3.   Not really a question…but would like to hear about perspective of working with younger students as I’ve usually taught 6^th and above…

Writing Instruction

Writing Instruction

Synthesis:

Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 9

Students don’t often get the chance to participate in class in writing full texts, and when they do it is usually in response to someone else’s writing. This can devalue students’ identities as writers. Choices that writers make are very important; they choose what themes to bring out, and which ones not to. This choice brings forth specific messages that are deemed important. Writing is thinking. This is one of the most significant points of this chapter. People write for many reasons, but writing is above all a thinking process that helps people to express themselves clearly. Students must be allowed to be responsible for their own thinking; in order to do this, they must be given the freedom of choice. Writers work focuses around thinking, and so they work with larger chunks of meaning that have specific purposes and audiences. When students truly revise, not just correcting spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, they must work towards these ideas to make their meaning clear. Another point is that teachers need to know their students and what their students’ writing experiences are. Many students participate in writing outside of the classroom, and these experiences can have just as much impact on student writers as writing that is taught in schools. Students need to write for a variety of purposes. The ultimate goals are that students are college and career ready. This chapter talks about using writing to think, and writing to get points across. Students must learn to use writing in order to harness their thinking. One way to do this is to keep a writer’s notebook. These are used to document their thinking and to serve as a way to come back and build on compositions. Students need time to write in class every day.  

Hansen and Kissel

This text focuses greatly on student choice. It argues that students should be given opportunities to experiment with both content and drama. The studies find that students who were given choice in writing were more willing to take on teacher led or mandated testing curriculum later on. Students need to think of themselves as writers; this means that they need to be given opportunities to write for authentic and varied audiences. In many school settings, the teacher becomes the only audience and this does not lend itself to genuine writing opportunities. For many students, their first audiences besides their teacher include their peers. Students need to feel like their voices matter, and then they need to be given the tools in order to successfully communicate their ideas. This chapter talked about having students writes about issues that affect their community, in a way that the community would have access to their thoughts through the students writing about the issues. To be a writer, it is also important that students be readers. Reading and writing are very closely related, and students who read more are more likely to recognize and more easily learn good writing skills. The research revealed that the impact of students from low socioeconomic background not reading was more significant than reading was for students from high socioeconomic backgrounds. This is because the latter students have more access to resources and experiences that would make them good writers, besides reading. However, reading is important for overall academic success. Different backgrounds must be valued in all classrooms, and teachers that come from different backgrounds from the majority of their students need to be extra careful in their approaches.

Sweeny

This chapter focuses on new literacies. There are many new forms of technology that are considered forms of literacy. Students today are very experienced in using these technologies, and are even aware that you need to vary your usage when dealing with different audiences. However, they might need some guidance when it comes to using these technologies for school work. These literacies are very relevant to students because they use them often in their everyday lives. Also, these literacies make the idea of audience very clear because the teacher is no longer the sole person reading their work.

Response:

Text to Text: These texts relate to other texts we have read because they emphasize the importance of getting to know our students and that direct, explicit instruction is crucial to adolescent learning. The purpose and intended audience of the text have also been addressed in the texts we have read about addressing disciplinary texts.

Text to Self: As a secondary ELA teacher, I found these readings to be very relevant. There are lots of ideas that I would like to start in my own classroom, especially student notebooks and having them keep track of the different ways they compose in their own lives. I admit that I am nervous and intimidated about the idea of community projects but hope to learn more about them and to practically put one in place at some point.

Text to World: As technology changes, the meaning of writing becomes even more broad. We need to help students understand that their thinking matters and to help them find effective ways to express themselves. People need to know that their ideas have worth, no matter where they come from.

