There has been some contention on the idea that teachers of all content areas must teach reading. As an English/Language Arts teacher, I know that the expectation is for our department to do the heavy lifting when it comes to literacy instruction. However, as our students emerge from our schools to a drastically different world than we were exposed to as students, it is incumbent for educators to rally together and find new ways to increase attainment and the retention of new knowledge.
It has long been a belief of mine that textbooks aren't sufficient for building skill and understanding. If I could spend textbook money to give every kid a laptop and access to wireless high-speed internet, I would. Textbooks are helpful, of course, but we know they should not be the sole instructional tool. Furthermore, textbooks reinforce the concept of coverage. One might take the book and divide it by the units, divide the units by the number of days to spend on the unit, and assign those pages for homework each night. You mean last night's reading cut off in the middle of a paragraph? Oh well, at least we covered it! Wrong!
What a student needs is the exposure to a balance of reading. In my English 10 course, which focuses on American literature, my sophomores read a balance of fiction and nonfiction. In terms of nonfiction we read journal articles, online articles, newspaper archives, legal documents, editorials, and reviews...for each unit. I have structured the course by conceptual units. Immigration: we study The Crucible and the migration of many cultures to America through a research project on immigration and the American dream, students uncover facts about the world in which we live and why people still choose America as the place to be. The American Family: Death of A Salesman, family dynamics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and some classic American family sit-coms. Civil Rights: students select to read one of the following: Mississippi Trial 1955, The Color Purple, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. We operate in literature circles but in the midst of reading separate novels, we will read a balance of non-fiction and watch the film "Mississippi Burning." Finally, we spend a unit on Making it Big: Students read The Great Gatsby and a study of the 1920's along with the recent stories about big business and the bailouts of gigantic corporations and the housing crisis. My intention is to balance their literary diets through choice, fiction, nonfiction, levels of readability, and the old classics with a touch of some more recent works. So far, it has worked wonderfully.
I know what those who teach anything outside of English are likely saying, "Yeah but English is all about reading!" "I don't have time to read a novel in Algebra!" "Where do I find the time to pick up a short story in my Auto Mechanics course?" Believe me, I understand. Yet in my English class, I weave in history, economics, art, and math although I don't have a degree in any of those areas.
Literacy is more than just decoding. Literacy is the ability to understand. Literacy is the ability to apply what you understand. You have technical writing, instruction manuals, and a plethora of articles that could be tied to career and technical education. Music and art are about the aesthetic experience and the experience can be enhanced through sharing a review of the piece or a profile of the artist to understand why and how the creation is unique to that individual. Reading a science book is vastly different from reading a recipe. Reading a novel is nothing like reading a color wheel or a piece of music. Every content area has a need for literacy instruction. Good teachers model good reading and as we know, good readers excel in school.
I recommend the book Subjects Matter: Every Teacher's Guide to Content Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman. ISBN: 0-325-00595-8. This book has classroom reading strategies for all content areas and an excellent list of novels for the content areas. This book has not only enhanced my teaching but has allowed me to assist my colleagues in understanding some of the most effective reading strategies. Also on the list of good resources: I Don't Get It: Helping Students Understand What They Read by Judy Tilton Brunner. ISBN: 978-1-61048-003-1. A great resource for reading comprehension and vocabulary strategies that identify the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy for the activity.
Do you want to teach or do you want to cover the material? Do you want kids to fill out their homework, or do you want them to learn something. I choose teaching and learning every time.
No comments:
Post a Comment