Chapter One: Literacy Matters

Before Reading:
1. Write an autobiographical reflection in which you recall middle and high school
teachers (no names used) whom you believe were effective and/or ineffective. What
strategies did the teachers use that engaged or disengaged students? Following the
written assignment, divide a chart into two columns: Effective Strategies and
Ineffective Strategies
When I look back on my middle school and high school years there are few teachers that
stand out either for the right or wrong reasons. The first teacher that stands out is my
Sophomore year World History teacher. He is an inspiration to me and a great influence in
my quest to become a teacher. He taught through a lot of lecture, but we had projects
throughout the year where we got the opportunity to research and present our information to
the class breaking up the lecture routine. Before each test we had a review session where we
broke up into groups and challenged the other group with questions and he mainly let us run
it. One of the most exciting parts was our mock United Nations summit following our World
War I unit where each group of students took on the role of a different country and gave our
demands to the whole group and we each voted. Through that mock summit we were able to
think beyond the facts and think more critically. It really helped us to understand the end of
WW1. Another reason he stands out is because in April of my sophomore year, the
Columbine school shooting happened. He is the only teacher I remember that took time, an
entire period, to discuss what happened. It was such a scary time for students and I felt he
really cared. He also knew I had just moved from Colorado (I didn’t attend Columbine) and
he took an extra concern for my feelings. Most of the ineffective teachers I had were math
teachers. I struggled with math and most of the teachers I had weren’t concerned with
students like me. My graduating class was the test class for the AIMS testing, so we were
taught to pass. They rarely took the time to apply math in the real world so since I would
never consider a career related to math, I never saw how anything beyond basic arithmetic
and geometry would apply to me. I had one math teacher in 6th grade that taught a unit on the
stock market and that was the only time until my College Mathematics course that I could
connect any real-world applications.

Effective Strategies Ineffective Strategies

Passionate about content area Lecture only
Knowledge of content area No real-life applications
Review strategies No discussion or activities
Projects and student led teaching opportunities Teaching only to pass a test
Genuine care for students
Respectful
Observation and active listening

Wiens RDG 323 Fall 2018 Digital Journal

 2. What is content or disciplinary literacy? Why is it important that content teachers
integrate effective reading, writing, thinking, and communicating strategies in the
classroom?
Content literacy is counting upon prior knowledge to learn a subject such as reading, writing,
and study skills. Disciplinary literacy is the ability to develop higher level thinking about a
content and therefore think more critically about it. It is important to integrate effective
strategies because students need to learn to think for themselves and develop their own ideas
instead of just relying on the teacher for answers.

3. Why are you taking this course? What goals do you have for the class, in order to
have a positive experience this semester?
I am taking this course because I want to learn the best strategies and techniques to set my
future students up for success when I am teaching my content area of history. I think that history
is very important and is so often overlooked because of high stakes testing. Students learn how to
take their test but often times do not know or are not given the opportunity to read, research, and
critically think about various forms of historical texts.

4. Work in a small group to complete the following anticipation guide:

True Statement False

Reading instruction in False because as content area

middle and secondary
schools is unnecessary.
teachers it is still our
responsibility to guide
learning. Many students may
not be able to decipher
historical writing (my content
area) so it is our responsibility
as their teacher to help them
understand.

Along with supplemental Content area teachers

materials, students should be should expect students to
reading the textbook (as read their textbooks.
assigned) to guide their own
learning.

True because that is our main The primary role of the

purpose. However, educators content area teacher is to

Wiens RDG 323 Fall 2018 Digital Journal

 take on many other roles in teach subject matter.
the classroom. For example, it
is important for the teacher to
acknowledge students
struggling with literacy and
provide support.

While Reading

1. Read pages 10 - 18. Define the following terms: content literacy,

disciplinary literacy, new literacies. What are the similarities and
differences between these terms?
Content literacy is previous knowledge used to study, research, read, and write about a content
area. Disciplinary literacy is using critical inquiry and thinking to learn about a content like an
expert would, to look at the bigger picture and make connections and develop ideas to learn
about it. New literacies are the multitude of digital technologies that support students learning in
a content area. Many students today are familiar with social networking but still need to be
taught how to navigate relevant and appropriate new literacies. All of these literacies are
important when teaching and learning a content area but are different because disciplinary
literacy requires deeper thought and new literacies require higher skills compared to the content
literacy skills students already know.

