This week we covered the importance of content area literacy. We discussed the role of literacy and how it was more than just incorporating reading into different content areas. The idea of literacy as it relates to texts in the broader view can be applied to any field. As we found out in class, as experts in our content areas, we have specific skill-sets that have been developed over the years that help us decipher texts in the field. I think the Voynich manuscript is a perfect analogy for how the students might see our ability to digest dense text. To them it seems mysterious and undecipherable. It is our duty as teachers to make these skills visible and clear. Last week we discussed strategies such as think alouds, which helped make the invisible, visible. It helped make the thought processes we all go through very explicit. The connection to this week was clear, once we had a strategy to help show our students how we digest the article, the next step is to identify specific areas in our own content areas in which we employ a set of specific skills. When we wrote on the board the different skills for different subject areas, it became clear that there were some unique skills to all fields, but in general there was a thread that connected all of them. Pros & Cons
The Future of Content Specific Classrooms
The big take-away for me this week was how this content area literacy was going to fit into my classroom. At first, I had a negative outlook on this idea because it seemed like a lot of contrived activities to try and inject some literacy strategies into an already busy schedule. But as Mr. Kushner noted several times, this isn't about employing several stand-alone activities in literacy, but rather it is a complete integration of literacy skills into the curriculum. I was skeptical if I would be successful at finding any good ideas on how to include more physics related literacy, but the more I thought about how successful physicists think, it became clear that every field in science has specific prerequisites for good comprehension. For example, the physics word problem is a notorious challenge for most students, but we never teach them the techniques needed to be able to relay sentence structure into algebraic formulas and back again. It is skills like this, unit literacy, and the ability to visualize the problems on hand that have made successful physicists.
I too shared your worries of how to fit literacy into a science classroom, more specifically a Biology classroom. The more I think about it however, the more ideas I get. For example, as a Biology teacher, I would expect my students to be able to perform experiments and turn in a lab write up on their observations, conclusions, and analysis. They cannot, however, perform this task until I have shown them how to write a lab report. Similarly, when gathering background information on an experiment, scientists typically read other journals and papers on related subjects. I cannot expect my students to be able to gather this information until I demonstrate how to read a scientific paper.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much literacy in a science classroom; we, as scientists and teachers, just don't realize it is literacy and that there may be students out there who do not are not scientifically literate. It is important that we understand the reading and writing strategies we use in our specific area so that we can teach these to our students, effectively helping them become scientifically literate.
It's a legitimate concern to figure how to address issues of literacy while still addressing all the content you wish to cover. One potential strategy is to embrace Chris Miller's obsession with the New York Times. I like the idea of choosing a particularly interesting science article, and perhaps once per week, start class by deconstructing this article as a classroom. You can choose an article that's engaging, that has "real world" applicability, and offers the opportunity to model good scientific literacy in the ways we've discussed in class.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you included specific physic literacy skills at the end of your discussion. I truly believe that apprenticing students into the "scientific world" would be extremely beneficial. We cannot expect our students to preform a lab, and then expect them to "guess" what we wanted them to learn from it. Furthermore, we cannot hand them dense scientific texts and assume they will know where and how to find the important information, without first showing them and practicing with them. You mentioned "visualizing problems" as an important skill for physicists. This is yet another skill that students would benefit from a Think Aloud. The teacher should describe and draw out what they, as a "physics expert" are visualizing. After a while, the students can do Think Alouds in pairs, or even with the teacher. From there the teacher can scaffold and assess the student's skill and comprehension, and adapt their methods depending on how well the students are grasping the concepts.
ReplyDeleteIt was good that you discussed both the pros and the cons. It is true that many teachers worry that teaching content literacy could take up too much time in the classroom that would hurt the quantity of material covered. But, if you teach students how to read for that class, they will have a better grasp of all texts they read at later dates in your classroom. So, in the long run, it could actually help you get through more material if the students are actually understanding later material better. I too didn't put much thought into how a scientist thinks, because it just comes so naturally to me now. But what I am learning in the class is that every discipline does in fact have its own set of skill that other people may not have. This is an important concept because if I am trying to teach a science lesson that involves deciphering graphs, I will have to teach my students how to do so before I assume they know how to read a graph.
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