Questions:

1. What are some strategies for writing instruction that you use in your own classroom (at any level)

2.  How have you used or would you use different technologies while teaching writing instruction?

3. I am a little bit intimidated by the community projects…thoughts?  Have you tried any community type projects?

History and Art Literacy

Disciplinary Texts/ History & Art

Synthesis

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 13

The attitudes expressed in the beginning of this chapter are often voiced in classrooms around the country. Reading history is seen as boring by students; teachers think that it is the English teachers’ responsibility to teach students to read, and reading history is not the same as literature. Texts in the core subjects are not very different in the early grades, but becoming increasingly different as students move through school. The text emphasizes the change by giving 9^th grade as an example. History teachers go to great lengths to teach history, but sometimes avoid or shorten text book reading because of students’ refusals or difficulties. However, being able to actually read and interpret texts is a crucial skill for truly understanding history. When talking to historians, researchers found that historical readings focus around three skills: sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating. In history, readers must focus on the author and the perspective, as well as what perspectives are left out.

Jetton and Shanahan Chapter 8

History requires different protocols and strategies than other texts. History is open to bias, perspective, and interpretation. One of the main points of this chapter is that history is intertextual, and that that includes the “text” that each person has inside of them. This chapter closely follows the history readings of two students: Brad and Aeysha. Their teacher, Ms. White, has a very exploratory approach to teaching history. Students read multiple texts about a historical event. When they do this, Ms. White is encouraging them to attempt to read like historians. While reading multiple texts about an event, students can either become frustrated or intrigued with the problems and discrepancies that that the texts create. These students deal with these issues very differently. The chapter explains that this might have to do with their background, or the text that they have in their head. In addition, all history texts are also hypertexts-they interact with other texts that have been written on the topic. Readers of history must be aware of the context, author, purpose, and possible bias. In history, many things can be considered texts such as media, visuals, and internet texts are all historical texts. There are many things to consider including powerful criteria, satisfactory reading protocols, and ongoing arguments about the texts. Also the organizational ideas of significance, causation, progress/decline, and change/continuity also determine how readers analyze the texts. These things are highly scrutinized by historical readers. The text emphasizes that reading must be “all texts all the way down”. All texts must be given a chance and read thoroughly. Only through reading multiple texts and asking questions can meaning be made about history. Evidence within texts must be used with other texts to make sense. Sometimes, everyday reading techniques do not work for history; how to read history must be taught explicitly.

Jetton and Shanahan Chapter 9

The arts also have multiple literacy requirements; in addition, multiple artifacts qualify as texts. The arts are about making meaning: which is exactly what literacy is. Through music and visual arts, meaning is made in many ways through different elements. The common core standards focus heavily on performing or creating, and then on listening/seeing and analyzing/interpreting. Each genre of the arts has different techniques for assessing meaning. For example, for music in general a conductor’s movements and sheet music have meaning and a certain way to read them. For visual arts, shape and color have meaning. In addition, music and visual arts also often involves reading written texts that include criticism, history, and introductory materials.  Students interact with musical and visual arts and connect with them almost on a daily basis, so teaching students how to read them can be very effective.

Response

Text to Self: As an English teacher, I feel like history and the arts are very closely tied to what I do. They both require literacy that is similar to Language Arts, and often intersect and overlap in content, themes, and context. So, I feel that learning how to better address these different types of texts is directly relevant to my subject. Very often, students are drawn to one of these subjects, if not both, and it is crucial to show how literacy can help them to understand the meaning behind them.

Text to Text: These texts relate to the other texts that we have read in this class because they are disciplinary. There are multiple skills necessary for reading multiple texts. Texts and literacy have a broad definition that centers on meaning making. Students engage better when they can explore and are taught the appropriate elements to look for in a text.

Text to World: History and the arts permeate society and are more accessible now with technology. Students come to school with ideas and a running texts about both history and arts. So, these are very relevant to them and are easy to understand that there is a message there that is trying to be made clear to them. Popular culture and the media present both history and the arts, so students must be able to understand how to effectively read these texts in order to function in society.

Questions:

1. What about other art forms or other electives, sports, or “extra-curricular” activities, can we, and how would we get in touch with these literacies?