2. Two Column Notes

Read pages 18 - 23. Use the two column note sheet to keep track of 3-4
essential ideas from the chapter. In the first column record a quote or direct
phrases from the text in the second column record your personal response

What the Text Says Why it Matters

Content literacy practices do not diminish the
teacher’s role as a subject matter specialist.
Instead, reading is a tool students use to
construct, clarify, and extend meaning in a
given discipline.
I like this statement because I think as content
area teachers, many feel like it’s not their
concern to teach reading strategies. For
example, I used to believe teaching history
was teaching events and dates and relied on
the student’s memorization. However,
students need to have solid literacy skills to
think deeper and more critically about subject
matter.

Wiens RDG 323 Fall 2018 Digital Journal

 When students lack decoding and fluency
skills, the act of reading no longer becomes
automatic…They spend so much time and
attention on trying to “say the words” that
comprehension suffers and, as a result, the
reading process breaks down for them
This is important for educators to understand
especially as content areas become more
defined and separate as the students get older.
If a student struggles with reading, they will
most likely struggle with content and is we
don’t support those students, we’ve failed
them by not setting them up for success.

How teachers adapt instructional strategies to
meet the conceptual demands and peculiarities
of their disciplines will be the difference-
maker in the literate lives of their students.
This this is an impactful statement because it
is the educator’s responsibility, not the
students, to be flexible and to accommodate
all learning styles by using different strategies
to ensure their students have the resources for
success.

2. Reread the paragraph on page 21: A Plan for the Improvement of English
Spelling. Describe some of the strategies you used to read this paragraph.
How would both excellent readers and striving readers each attempt to
comprehend this type of academic text?
I first scanned the text seeing it was a short read and noticed it has been attributed to Mark Twain
so it may use older words I’m not familiar with. As the spelling started to change I relied on prior
knowledge of letter sounds to decipher some words quickly. I predicted the spelling of words
would change and anticipated that I might struggle with the end. Towards the end I had to slow
down and study the word and go back to earlier parts of the text that may explain why the word
was spelled the way it was. I think excellent and striving readers would need to use the same
strategies to comprehend this text because in the end of the text, even decoding and fluency skills
did not help without prior knowledge from the beginning of the text with what letters were
changing.

After Reading (To be done after Wednesday’s class)

Place yourself in the role of a staff developer in your school. Write an email
(roughly three paragraphs) to teachers, using your powers of persuasion,
explaining the need for incorporating literacy instruction to content area
classrooms. Do your best to convince your readers that content area teachers
need to go beyond assigning and telling.

Wiens RDG 323 Fall 2018 Digital Journal

Dear Content Area Teachers,
Some new studies on content literacy have come to our attention that have led us to the
conclusion that we all need to be incorporating literacy instruction in our classrooms. We are all
here for the same goal and that is our student’s success and their success is directly related to our
ability to teach them effectively.
We all are aware that reading and writing skills are essential for education as well as
daily lives, but we need literacy instruction in the classroom to help students problem solve and
critically think about the content area. One study by The Educational testing Service called How
Teaching Matters found that students that went beyond reading and writing and were engaged in
hands on activities and had higher level thinking assignments outscored their peers by 70% of a
grade in Math and 40% in Science (Vaca, Vaca, Mraz, pg. 4). Since our school’s funding and
success is unfortunately weighed heavily on test scores, literacy instruction in their content areas
will undoubtedly show improvement on our test scores in STEM areas.
Additionally, we all have students in our classrooms that struggle with decoding and
fluency. Without literacy instruction in the classroom we are failing those students. It is
imperative that each student is given literacy instruction to better understand the various
resources associated with each content area. Students of history need to learn how to read and
understand a historical piece just as science students need to learn how to read data and so on.
These literacy skills can not only fall upon ELA and reading specialists. As authorities in our
content area, it is our responsibility to ensure our students can formulate higher level thinking
and connections by giving them the literacy tools to do so.
We also need to keep in mind that new literacies are constantly expanding, and we need
to instruct our students how to use these literacies effectively. Many kids in this age are familiar
with social media and gaming but they need to be taught how to use digital resources to improve
their learning and support them in the future.
It is up to all of us to take responsibility for our student’s success and literacy instruction
is another tool for us to use. Please consider this suggestion carefully and do not hesitate to reach
out with any questions or concerns.

Regards,
Libby Murray

Wiens RDG 323 Fall 2018 Digital Journal