Early Essential Questions

First and foremost, it is important for all of us as content specialists to realize that we DO have an important role to play in teaching literacy. Content literacy, or disciplinary literacy as our first learning module explained it, is where we get to show our students the exciting and unique materials of our subject. Since my two focus areas are geography and political science, teaching my students to how read, understand, and connect with maps, data charts, primary documents, current event news articles, etc. is extremely important. Students are technically "taught" how to read during the primary years, but reading to learn is an entirley different ball game. This requires our content specific knowledge to help teach students how to read different types selections and gather important information or comprehend certain views, main ideas, biases, detailed facts, etc. Teaching students how to "read like a historian" or other specialist allows them to learning the content authentically, and we know that authentic learning means better retention which leads to better understanding and higher achievement.


Some readers may sturggle with content specific reading. Going from reading a Shakespeare play in 1st period to a set of complex science lab instructions in 2nd period to a historical primary document in social studies in 3rd period, and so on can make already struggling readers feel even more discouraged about their reading abilities and foster negative views and reactions to reading in general. As social studies teachers, we can help make our readings more relative, applicable, and easy to understand by using some of the strategies from our in-class discussions and readings, the BLSS text, and Buehl's work. A key way we can do this is by getting away from the textbook! Other ways to help students who are struggling with history or political science texts include giving shorter passages for students to read, having activities for students to do with reading selections, and frontloading (giving students background information and vocabulary prep so they can comprehend the selection more easily).

These same strategies to help struggling readers also help engage students in the content. I see the multiple intelligences coming into play here. Many of the strategies that Dr. Webb and our course text authors have introduced include using visual information to accompany passages, having students do something active with information gathered from the reading, having interpersonal and intrapersonal reading opportunities, etc. An important thing for teachers to always remember about engaging students in the concepts and ideas of the subject area is having a variety of materials for students to read and engage with in regards to any particular subject. Having different reading levels, types of selections, lengths, etc. available for students to experience is the key.

The beginning of literacy class

As an avid reader, I am quite excited about learning how to implement different literacy teaching strategies in my future classroom. Reading has always excited me, and I am hoping to be able to share/pass this along to some of my future social studies students.
Our class discussion of how important technology is for reaching our students was really eye-opening. Seeing the statistics of how many hours they spend reading versus watching tv and playing video games was especially troubling. It is crazy to think that I am not much older than these students, yet I cannot identify with these statistics at all. I still find joy in perusing the library for great books to read and curling up in bed for an afternoon for an adventure in some foreign land through a good book. My facebook addiction is one aspect of technology that I do have in common with these students, however I end up spending most of my time on facebook playing Wheel of Fortune. Literacy skills (reading, writing, spelling, inferring, etc.) certainly are present everywhere these days, and that's why I believe literacy is so important to implement in each and every classroom.
A second part of our class discussion on Wednesday that interested me was how important middle and high school teachers are in teaching literacy. Learning how to read and write does not stop in the third grade as many seem to assume. It is important for students to learn how to read and write for specific content understanding and for students to transition into "reading for learning."
I see disciplinary literacy and "reading for learning" as quite interconnected and I can't wait to learn more about how to teach these concepts in my classroom.