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.
The chapter I decided to read and summarize is Chapter 9 Learning with Texts in the Arts. This chapter focuses on two arts music and visual arts. I choose this chapter because it related to my content area dance. This chapter has four main points. First, the best practice to learning literacy in the arts is through constructivism. Students building their own of literacy through decision-making and solving real life issues, which is found and supported in the National Standards. For example in music listening literacies is analyzing uses of elements of music, of diverse genres, and cultures, describing specific music events, and using appropriate terminology. I saw listening literacy used in improvisation, the book uses an example of jazz ensemble engaging in spontaneous responses or conversations. Students in this class have to make decisions quickly, listen to what is going on around them and respond appropriately. There is a lot of decision making and problem solving going on during this activity.
ReplyDeleteImprovising can also be used in dance. For example, I might ask a dancer to improvise different levels and tempos while going across the floor. I’m asking them to show me the different levels and tempos and at the same time differentiate the differences their movement in a short amount of time. The dancers then are making decisions on how they will show this movement.
The next main point is both music and visual arts encourage higher order of thinking in daily instruction. For example in visual arts, students are asked to investigate real life problems and use higher order reasoning skills to solve them. When critiquing a work, students will employ thinking skills like analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, assessing and describing.
I had to love this example because I just used this in class! I know I have used this example before as well. But when teaching high school students I asked them to watch two different choreographers and their artistic style. Students then filled out a worksheet to describe, analyze, interrupt, and evaluate the choreographic works. They also had to justify their answers. Where did they see a certain movement or interruption of a feeling or memory? This requires students to have a higher order of thinking.
Third, modeling is clearly advocated across the arts disciplines. In music, students will use their listening literacies and memorization to mimic or repeat what they heard from the instructor. Instructors will also model how to handle and play an instrument.
I can relate to this main point dance is all about modeling. Showing the students what I am looking for is one way for them to read my body language. Students have to read bodies all day long in dance. With modeling I can show the students exactly what I am looking for. I feel this is important in technique classes. In a ballet class, students can only move in certain ways and in order to correct a student I might need to model or have another student model the correct form or position.
Finally, the arts disciplines can use both print and non-print texts in meaningful ways. Music texts might include musical scores, a conductor, sounds, and symbols, music theory texts, professional journal articles, method books, and fingering charts.
Visual arts might include painting, graphic design, piece of pottery, principles and history of design or technical books as a resource for students to learn how to do specific task. As you can see there are print and non-print sources being used in the arts.
For dance, I would use professional journal articles, history books, technique books, the dancing body, sounds, symbols, and dance elements. All different types of texts used in dance.
PART TWO ... This is the rest of what I wrote but the posting wouldn't let me post it!
DeleteAnother part of the chapter I enjoyed was the break down of music texts and literacies as indicated by the National Standards for Arts Education. I know the standards are what we are supposed to follow and make sure our students understand, know and be able to do. So, this made my standards clear in the sense of how literacy is present in dance. For example, music standard is composing and arranging music within specific guidelines. Text is vocal and instrumental musical scores. Literacy is creating -composing and arranging music using the elements of music for expressive for expressive effect, unity, and variety, etc. This tool will come in handy when breaking down my standards and figuring out the literacies in dance.
The chapter also broke down discipline-specific arts knowledge, skills and strategies. For example in visual arts one specific skill would be elements of design. Purpose is to acquire the language of visual arts. Texts used or created are elements of design, artworks, media and tools. Literacy enacted is creating, problem solving and reflecting. Again, I liked this breakdown because I was having trouble with my syntax and discourse and how the literacy is being taught when I am teaching dance. This gives me a starting point to look onto when putting my edTPA together.
Overall, this chapter discusses the importance of the arts and implements them to be valued. The arts can develop ways of thinking not commonly taught by other disciplines (e.g. reflecting, making judgments, using visual-spatial literacies, and persisting in solving problems.)
