Task 1: (Essential Question A) Jigsaw Reading: This week we will look at a few disciplines (sorry not all are represented here) which our school systems recognize and regularly assess adolescents’ abilities. Each of the chapters listed below explores learning within a particular discipline from the perspectives of both a literacy expert, who understands the reading, and writing challenges that adolescents encounter, and a discipline expert, who understand the nature of the discipline and how literacy processes operate within it. Please choose one of the chapters below to read and become an expert on.
English Language Arts
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines. Chapt. 5 pp. 120-153
Science
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines. Chapt. 6 pp. 154-171
Mathematics
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines. Chapt. 7 pp. 172-198
History
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines. Chapt. 8 pp. 199-226
Art
Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent literacy in the academic disciplines. Chapt. 9 pp. 227-266
What is Jigsaw?
Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student to specialize in one aspect of a learning unit. Students meet with members to teach the material to their group members.
Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece--each student's part--is essential for the completion and full understanding of the final product. If each student's part is essential, then each student is essential. That is what makes the Jigsaw instructional strategy so effective.
Description of Lesson: In a typical jigsaw activity, students are given a topic on which to become an expert, either individually or as part of a group. The student or group of students then teaches the material to the rest of the class. For our online meeting week you will read JUST ONE of the chapters above teach the other members of your group about your chapter.
(Essential Question A)
Pre-Posting – Read JUST ONE of the chapters above.
Posting – For a full discussion of the readings, in your assigned small group, you are to become the expert of your chapter and teach the material to the rest of your group. You need to not only summarize the chapter, but to help everyone in your group to develop a deeper depth of knowledge in relation to your chapter. To do this you will need to explain and clarify meanings with personal examples or applied examples for further clarification. This posting should indicate deep thinking and reflection on your part, along with supporting evidence that shows your own learning from reading and experience to this point.
Response Postings -- Everyone should respond at least 1-2 times to each group member with a question, clarification, or addition to the thoughts on their postings. You might consider other information, questions you still have as a future teacher, etc.
Hey group, I figure I'll take that "art" chapter because it makes sense...
ReplyDeleteIan if you want to do "art" let me know and I can do "history" instead.
Works for me, Karin. Thanks for getting this started. I will take "Science" unless someone else wants it.
DeleteLanguage arts for me!
ReplyDeleteChapter 6 was about literacy and reading in science, and was written by Shanahan alone. In this chapter, she writes about reading in science, stating that it is different from reading in other content areas. She describes some of the challenges of reading in science, and provides some suggested strategies to facilitate reading in science.
ReplyDeleteShanahan states that science teachers often acknowledge reading in science is very difficult, and that good science teachers try to work around this with oral lectures, presentations, and the use of experiments. However, she says this is not always effective at producing learning because memories of oral texts and presentations can be faulty, and because experiments are often misinterpreted or unreliable due to the lack of precision equipment. She says that these issues can contribute to reinforcing misconceptions students have about scientific concepts.
Shanahan notes that practicing scientists either read for knowledge (when they don’t know about a topic), or to critique (when the topic is something they are familiar with). She also notes that the timeliness of a science text is significant, too, because science is dynamic and research that is not current may be outdated or even false.
Among the four challenges Shanahan describes in reading science is the dependence on vocabulary – there is a lot of specific terminology that needs to be learned. She says that comprehension involves being able to read and understand data presented in text, in graphic forms, and in written formulas. Reading fluency, knowing what to read and when (such as at what point in reading do you refer to a chart or a graph to shed light on the text), is a key aspect of science reading that students often find challenging. Finally, she writes that science uses unique forms of discourse: precision and generalities, the reliance on formulas and graphic representation of data, use of the passive voice, etc.
Shanahan discusses the implications for teaching by describing the Common Core standards for literacy in the sciences. She states this is a difficult burden for many science teachers because they often have little training in literacy techniques, or are presented with general literacy strategies that they must adapt on their own to fit their classrooms. She writes that it is important for science teachers and reading specialists to collaborate to do this by identifying the discipline-specific literacy goals and developing effective literacy strategies for reading in science.
Shanahan describes some strategies for science teachers to use to help their students develop literacy in the discipline. She specifically addresses the issues of vocabulary, comprehension, and writing, and describes how each strategy meets an aspect of the Common Core. She describes an extensive method for students to use to develop their vocabulary, offers several strategies for facilitating comprehension, recommends the use of diverse texts to understand the different types of scientific writing as well as to develop students’ ability to critique scientific writing, and describes a method for science teachers to use to scaffold instruction on the specific way a scientific paper should be written.
Mike, I'm interested in the comment you made about scientists "reading for knowledge or reading to critique." This idea seems applicable to most academic reading, and is personally helpful for me to remember right now as I conduct some research for a paper I'm writing! It's great to remember that all of these subjects are worth our while to read/research because we can learn certain methods from one discipline, and apply it to another.
DeleteThanks for your insight Mike. You touched base on a lot of important things to keep into consideration, but the one that sticks out is teaching specific academic, content vocabulary. I can't help but relate all of this information back to ESL and the importance that has been placed on teaching students the academic content vocabulary. If teachers are not placing an emphasis on teaching the definitions of those words, assuming all students already know them, they are doing their students a HUGE disadvantage. Thanks for specifically highlighting that skill.
