Task 1: Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent Literacy in the academic disciplines. Ch. 1 & 2 pp. 1-68 (Essential Question A)
Pre-Posting -- Reviewing what you read on Learning from Text: Adolescent Literacy from the Past Decade & The Challenge of Reading Disciplinary, Chapters 1 & 2, think about the theoretical underpinnings for each chapter’s concepts AND think about how the role that written and oral texts need to play in the learning of your specific discipline. (Disciplinary literacy is perhaps in many respects a reconceptualization of what it means to teach an academic subject. Disciplines are organized ways of thinking about the world, and learning within a discipline involves more than becoming merely knowledgeable. Learning must also encompass how scientists, mathematicians, historians, and others read, write, and think. This is the difference between covering a subject and teaching a discipline.)
I strongly recommend having the readings read by Tuesday, November 5
Postings: Reading your reflections and interactions about the readings is the only direct way I have of assessing the quality of your understanding of — and engagement with — the assigned readings. See the expectations that follow for the more directed kinds of responses you would make according to the role you are assigned for this week.
Roles:
There are 4-5 people in each conversation group. You only respond to those in your own group.
Day 3 (Second online meeting day)
Group
|
Initiators
|
Summarizers
|
Responders
|
Illuminators
|
1
|
Kathleen Brinton
|
Yimu Zhou
|
Audrey Bjerum
|
Andrew Johnson
Megan Petersen
|
2
|
Sara DeBoer
|
Rachael Bird
|
Danielle Cattrysse
|
David Hamilton
|
3
|
Christopher Yost
|
Joseph Nowariak
|
Kathleen Holloran
|
Kaitlin Stein
|
Initiators start the conversation. They must do the reading immediately and get their entries in during the first day or two so others have material to respond to. Grading will be based on the quality of questions, speculations, and thought-provoking prompts that will get people really considering the ideas presented in the content. You must include your own responses to the ideas as well. If another Initiator has already posted his/her ideas, the next Initiator to post must enter new ideas. In other words, don't repeat what's already posted.
Initiators posts are due: Wednesday, November 6 before 5:00 PM
Responders directly address and extend the ideas that the Initiators have thrown out for consideration as well as adding your own unique responses to the readings. It is not enough to say, "I agree", or "That was a nice idea." Responders need to enlarge the conversation, make connections to their own experiences, and draw from other material in the readings to expand on the conversation. Responders need to get their ideas in at least 48 hours before the due date so the Summarizers can do their work (below).
Responders and Illuminators posts are due:
Friday, November 8 before 5:00
Illuminators teach, guide, edify, and enlighten. They take their own and other people's ideas beyond surface statements to broader and deeper ground. They pull from other sources, such as pertinent internet sites, they have encountered to shed light on questions or confusions. They clarify. Illuminators add their contributions after the Initiators, before or after the Responders, and before the Summarizers (i.e., before the last day).
Responders and Illuminators posts are due:
Friday, November 8 before 5:00
Summarizers pull together and consolidate all the key ideas from the group. They are the last to make their entries, probably best done in the evening of the deadline day. Every participant (except fellow Summarizers) should be named, and the contributions of each acknowledged in the summary. Summarizers should be organized and concise. Capture the essence. (If there are any group members who have not submitted by 8:00 p.m. of the deadline day, you do not have to wait for them — just summarize those who have submitted up to that time.)
Summarizers posts are due:
Sunday, November 10 before 5:00.
Respond to another member in our group. This response is due: Sunday, November 10, 11:59 PM
Initiator Group One:
ReplyDeleteA. Why is there a significant need for disciplinary literacy instruction?
The answer to his question is multifaceted. The following bullet points will address most of the research based reasons.
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has reported that the recent (2012) report states that 12th-grade students scored 74% at the basic level, compared to 80% in 1992. (Jetton 2012)
Phonics reading woks well up through grade 4
From grade 5 through the middle school and definitely into the high school, the vocabulary for the specific content area increases exponentially. This vocabulary is technical, in science it is often Latin or Greek based and the students have not been taught the language rules associated with Latin or Greek. The texts become more specialized and technical and therefore the student has difficulty transitioning into reading for comprehension in the middle and high school.
Teachers are ill prepared to teach reading literacy. Their skill set is heavily focused on their content area. The techniques and skills of reading literacy have been adopted by the State of Minnesota for all content areas.