Thanks for helping us understand this chapter, Kaitlin. It seems like one of the largest points was using constructivism within the arts (and using literacy) which is great because I remember many of saying during our theories course that constructivism made a lot of sense. You write about using "real life" things that students can connect too; a large component of constructivism, and also a strategy that has been repeated to us multiple times throughout our KSP coursework. In one of my English class field experiences, we taught a lesson using a book that compared "old school" English -lit poetry to current rap songs. SO students got a better understanding of Shakespeare by applying it through something they already knew and were interested in. It was a really neat way to do it!
DeleteAnother point your chapter addressed was the value of both print and non print texts. Especially in areas like art where printed texts aren't quite as common, it is important that we can find literacy in everything we do still-- and you did a great job explaining that for us in the Arts world! Through literacy, our students will gain so many important skills you mention, like decision making, critical thinking, and analyzing.
Kaitlin,
DeleteI think you did a great job of explaining this chapter to us while giving a lot of good examples from your own experiences to help us more clearly understand what the chapter was about. I liked how you pointed out the best way to learn literacy in the arts is through constructivism. I think this is the same in physical education. The students can have ideas or movements explained to them and demonstrated, but they are going to learn best when they get the chance to attempt movements and learn by actually doing. Developing a higher level of thinking by observing and critiquing another classmate is another concept that is done in physical education. Have you ever recorded one of your dancers and then had them critique him or herself? This is something my cooperating teacher does at times and it is also something that we did while coaching football because we can continue to tell a kid what they are doing and try to fix it but sometimes they don't think they are doing it incorrectly so when they are shown himself on film, the lightbulb goes off for them and progress can be made.
Kat, your emphasis on constructivism is something we can all take away from you post. No matter our discipline, the content becomes more meaningful when students are allowed to create their own understandings of the material. I am also struck by the way you can incorporate learning by doing. This can be much more abstract in the other disciplines, but effective for comprehension.
DeleteI chose to read about literacy in the science fields. We have briefly read about this in other readings but if students approach science with the same reading techniques as other disciplines, they are not likely to do very well. Science differs greatly from other disciplines and even amongst the various science fields; reading strategies vary to the point different techniques are needed to understand the material. An example of this is a chemist relying on lab experiments and chemical structures engages in very different tasks to create new knowledge than a biologist, who may rely on observation of natural phenomenon. To make up for students struggling with the structure and what information to pay attention to or how to pay attention to it, teachers often end up giving up on the text and instead explain the text to the students orally while they take notes. This can present a problem because when students aren’t taught how to read these written materials, they don’t get any better at reading science. There is actually research that shows text is more likely than other kinds of materials to teach students in a way that overcomes misconceptions. Text allows the student to read about the misconception and facts that explain why it is incorrect. There is also research that shows when students discuss information and have hands on activities, they are still at a disadvantage when you compare that to students who read information first or saw a demonstration and then read about it. The reading allows the students to have background information on the topic first or used as a tool to reinforce what they did during an activity.
ReplyDeleteWhen literacy is broken up into four elements: word knowledge (vocabulary), fluency, comprehension, and writing, the problems in the science field can be explained more clearly. Vocabulary is a challenge because the terms need to be learned on the surface level as well as in depth. The words often have different meanings, including general ones that were commonly understood. An example of this is “to evaporate”, which has a general meaning of to disappear. However, in regards to a chemical meaning, it means “to change or cause to change from a liquid or solid state to a vapor.” Technical terms are also made up of various prefixes, suffixes, and roots that carry independent meaning.
When dealing with comprehension, vocabulary obviously plays a role, as does the ability to think about the concepts in the various forms such as graphic (pictorial), textual, and in formulas. A big problem with fluency is knowing how and when to move from text to graphic to formula to text. Students don’t always read text and graphic information when both are needed for optimal understanding. Symbols within formulas also present problems because they are looked at individually or out of order if parenthesis are involved, in which those symbols should be read first.
Writing becomes difficult when students struggle with the first three aspects I summarized for you. They struggle to explain principles and include the various representations such as graphs, charts, or equations. Descriptions aren’t always precise by the students which presents a problem in a discipline where “getting in the ballpark is not tolerated.”