2. How do we move students from discomfort to discovery?

3. I feel like these texts are missing conversations about how to access technological texts…thoughts?

Disciplinary Texts-Science

Disciplinary Texts/Science

Synthesis:

Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas Chapter 17

This chapter follows the year long journey of a chemistry teacher, Will Brown, and student Eduardo. Eduardo is a troubled young man who does not care about school. He is defiant, removed, and disruptive. The teacher uses many techniques to help students to effectively read and understand science. His strategies engage students with the texts in a way that is encouraging and effective. Students work closely with others as well as in a whole class setting. Through the teacher’s work with students as Reading Apprentices, helps them to understand that reading is a tool for learning. The teacher took great care to help students understand how to understand science, as well as how to do science correctly. Through the use of preambles, K-W-L, expert groups, reading logs, bringing reading into the classroom, explicit reading instructions, team reads, cooperative labs, and inquiry, Mr. Brown leads students through a highly rigorous but valuable course in chemistry that teaches them how to problem solve. Through Mr. Brown’s strategies, Eduardo was able to overcome his aversion to science class. Eduardo was able to achieve success through the teacher’s attention, working with a “teammate”, engaging in class discussion, and realizing that success is malleable. Student learning is closely tied to their identity. As the text states “When we ask students to learn something new, we are asking them to become someone new”; students must adjust many times as they go through school. This accounts both for students who are defiant towards learning and students who are very eager to learn.  The key features in Table 17.2 illustrate how an ideal classroom that is geared toward student success would look like. This includes such features as a focus on learning rather than accountability, teachers are generous to student behavior, teachers know their students and work with them, teachers use metacognitive conversation to encourage learning, teachers support in-class reading, writing, and talk , and intelligence and performance are seen as malleable factors.

Jetton and Shanahan Chapter 6

This chapter focuses on the difficulties present in reading science. Reading science texts has several issues. Firstly, different scientific fields require different types of reading. Even within one field, scientist read for a variety of reasons. Science teachers can be skeptical to teaching reading because they might feel that the reading strategies are not relevant to their field or teaching science content. However, if teachers and reading specialists work together, they can work out effective ways for students to navigate through science texts. According to the text, science teachers often forgo using textbooks and other texts and instead just teach the material themselves. This is not helpful for students; science concepts can be very difficult to grasp. Students learn better when reading, and when they have been taught to read purposefully and strategically. Students are often asked to participate in hands-on activities. These activities are not sufficient to teach scientific concepts because the equipment that students have to use is not as efficient as that of professional scientists. Also, students are just that, students, and their amount of error in a scientific experiment. This chapter talks about vocabulary, comprehension, and writing and how they specifically relate to science. The vocabulary section was really detailed, but looked effective for more comprehensive understanding of a word and its multiple meanings and relevance. The comprehension for science focuses on analysis and prediction. Writing focuses on hypothesis and the RAFT strategy.

Response

Text to Self: I think at some point many of dealt with students who didn’t feel like the learning taking place was worth the time. Teachers struggle to connect with students, but it is crucial to student success. In addition, developing effective strategies can often feel irrelevant depending on how it is presented to teachers the first time, teachers need time to find and have help discovering other options for “general” strategies. Teachers need to willingly and proficiently listening to each other is crucial; we need to put our students’ needs first.

Text to Text: This chapter relates to the other readings we have had about disciplinary texts. Science is different from other subjects, but there are many different types of reading involved. Science requires a lot of reading, but like other subjects, not a whole lot of time is spent on understanding the reading, instead teachers see the main concern as being the content. Disciplinary texts need to be taught explicitly. Students and teachers need to work together to explore the content and use effective strategies.

Text to World: Students that study science face many difficulties. There are multiple reading and writing skills that are necessary for success in science class. However, these are not often explicitly taught, and students are expected to be able to learn the material and using these tools without help from educators on how to navigate these texts. In order for people to better understand the world, we as educators must work together in order for people to decipher how texts work in the scientific field.

