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?