PART 2:
DeleteScientists have unique ways of representing the world, and these translate to unique discourse practices, which cause unique challenges for the students. Scientists use passive voice and nominalization as discourse practices. They will say things like “The result was that…” rather than “I found…” Verbs are also switched to nouns such as dissolve, explaining the action in a single occurrence, to dissolution, indicating a generalized process.
Reading strategies are often taught in a general form for teachers, which makes it unlikely science teachers will adopt the strategy because of the time it will take them to write new lessons using these strategies. Teaching the strategies takes time, and science teachers have to teach science, not reading. This is saying that the science teachers believe the strategies aren’t helping the students understand the science. It is recommended that the science and reading teachers work together with this issue to transfer the science material into the reading strategies.
To help teach vocabulary, one recommendation is to use a notebook with a whole page for each word, divided into sex sections for the scientific definition, the general definition (if there is one), an explanation of the process in which the term is involved, a diagram or picture illustrating the process, a formula or numeric representation of the word (if applicable), and related words. This is also a strategy to help with comprehension.
Chris,
DeleteYou made great points in the beginning about how science teachers give up explaining the material and just require students to take notes. This teaching method does not work if students do not understand what they are reading! So important! I felt this way in school and it is good we are making this connection early in our teaching careers!
Another major point you made was Science Teachers have to teach science not reading. That science teachers may need to collaborate with a reading teacher to help guide students through this language. Comprehension of the material! You have great example of how this could work! Which would make sense to me! Thank you for helping us understand this chapter! Great job!
Your chapter brings up a lot of points of challenges we have discussed in class also. I can totally relate to the comments made about science material being especially difficult to comprehend and am guilty of often skipping often graphs/charts/organizers in science books.
DeleteIt makes sense to break the literacy material into 4 elements and will make much stronger readers out of students if teachers take the time to explain science texts in this manner. This especially holds true for vocabulary, where students may be familiar with different definitions of the word. I imagine that assessing prior knowledge is extremely important here.
Chris, you raise several points that would be useful in lesson planning for any discipline. Reading first and then experiencing is a strong way to build student understanding. My only concern is how we guide students through this process. Do we have the material read at home and review it in class, or read in class and send work home? Also, the four elements of literacy are useful for helping students understand text. We can use these points to allow students to use the text to create meaning.
DeleteAs you may have been able to surmise, I decided to read the chapter on history literacy. Surprise, I know. I have had experience reading the author, Van Sledright, in our methods class and have some strong opinions about his ideas on history education. I will do my best to keep those emotions from what I hope will be an enlightening couple minutes.
ReplyDeleteFor Van Sledright, reading in history is all about complexity and intertextuality. He presents a case study of two students learning about the Boston Massacre. The students are presented with four documents that recount the Boston Massacre from four different perspectives, a textbook, British Captain, and two observers who saw it differently. Van Sledright goes on to discuss the reactions of the two students to the dissonance of views. Brad, an affluent white male, reads the textbook account and assumes that it must be the most accurate because of the way it speaks with omniscience and authority. Ayesha, a lower class black female, wants to use all of the texts when making a judgement about what happened in Boston. History is about using the primary documents that contain a great deal of noise and sifting through it to come to a reasoned idea of what occurred. Ayesha does this much more naturally than does Brad, and Van Sledright attempts to decipher why they do this using expert content awareness and student context.
He introduces the idea of separating self from history when reading documents by equating these perspectives to a single text and many texts respectively. While this is a very rudimentary way to approach history, it is effective for the attentive reader. According to Van Sledright, an expert in historical thinking uses texts to gain perspective on a given topic. The text itself is not an authoritative source, but rather a means to more fully comprehending a particular issue. Historical thinkers are adept at managing intertextual noise and using varied criteria to decide what is of use to the task at hand. Interestingly, he does not believe that textbook style background knowledge is necessary for true historical understanding, a point I will address later. Finally, historical readers take the author's view point into account when analyzing a source.