Questions:

1. What do you do for students who do not feel like they can succeed in school?

2. How do you handle accountability versus academics?

3. How do you guide students through texts where they will struggle?

Disciplinary Texts/Text Complexity

Disciplinary Texts/Text Complexity

Synthesis:

Jetton and Shanahan 1,2,3

Chapter 1 covers several important points about reading various disciplines, including ELA. The focus is on getting adequate professional development so that teachers can effectively teach reading comprehension in all subjects. The end of the chapter includes useful information about the many reading strategies covered in the chapter including: KWL, pre-reading strategies, during reading strategies, New-Knew-Q, Guided reading, Save the last word for me, Story Impressions, and many more. In addition, this chapter touches on the idea of internet literacy and all the advantages and disadvantages that come with this technology. Teachers often more on teaching content, when adequate focus on comprehension needs to be given in order for students to succeed. Another concept included in this chapter is modeling, this is another issue that can be difficult for some teachers/or it can just be difficult for teachers to transition their students from modeling to independent work. Embedded questions and making inferences are other tools that teachers must be proficient in making and teaching in order for students to succeed with the more complex disciplinary texts that are encountered in secondary education.

Chapter 2 goes through the differences that children experience with different subject area texts in the elementary grades and the secondary grades. Students must make a significant change from the story-focused and everyday language of elementary texts and the content specific, technical, vocabulary-rich texts of secondary school. This chapter focuses on the main features that make science, math and history difficult for students to comprehend. There are features that are present in all of these subjects; these include: vocabulary, nominalizations, and grammar. These three things are responsible for the difficulties that students can have with secondary discipline texts. Vocabulary is often specialized and technical. The meaning of words can differ between the common meanings and the meanings within specific disciplines. Nominalizations account for long noun phrases with different purposes depending on the discipline that they are written for. As students progress through school, they encounter texts with increasing complex grammar structures. Students must Segway into analyzing these complex structures in order to derive meaning that allows them to effectively comprehend the texts. The researchers recommend the FLA strategy which asks students to think about content, structure, and style/voice/tone. This helps students to better understand what they are reading by breaking it down into crucial elements of the different disciplinary texts.  

Chapter 3 emphasizes the idea that reading disciplinary texts can prove difficult for students. Professionals in the fields of science, history, and math go into detail about how they approach, read, and analyze texts. Each discipline has different guidelines relating to prior knowledge, authors, purpose, and criticism. In addition, the end of the chapter emphasizes the use of strategies and teaching them for different disciplines. This chapter takes note of research in the fields and strategies and how reading specialists and other educators must work together to teach disciplinary reading.

Hinchman and Sheridan Thomas, 6

Text complexity is itself a very complex issue. There are many factors that go into determining text complexity: including quantitative and qualitative factors. Students cannot simply choose their own texts all the time. This chapter gives many metaphors in order to clarify how staying in once place as a reader does not promote better reading skills. Teachers must most importantly be knowledgeable about both their students and the texts at hand. Teachers must know what students abilities and backgrounds are in order to guide them toward reading more complex texts.  

Response:

Text to Self: As a secondary English teacher, these chapters give critical insight to how all teachers can improve their teaching strategies. I’m not sure I realized how important explicit comprehension instruction was until this semester’s readings.

Text to Text: This text relates to many of the other chapters that we have read so far. The need for vocabulary and comprehension instruction is necessary. In addition, a focus on the distinct features of text types shows why there can be confusion when transitioning between subject areas. Comprehension must become a central figure in all areas; it is often neglected in the quest to cover content.

Text to World: People read for many different purposes. How to read for various reasons and disciplines is crucial in order to better understand information. People must be able to easily understand and negotiate what features are important for different texts. As college and career readiness continue to be critical issues, students and teachers must work together to increase ability to read complex texts.

