| Robin Mashburn

Robin Mashburn
Literacy Project Reflection
EDUC 343 Content Area Literacy
Dr. Cozens
November 25, 2014

| Robin Mashburn

Quality Indicator 5. The pre-service teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to engage
students development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
Performance Indicators: The pre-service teacher
1.2.5.1 selects alternative strategies, materials, and technology to achieve multiple
instructional purposes and to meet student needs.
1.2.5.2 engages students in active learning that promotes the development of
critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities.

Quality Indicator 5 states that the pre-service teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to
encourage students development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance
capabilities. In creating my Literacy Project, I acquired the skills necessary to teach literacy
through content areas, while using the strategies and skills needed for students to reach mastery.
In building this project, I created many artifacts that demonstrate knowledge of content, and
literacy skills designed to develop critical thinking, problem solving, and performance
capabilities in students.

This artifact represents and incorporates many different theorists throughout. For
example, during the performance task I have the students work in groups, participate in group
discussion, and work together to fill out a Venn diagram of the article they are reading.
According to Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development, interaction with peers is an effective
way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning
exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers - within the
zone of proximal development.

| Robin Mashburn

By creating a vocabulary self-awareness chart students self-assess how well they

understand key concepts in the text. In this task students are asked to rank a word on how well
they understand a word by indicating if they can provide an example of the word in a sentence, if
they can provide a definition, and if they are unfamiliar with the word. This tasks represents J.S.
Burners theory that students learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas
or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.

The content text set lists all of the sources that are used in the individual projects. The
content text set has a variety of different types of sources that include fiction, non-fiction, picture
books, newspaper and magazine articles, websites, and videos. By having a variety of different
types of sources for the students to use I am able to touch on the different learning styles of my
students. Those who may have difficulty reading or who are ELL students can use the picture
books to help comprehension of the content. I developed a vocabulary word set and vocabulary
self-awareness chart that can be used before and after reading about the First Amendment to
check for background knowledge and then to check for understanding. Both of these activates
help develop vocabulary that is necessary for students to understand what they are learning about
a content. Engaging students in critical thinking and problem solving are used with both of these
tasks. The vocabulary words are tier 3 words and being able to get a deeper understanding of
them will help the students get a full comprehension of the text they will be reading. The
development of the QAR (Question Answer Relationship) teaches students how to ask questions
about their reading and where to find the answers to them and to think about the text they are
reading and beyond it too. It inspires them to think creatively and work cooperatively while
challenging them to use higher-level thinking skills. The performance task gives the students
many tools to use for digging deeper into the text they are reading and getting deep

| Robin Mashburn

comprehension of the text. Being able to take the information that they are reading and transfer
this information into a task that is more than just answering questions provides students a chance
to use their performance skills. To become successful at reading comprehension, students must
employ three strategies stated by Paris, Wasik & Turner. These strategies include building
metacognitive awareness by teaching students what to do before, during, and after reading,
developing the ability to formulate questions during reading, and teachers providing intentional
instruction in using these strategies to support student comprehension. I believe that all of the
tasks in this literacy project do all of these. All of the tasks that the students do will help them
develop the problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, and performance skills they need to be
successful students. This experience has given me great insight on what tools are critical for
students to learn so that they can get better comprehension of a text they are reading.

By creating this project I have learned that I can engage students in both content
and literacy instruction at the same time. Not only can I teach my students the content necessary
for their learning development, I can teach literacy skills through the content reading as well.
History, math, and science all have their own type of writing that can be difficult for students to
understand because the words used are not words they are familiar with. Through small tasks
such as the ones used in this project students can see how they can transfer the skills used
through literacy instruction into their content area reading to acquire deeper comprehension of
the martial and realize they are reading more effectively. This enhances their skill sets in both
literacy and content while allowing the time needed in a very busy schedule to teach everything
that is required by the standards.