While Van Sledright believes that is how an expert historical thinker readers, the two students he uses as examples are novices and must not be held accountable for their lack of historical reading skills. Brad believes that the textbook account is the most reliable because of its authority. There is good reason for this way of reading, as he was taught to read the textbook as truth in the earlier parts of his education. Ayesha reads all of the texts and assumes that because they are not all alike, they all must bring something unique to the topic. She reads much more like a historical thinker due to the way she handles the cognitive dissonance that occurs when these differing texts are read. He uses the student's socioeconomic status and race to account for these differences and I do have problems with the way he uses these factors to answer why they read the way they do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that students read texts and try to assimilate them into their own ideas of what is true, but it is something completely different to say that their demographics shape their ability to read critically, which is what historical reading is. Does Brad read the textbook and assume its authority because he is an affluent white male or because that is how he was taught to read a textbook? Conversely, does Ayesha deal with intertextual noise better because she wants to find an alternative to the textbook because she is unhappy with it? His judgement about demographics shaping how students read is predicated on the topic having previous significance to the student. In my short time in the classroom, I have found that students are generally open to learning new things, but these topics largely have no predisposed relevance to the student in terms of defining who they are. When the student is separated from the subject by 250 and thousands of miles, this assumption is faulty.
Van Sledright also assumes broad based historical knowledge is not essential for historical thinking. I would agree with him on this point but question the validity of such ideas in the classroom. Our goal is to strike a balance between thinking like a historian and understanding what happened and how to use these facts to inform knowledge about the present. In my previous experience with Van Sledright, this quibble was at the heart of the discussion. We simply do not have the time to embark on inquiry based investigations and fulfill the content standards we are tasked with. This type of literacy education also lends itself to the American perspective, and even then is limited to certain topics.
Historical literacy is a process of consuming texts and binding them together intertextually to form unified idea about the past. This is a complex process and takes a considerable amount of effort on the part of the student and the teacher. It also means that the teacher's job is to help students unlearn a reading technique that has been ingrained since elementary school.
Joey,
DeleteThank you for your explanation on this chapter. It is very complex! I think you made a valid point that whatever we teach needs to have relevance with our students. There needs to be a connection and not a separation! I feel this will be a challenge for any teacher and you seem to have an awareness of this regarding teaching historical literacy! Great job!
You make a lot of great arguments that can be carried over into the English/Language Arts field as well. Students literacy is not only developed by the way that has been taught to them, but also because of what social experience they have had up until that point. We must teach students to become multi literate and bind these together to create a uniformed idea- as you noted. I love the quote you mentioned, "Our goal is to strike a balance between thinking like a historian and understanding what happened and how to use these facts to inform knowledge about the present" as again I can see how that can be applied in contexts outside of history as well. This relates to the English/LA chapter in that it is the job of teachers to challenge students to push further an examine what this text means to the world around them.
DeleteJoey,
DeleteYou did a very nice job of explaining this chapter while also including your own thinking on the topic. Very well done on your part to give your slight opinion and back that up with a "why" you think that way. I have to agree with you on thinking it is a little foolish to say a student's demographics shapes their ability to read critically. It all depends on the previous experiences a child has had on a certain topic, just like you pointed out.
Chris, I think he generalized and made conclusions based on stereotypes. My experience in the classroom has been the opposite of the one he presented, but I am sure that there is a spectrum of reading styles in all demographics. The analysis I did for this summary is what I learned to do studying history, and I think it irresponsible to make conjectures like he does based on anecdotes.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteok, group I think I finally got this to work. This is the same posting I sent you in the email...
ReplyDeleteI chose to analyze the chapter regarding learning with text in English/Language Arts. The chapter as a whole addresses the struggle of duality presented in this content area: trying to teach literacy through teaching literacy. While other content areas strive to include literacy as well, the authors write, “We are leaning to read and write while we are learning to read and write in the service of academic goals in the study of English; we build the plane while flying.” The chapter also addresses the changing definition of literature and the world our students our growing up in—encouraging teachers to not only teach understanding literature, create written composition, and design a new media context, but also to engage in a socially constructed activity. An example was given in the beginning of the chapter and followed throughout of a teacher who created a lesson plan for Of Mice and Men in her classroom. While the teacher did a wonderful job scaffolding the unit, the authors encouraged the need to rethink instruction in light of significant shifts in ways we conceive literacy. While a broad definition of literacy may be the ways in which we understand how we understand how to participate in communicative acts, it now also includes interpreting multiple message streams, managing a great deal of information, and producing compositions that include textual, audio, and visual components. While the teacher in the example was applauded for including the film version of Of Mice and Men, she could have pushed the students even further by asking them what they liked about it or not and why, comparing it to another text or media form, or being asked to create their own projects based on interests and experiences.