DeleteHeads up: I’m a huge e-booker…unfortunately, this means all my citations are in “Location” format, rather than pages. Sorry in advance if it’s confusing or inconvenient for anyone dying to flip to a page to read expanded versions of my quotes ;)
ReplyDelete“Popular culture [should] be incorporated within school learning contexts and activities.” (Location 4560) YES! Art is life. Art is culture, and culture is art. The two are dependent on each other. Teaching art incorporates popular culture methods (and is very conveniently introduced through “Pop Art,” thanks to our friends Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud, and many, others). We mentioned this last week in our discussion about incorporating the vocabulary of technology and visual culture into our academic literacies.
Many “outside literacies can be attributed to the arts both at home and while interacting with peers…Adolescents’ lives outside of school are keenly connected to the arts through performing, creating, listening to, and observing the world around them” (Location 4560). This is a huge part of art in general, and speaks to understanding interdisciplinary education within the arts. I know Nancy Nair – a theatre/dance instructor - in our class has a done a lot of interdisciplinary work with the ELA teachers at her school and incorporates ELA literacies into her lessons by finding ways to express those ideas through physical movement. Art, clearly not limited to just visual/studio practice, does this on many different levels because it helps students process information in more ways than one.
Chapter 9 gives a great table of discipline-specific knowledge, skills, and strategies, and how they’re explicitly incorporated into music literacy. (Location 4729 in my ebook). It describes certain categories of music and visual arts as specific kinds of literacies. For example, rehearsing is a performance and listening literacy, whereas composition is a creating literacy. Each of these fundamentals requires manipulation of the ideas and strategies students have learned in music class, and access all those important inference, relating, and connecting strategies we agree are at the core of literacy. The book has created the same kinds of tables for visual arts specific literacies (Location 4988 in my ebook), like reflecting, critiquing, creating, and problem solving.
Continued:
DeleteChapter 9 also mentions using constructivism when teaching students in the arts. Constructivist processes allow student to “make their own decisions and solve real-life problems” (Location 5099). The authors also encourage us to ask through provoking questions in order to utilize problem-solving literacies (Location 5109), and the importance of expanding student understanding through modeling (Location 5130). The final way in which literacy is incorporated into the art room is through interpreting print and nonprint texts in meaningful ways. Art “can be used as another means to RESPOND to printed text in ways that extend and expand learning” (Location 5130). How powerful! How wonderful that we can encourage student to think and respond in different ways! This completely reiterates the impact art education has on problem solving and critical thinking skills, which naturally contributes to better literacy in ALL aspects of life.
I often joke with my mentor teacher about how art teachers are simply glorified problem solvers. During a “making” day in the art room, the role of the teacher is to walk around the room, answer questions, and help students solve their problems; and trust me, there are ALWAYS problems. Students need help with everything from manipulating scissors, to understanding how to draw overlapping figures, to fixing broken sculptures, to figuring out what they’re going to create for their project in the first place. This is the part of being an art teacher that’s most important, because this is when we’re able to give students constructive criticism, offer solutions through scaffolding and questioning processes, and praise them for their problem solving abilities.
Karin, you highlight exactly WHY the arts are so important. I cringe thinking about districts losing their programs due to funding. To me, the arts seem like an area where students can actually become excited about learning. No offense to the other content areas, but truthfully a lot of that content came become boring and the students become interested. Through art, however, students are still able to grasp/maintain those crucial academic skills (comprehension, problem solving, etc) but through material that interests them!
DeleteHi All. I'm a little late here...as I'm sure you all realize that wrapping up the semester with presentations, lesson plans, and papers is very busy. Hope y'all are surviving ok. Here's my post:
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed tackling this chapter because I felt like I could relate most of the information to my ESL content classes. This specific chapter talked about the shift in literacy teaching in English Language Arts, where traditionally classrooms focused on functional, cultural and progressive literacy ideologies. Functional meaning giving the students skills to be an active participant in society, cultural literacy including teaching the morals and values of classic literature and progressive meaning students and teachers working together to meet the needs/interests of the student and developing a vocabulary with in it. These are all really important features, but the author wanted to emphasize the importance of going beyond these three and including “critical literacy”, which is looking at and critiquing power structures in language use. This point is very important and should be closely examined. In our KSP classes, we’ve discussed the importance of helping the students self-motivate and regulate their own goals in order to succeed. Critical literacy is very similar in the fact that the author emphasizes wanting to put the student in charge of their own literacy learning.
The English Language Arts teacher needs to be the guide in teaching students skills of how to read, comprehending and summarizing material. Students need to be able to take the skills learned and generalize the information with the world around them. Teachers need to expose their students to a variety of texts and genres so students are able to comprehend every type of material. Literacy touches every content area and should also be incorporated into every content area. The chapter talks about how literacy is participating in “communicative acts” and it is our job as teachers to teach those acts in every content area. Specifically in the English language arts, this means different information for different ages. For young learners, this is about teaching phonology, vocabulary, sentence structures, early comprehension skills and text features. For older learners (depending on their level of proficiency) this could mean those same skills, or go diving deeper into essay writing, speech giving or critically debating a topic. Through progressive literacy, students are able to read and present about topics that are interesting to them, instantly creating the activity to becoming more engaging.
Having strong literacy skills is crucial to successfully engage in our society. From an early age, teachers need to emphasize the importance of creating those skills so students have background knowledge and schema to build from in their later years. Specifically in the English Language Arts classroom this means incorporating writing, speaking, listening and reading into the everyday curriculum