Fang (2008) offered two suggestions for the elementary grades. First they need to learn how to deconstruct the long nouns that contain critical information. Second, they need be learn how to transform and paraphrase this technical text into their own every day language.
Some specific strategies are brainstorming, summarizing, making inferences, student-generated questioning and comprehension monitoring.
Explicit instruction – the teacher models how she would process the text using a particular strategy. The example given in the book has to do with the Earth’s atmosphere. What do we already know about the atmosphere? The teacher will say, I want you to remember the information about the atmosphere, to set a purpose for the student. Before you read connect to what you know.
Direct and Inferential Mediation Model (DIME) showed the variables of background, knowledge, inference, reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary, and word reading made up 66% of the difference.
Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) tested in controlled study, with high-performing learners, and low-performing learners. All outperformed the traditional group. Key concepts are: activating prior knowledge and forming mental images.
* Peer-led discussions enhance student’s learning. Just 10-minute discussions increased understanding significantly.
* Embedded questioning. Students and teacher ask questions to promote strategic thinking.
Linguistic issues of more advanced, abstract, and complex knowledge in which they are expected to assimilate, reproduce, question and critique. (Jetton 2012)
Science has it’s own culture. “Science Speak,” has it’s own language and the textbook highlights the use of generic nouns, nominalizations, evaluative vocabulary, sandwich texture, and within-clause.
(Disciplinary literacy is perhaps in many respects a reconceptualization of what it means to teach an academic subject.
Disciplines are organized ways of thinking about the world, and learning within a discipline involves more than becoming merely knowledgeable.
Learning must also encompass how scientists, mathematicians, historians, and others read, write, and think.
This is the difference between covering a subject and teaching a discipline. Having read these two chapters theses themes are readily apparent.)
For my personal revelation I bring in the 2 ½ years of AVID Tutoring experience. I’m grateful for this experience. I’m able to communicate my science content knowledge to the AVID students in 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade. AVID utilizes small groups, peer-led discussions, and most impressively it asks embedded questions. The students and the tutor are not allowed to answer questions. They must ask questions to guide the student presenter to critically think and come up with the answer.
Kathleen has done an excellent job of initiating the discussion for Task one. In linguistics class I took in the past one of the assignments was to find the lexical density of a math, social studies or science text for an ESL learner. The texts were at three different levels of language ability, beginning, and middle and advanced. As the readings for this week have said on pg. 35 about the difficulty secondary students have in reading academic texts. Kathleen also brought this reason to our attention in your posting.
DeleteStudents need to deconstruct the long nouns and transform them into everyday language. In the linguistics class we worked specifically on this concern. It was a difficult task and I still don’t fully understand it. Teachers have limited time to focus on teaching literacy in their academic area. I recently was told by a parent of an 8th grade boy that they know have reading time in physical education. This goes along with the point the Kathleen brought up that the State of Minnesota includes reading literacy in all content areas. The parent was not very happy about this, because they wanted their child to have a break from all of the reading and book work. Do you think this is a good or bad thing to include in classes such as physical education?
The other aspect of math and science is the inclusion of symbols and visual elements. There needs to be a connection between the content teacher and reading teachers. This needs to be a collaborative effort. I’m not familiar with this type of collaboration. Is this occurring in schools or something that schools hope will happen? Working with ESL there is collaboration between content and ESL teachers. Yesterday I did a webinar on how to use the MN library system to help ABE students work with academic texts. Some of the sites introduced provide different levels of academic topics, elementary, middle school and high school. This will be very beneficial as an ABE teacher helping students make the transition from GED to secondary education opportunities.
Audrey
Audrey,
DeleteI also did that lexical density assignment you mentioned above, and had no idea why we would do that. While I was reading chapter 2 in Jetton & Shanahan (2012), I kind of understand the reason now. We know that content words are conveying information and lexical density focuses on the content words. Thus, the lexical density aims at information. The higher the lexical density is, the more information it contains in one phrase/sentence. As the chapter states, it is a reliable way to measure text difficulty (p. 41). As ELL teachers, we are not only helping students learn English, but also preparing them to understand all the other subjects in English language. An 10th-grade ELL may need more time to process a science texts than their native-English speaking peers. If the lexical density of a science text is too high, then, if possible, we could cooperate with the science teacher to modify the texts for the language learners. The modified texts will still contain the same content of knowledge, but with less technical or long noun phrases. In other words, we can try to prepare the student with a lower lexical density text for their better understanding of the subject.