Questions:

1. How can we help students transition from the texts of elementary to secondary school?

2. There seem to be so many variables…how do you help students/classes find appropriate texts?

3. How do we scaffold texts that aren’t “motivating for students?”

Disciplinary Texts- Math

Synthesis

Hinchman & Sheridan Thomas

The Common Core State Standards for math have several expectations: conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and flexible application in and out of the classroom. In order to foster development of these issues, teachers must help students better understand the language of mathematics. Communication is crucial to student achievement. Students must be able to correctly use the vocabulary in respect to the concepts addressed in math. There are three registers of mathematics: linguistic, symbolic, and visual. These are interconnected and together they create meaning. Students have to be able to use all three in order to be successful. In mathematics, students must learn content specific vocabulary, as well as vocabulary that has other meanings, but has specific meaning when used for mathematics. Math has very specific grammatical patterns. These usually consist of sentences that have long noun phrases joined by being and having verbs. These can be difficult for students to makes sense of because of the terminology. This chapter followed the efforts of one teacher. She focused on using prior mathematical and linguistic knowledge to explore new concepts. Using prior knowledge allows students to feel more comfortable with the material and allows them to explore with confidence. She also models the use of mathematics language for more precise concept explanation. Modeling the use of the language fosters greater understanding and confidence. One of the more successful and interesting things she did was to invite students to connect the new concept of previously learned concepts both verbally and through writing. The pressure was taken off of the students through this more straightforward assignment. She provides feedback to develop awareness of features of the mathematics language. She builds off of the students answers and helps them to deepen their knowledge.  In addition, she treats students as mathematicians by inviting students to create mathematics texts for an external audience. This gets students invested in the concepts and encourages them to try to be as accurate as possible.

Jetton and Shannan

This text is very similar to the other chapter, but focuses on the need for collaboration between reading specialists and math teachers. Students must be explicitly taught the literacies of mathematics in meaningful ways. Students must aim toward mathematical expertise that is defined by three constructs: conceptual fluency, conceptual understanding, and mathematical processes. Teachers have three things to do to bring about a successful literacy lesson for mathematics: identifying texts to be used, identifying what reading and writing is required, and to develop a plan that makes texts explicit through students participating in processes for mathematics. In order to accomplish this, the researchers redefined texts “…to include all objects created or interpreted for the purpose of constructing, sharing, and negotiating meaning”. The vignettes showed the portions of the lesson planning and how texts work in a math class. Both teachers identified areas of the literacies that needed to be explained better in ways that developed process and content skills in a positive, exploratory way. This text addresses at the beginning of the chapter the problems of traditional outlooks of how to infuse literacy into mathematics, and presents a much better and more realistic method. In addition, towards the end of the chapter how to better collaborate with math teachers toward better success for students.

Moji

This lecture outlined the fact that students and teachers must constantly navigate between different disciplines. This often takes place physically, relationally, and metaphorically. Texts must be taught explicitly and students should be given enough background knowledge to conceptualize and explore the new material. There are several “E’s” that tie together her approach to navigating the disciplines: expose, engage, elicit and engineer, examine, and evaluate”. At the end of her presentation she adds one more: expect. We must have high expectations for our students. All students should be made aware of how to read with a specific purpose in order to problem solve and successful both with subjects and with interdisciplinary thinking.

Response

Text to Self- I really enjoyed reading about the teacher’s methods in the Hinchman and Sheridan-Thomas chapter. I feel like I would have, and my current students would greatly benefit from this type of mathematics teaching. I feel like a lot of students get lost in the terminology; teaching students that some words mean different things in different contexts can be a confusing aspect of education for students.

Text to Text- I feel like this follows the course of our earlier readings. Students must be explicitly taught the vocabulary and features of the texts. Students should be encouraged to access prior knowledge in order to learn new concepts.

Text to World-Students need to be encouraged and engaged through positive and effective methods in order to be successful in math. Their success in school math class is tied to their success in the working world and influences which careers they are eligible for. For the last several years, the United States has been said to have lower scores in math and science than other countries in the developing world. I think that more explicit and thoughtful methods that focus on the unique three-pronged language of mathematics will help our students to compete on a global level.

