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?”