Both of my subject areas English and History have a large emphasis on literacy. At the beginning of the semester I wondered what I would learn that I had not learned before. Now that the semester is drawing to a close I have discovered that I have gained not only a refresher on the types of literacy I need to be incorporating into my classroom but specific ways that I can do so.
The greatest lesson that I have learned this semester is that literacy is not limited to the English classroom. There is literacy in math, science, art, music, and health. There are also ways that I can incorporate math or science literacy into the English classroom. I especially enjoyed the lesson on writing instruction where we were assigned to build our own bridges and then write a proposal based on that experience. I feel that incorporating a lesson like this would help students see that reading and writing are important no matter what your interests are more than just telling them or having them talk to someone in the profession. I learned so much from students in other disciplines and their experiences in literacy. I hope that I will be able to develop lessons and projects with teachers outside of my discipline to encourage literacy.
To encourage students to pursue literacy in their interests I would provide students with a classroom library stocked with more than just English or History books. I really enjoyed the day we passed around the books from all the different subject areas. There were many that caught my eye as books I wanted to read or could even incorporate into lessons. I feel that to reach this goal requires two types of knowledge. First, a knowledge of a variety of books, and second, a knowledge of students and their interests. It is more effective to know a students is interested in art and to recommend a book about Van Gogh than it is to tell students to go find books that interest them. When students see that we value many different types of learning they will be more likely to want to learn.
This class opened my eyes to the many diverse ways we can help students to develop literacy.
I was like you and thought that literacy was mainly meant for an English classroom, but after this class I can see how much it can apply to all content areas. I really liked the idea of having a classroom library that are not just books about one specific content area, but that span all content areas! I really think that this would be really helpful and I want to use it! I also enjoyed the day we passed around books and was finding myself interested in reading a lot of them. I wonder if an activity like this would be helpful in teaching?! Thanks for the post and your thoughts on the class! I really enjoyed learning from everyone else as well!
ReplyDeleteI loved several things in this blog post: the importance of cross-curricular content when teaching students, a classroom library that includes more than just your content area, and all the areas of literacy we can incorporate our future classrooms. I think the highlight of this course for me was seeing how literacy factors into other disciplines besides English-so I liked that you provided specific examples from our own class that Amy modeled (the bridges/writing).
ReplyDeleteI began the semester much like you Cami. I thought literacy was reading and writing and, well, I am pretty sure that I know how to do that. But as we went along I found different forms of literacy that I had already been doing and planning, but that I had not linked with literacy. I also like the idea of bringing other subjects into history. I think that is what makes history so great! You can basically incorporate a lot of different disciplines into it. Hopefully I can get my students to be as excited about literacy as I am!
ReplyDeleteI came into the class thinking similar to you.I thought that literacy, comprehension, vocabulary were all taught in English and that it didn't really relate to my subject content area of math. But like you I learned that vocab, reading,are involved in all content areas and that I should/could use them in my classroom. Before this class I thought that writing should be confined to English classrooms, but I think that writing in any subject area, teaches a teacher what students know more than having them solve a problem. By having students write I feel like I can incorporate English into my classroom. So I really like that you want to incorporate other subjects into your classroom, I think that is great.
ReplyDeleteHi Cami,
ReplyDeleteWith the new Common Core Standards emphasizing literacy across the content areas, I find that English teachers are often the ones who are expected to spearhead the school's professional development on literacy across the content area. I am glad you had the opportunity to talk with teachers from other majors in this course so you could see how they think about literacy; I think those cross-disciplinary connections could be helpful if/when your principal calls you on to teach about literacy to other content areas. Thanks for the semester!
Cami,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me about the bridge activity! I really liked that lesson and I had forgotten about it. I also think that collaboration between the different content areas was a really important lesson of this semester. You are wise!