pt 2:
ReplyDeleteFour types of literacy are identified in this chapter: functional, cultural, progressive, and critical. While the first three used to be acceptable in the world of literacy in English/Language Arts, they are now called into question and labeled as stagnant. Our book explains, “Readers and writers are not encouraged to go beyond, to apply these literary skills in other situations, or critique dominant discourses of power.” A critical literacy is now encouraged, which invites students to read the world and the word, by using dialogue to engage texts and discourses inside and outside the classroom. While I was attending Gustavus for my Undergraduate degree, the public speaker class was reinvented around critical literacy. Students are asked to research an issue they are concerned about or may have encountered. The entire semester is focused on one project in which students are asked to complete a civic duty and improve the world in some way. Instead of giving informative and persuasive speeches on random topics, in speech is designed around the student’s project topic. Many changes around campus have been made because of this class, though projects have spanned to global levels. The professors wanted to get students even more involved and engaged than the typical public speaking class—this is a true example of critical literacy.
The authors of the text are aware that many challenges will exist when trying to implement a new method into the classroom. They note “we need to teach students how to write, not just assign them writing.” An integration of literacy skills and the subject of English is demonstrated in this chapter through a new way to design the Of Mice and Men unit. Before reading the teacher will remind students of the importance of writing and ask them of works that are particularly important to them. While scaffolding will still take place, more emphasis will be placed on the connection with the student than the text itself. For example, instead of teaching the students about the great depression, they may ask students about themes of friendship and responsibility; urging students to think about who they depend on and who they feel responsible for. During reading students may be directed to keep a response log where they pause to record their thoughts and feelings about the text and pose any questions they might have about it. I like the idea of pairing the book with a young adult novel of similar themes as well. Assessments need to be reconsidered as well for when students have completed reading. They should be asked to go beyond the text and make extensions known as “dynamic readings.” The students should be allowed to incorporate multiple genres, purposes, and audiences as well as multiple representations of literacy such as writing, speaking, and performance. The chapter concludes by saying, “As we consider the many ways in which we can take what we are doing in our classrooms, we truly have the possibility of creating students who are literate in more ways than just understanding how to answer comprehension questions or mimic a formulaic essay. Instead, they can engage in substantive conversations, offer a critical perspective, and produce meaningful conversation.”
Keenie,
DeleteI'm happy google docs finally worked for you! Anyway, my favorite point you made was this ,,,,The chapter also addresses the changing definition of literature and the world our students our growing up in—encouraging teachers to not only teach understanding literature, create written composition, and design a new media context, but also to engage in a socially constructed activity!!!! This is so huge and constantly changing and making new challenges for you as a teacher! I mean the internet and non-print texts changed our teaching world! Great point!
Another great point you made is students should be allowed to incorporate multiple genres, purposes, and audiences as well as multiple representations of literacy such as writing, speaking, and performance! LOVE IT!!! Of course I go for performance but seriously we all need to think outside of the box when teaching now-a-days! Great job on this chapter! Thank you for sharing!
Keenie,
DeleteI first want to agree with Kaitlin about her favorite part. I noticed that also and was going to point out how much things have changed for teachers and students in recent years. It is crazy how different things are because of technology! I really thought your project ideas you had to do at Gustavus sounded very interesting and a great way to make the class relevant to you rather than giving a lot of speeches on random topics. Do you have any examples of projects students have done since you said campus has changed a little bit due to some of the projects? Care to share what yours was?
Keenie, our disciplines definitely share commonalities of literacy as the ability to think critically about a text, among other things. You described literacy as I know it outside of our teaching program, not coincidentally because language arts is the traditional form of literacy instruction. I have to agree with your point about applying literacy you described using the Public Discourse class. Application is a very meaningful way to help students learn. Do you have ideas about how to apply literacy in every day life for your future classes?
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