Yimu
Yimu,
DeleteI agree that the task we did with lexical density was very helpful. You make a good point that the modified texts contain the same content of knowledge, just at a different level. I have not had to use this in class with the adult learners, but am glad to have had the background.
Audrey
I have recently become aware of the reading standards in all content areas. I am torn on the issue, because like the parent that Audrey encountered I don't think reading techniques and strategies should be discussed during physical education. We are a country with a childhood obesity problem and I cringe at the thought of students sprawling out on a gym floor to read, never even breaking a sweat. However, in the field of science I realize the importance of technical reading and having the ability to digest the material. There is a lot of unfamiliar words in science and like the second chapter to Jetton suggests there is often common words that have a different meaning in the context of science or math. I found it interesting that research shows that students have an easier time comprehending new words such as Latin compared to common words that have a different meaning in the context of math or science. I had a science teacher in 10th grade that did vocab quizzes on Latin prefixes and suffixes. He understood the importance of being able to identify and understand the science language. I believe that good teachers are able to teach reading skills without taking much time from the content. I do agree with Audrey in that teachers really need to communicate on the reading goals. If some of the science and math vocabulary or reading techniques could be addressed in "reading class," then it would provide additional time for content instruction and an overall improvement of understanding.
DeleteAndrew
Andrew, If we were to put all the vocabulary for all aspects of school onto the reading class, what is really the purpose of our classes then? Yes, there is a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time, but if we pill it all onto the reading classroom, they wont get anything covered! It is our job to cover everything we can in our classroom. Yes, I agree about the gym class but if you don't wait till the last min to cover all the vocabulary and do some every day, the kids will know more at the end of the year!
DeleteI feel that many reading classes today are just letting students read for the majority of the period. The reading class could be more effectively used to instruct vocab and reading techniques. The sheer practice of reading could be done outside of class or reading texts of current content of study. I was in a class last week that was supposed to read a book of their choice for 30 min and I'll bet only a handful of students got through more than a handful of pages.
DeleteKathleen brought up a critical point from the text: there is a significant need for disciplinary literacy instruction. There are mainly three reasons. First, research results show a decreasing of basic literacy level of 12th graders between 1992 and 2012. Second, phonetic reading works well up through 4th grade, but when students reach to higher grades, they need other strategies to help them comprehend a reading text. Third, from 5th grade to high school, technical vocabulary increases exponentially in various content areas, especially in science, mathematics and social studies. Such heavy load of technical language usage such as normalizations in science texts will cause difficulties for students to switch the science language into their own comprehensible language.
ReplyDeleteThere are some strategies can be employed to improve student’s literacy levels. First, State of Minnesota has adopted techniques and skills for all content areas. It seems reasonable and necessary because as stated above. However, Audrey and Andrew elicited an intriguing point: whether reading time should be required in physical education or not. On one hand, academic language and literacy should be instilled in student’s school life; on the other hand, physical education seems like a precious time for children to build up their bodies. There should be a balance and solution for this issue.
Second, specific strategies for elementary students, such as deconstruction and transforming and paraphrasing, are suggested by Fang (2008). Kathleen listed several other feasible strategies, including brainstorming, summarizing, making inferences, student-generated questioning and comprehension monitoring. As an explicit instruction, teachers can model reading process and tell students the expected comprehension outcomes. Third, Direct and Inferential Mediation Model (DIME) pays attention to student diversity; while Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) aims at activating student’s prior knowledge and forming mental images.
We also used our own experiences to understand the literacy teaching strategies. For example, Kathleen gave her own experiences as an AVID tutor to illustrate the benefits of the peer-led discussion and embedded questions. Andrew shared how his 10th grade science teacher drilled on Latin prefix and suffix with the students. Audrey, as an ESL teacher, indicated that collaboration between content teacher and ESL/reading teacher is necessary and helpful. Also, Audrey and I shared our understandings on how to use knowledge of lexical density to help ESL students improve their content knowledge.
In sum, disciplinary literacy development is urgent and significant. It can help students to know the world systematically and critically rather than merely knowing about the facts of each subject. To scaffold the students to achieve a higher literacy level, teachers of different subjects should be aware of their own disciplinary language, and be able to apply appropriate strategies to embed academic language into their content instructions.