Questions

1. How do you address the words that have multiple meanings in different disciplines?

2. How can we all work toward more exploratory classrooms like the ones shown in the vignettes?

Week 4: Disciplinary Texts

Week 4: Disciplinary Texts

Synthesis:

Jetton & Shanahan, Chapter 5

          This chapter begins with an
explanation of the English teacher Mrs. Smith and her lesson plans for teaching
Mice and Men and how her approach is
not enough. The chapter goes through the process of outlining the broad and
ever-evolving definition of literacy. There are four literacy ideologies:
functional, cultural, progressive, and critical. Functional means that students
can participate in school, work, and life. Cultural focuses on morals and
canonical literature so that they have “’core knowledge’”. Progressive means
that students and teachers develop their own curriculum based on their interests
and relevance to their lives. Finally, the critical literacy ideology focuses
on the why and how of the literature. Most researchers believe that teachers
focus on the first three ideologies, but to be truly successful we must give
students room to question the text through critical literacy. In addition there
are three literacy frameworks: cognitive, linguistic, and developmental. Literacy
does not just know how to read letters, but must go into deeper
understanding.  Teaching English can be
very difficult because it has a great number of skills to teach, as well as
content. I really liked this quote that explains the phenomenon of teaching
English: “We are learning to read and write while we are learning to read and
write in the service of academic goals in the study of English; we build the
plane while flying”. Also in this chapter, the issues of teaching with technology
and using multiple modes of text. Teaching a novel is very complex, and doing
it the right way touches on so many skills as shown in the revised lesson plans
for Mice and Men. Of course, the
issue of technology is only briefly touched on, but as the world leans more towards
technology we must find new ways to adapt, incorporate, and teach.

Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas

Chapter 10

This
chapter opens with introducing the fact that people make multiple decisions
every day. This chapter outlines the basics of the complexities of dealing with
teaching and learning from multiple texts in the subjects of history, science,
and math. Studying history requires many of the same skill sets as studying the
English Language Arts. Students must be able to work with multiple texts in
order to become informed citizens. In history, students use three main
strategies: sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration. The issue of
teaching history is getting students to realize that these texts come from
multiple and varied perspectives and can be presented and interpreted in many
ways. In science, there are two main types of reading: reading for learning and
reading critically. In math, reading must be done in order to determine that
information is accurate. Students must be taught strategies to build their
learning across multiple texts.

Chapter 12

Teaching
students how to read historical texts presents multiple levels of complexity
that must all be addressed and taught. Students must have adequate background
and contextual knowledge. Reading visual images such a table, graphs, and
pictures are examples of elements that often do not explicitly taught, but they
need to be. This chapter goes through a detailed example of some laws from the
early years of immigration in American history. This study shows that students
also need to able to ask and answer why questions. These probing questions
require students to engage with the texts, something teacher must develop with
relevance and connections.

Response

Text to Self-Teaching
English can be a daunting task at times because of how much there is to teach.
The issue of teaching broad skills as well as content can be very difficult.
Especially in a novel, the task of teaching everything necessary for an
effective reading (like the table that shows the lesson plans for Mice and Men)
can almost seem overwhelming. However, the sections that outline the before,
during, and after reading seemed much more manageable and immediately relevant.
I feel that something has been missing and my teaching of literature and that
reading Chapter 5 was especially enlightening in the case of the four literacy
ideologies. I hope to include more critical literacy into my curriculum.

Text to Text-The Jetton and
Shanahan chapter mentions Paulo Friere and Macedo and the issue of “reading the
word and the world”. This text seems to keep showing up in many of my readings
these last few semesters. Although I have read it, it might be time to revisit
it. Students need to be given time to really connect with texts and the world
around them. Literacy is so much more than just decoding, and as demands for
education change, we must adjust our teaching. This will involve a lot of
scaffolding in order to accomplish this goal.

Text to World-Technology and
multiple literacies are crucial in today’s world. Students are expected to do
more with more information. In a world where we don’t know what the next type
of jobs might be, functional and critical readings of many genres will be
necessary. The world has more access to information now than ever before; they
have the right to be explicitly taught. In addition, this also strengthens the
need for students to be able discern multiple texts and to be able to
adequately use and critique them.

Questions:

1.
How do we teach/approach critical literacy?

2.
How can we approach and incorporate multimodal texts with minimal access to
technology?

3. What counts as engagement and how do we foster
it?

4. How do we work with “why” questions?