Reading, Writing, and Science

I came to the conclusion today while reading about great strategies to improve the performance of underachieving adolescents* that I have some sort of block in my brain surrounding science and literacy. We have learned about so many great strategies in this class this month, and I am really excited about the possibilities of using them in my classroom. I want to make my science students better readers/writers in general, as well as better science readers/writers. And yet... Every time I read about something in the texts or hear about something in class, my first thought is: what a great idea for reading enrichment class. Not for my 4 sections of science, but for my lone reading enrichment class.

I'm not really sure what it is. I know that these strategies would work great for my kids in science, but I can never quite grasp how to utilize it. I believe this is the same for many science and math teachers. With all the content we need to teach, the basing of our testing around so many facts, and the way that we've been taught to learn science, we just can't make that final step to where we need to be in this world of 21st century literacy. I could say that writers need to include more examples from science and math classes (and I think they do), but in part it's me - us - just being stuck in how we were socialized to learn and teach our content.

The question I'm left with then is: how do I break free? Because I need to, and at the moment I just can't figure out how.

*(Yvette Jackson & Eric J. Cooper, "Building Academic Success with Underachieving Adolescents")

Podcast: Chew on This

Come view the podcast for The Science People on Chew on This.

Belated thoughts on podcasting below:

I really was impressed by what podcasting allows you to do. I really liked the idea of using it not necessarily to record the entire discussion but instead as a means for us to bring together our thoughts into one coherent whole and put them forth along with our ideas on "what now" for teachers and the book. I definitely think that - with my new (to me) classroom computers this year - I will be using podcasting as a means for my students to do what we did with our literature circle on Chew on This.

Of course, there are lots of other ways to use podcasting as well. Radio shows, audio newsletters, lab narratives, lecture notes for students who missed class, songs written by students about the material - the list goes on and on. I don't know that I'll get to all of them this year - trying to right off the bat would just be way too overwhelming - but I am excited and intrigued by all the possibilities.

Also, in EDTP 504 we made a podcast about podcasting - we brainstormed about some great ideas...and it is also quite humorous.

Chew on This

I am going to try to keep this short(ish), in contrast to my general verbosity.

I really enjoyed the book - I had a really hard time putting it down, and now that I've been done with it for almost a week, I still keep thinking about it. It just really resonated with me, and I was just disturbed by the pervasiveness of this issue. There are just so many problems with it all: marketing to kids, "Americanization" of the world, obesity, animal maltreatment, the economic exploitation of farmers/ranchers/etc, the pollutive effect of bringing food from so far away...

It came to my mind while perusing the "nature market" and organic fruit/veg section at the Kroger. I was looking at some organic cherries, and they'd been shipped all the way from California. Wasting of gas and the inevitable pollution even though they were organic. And who knows what the working conditions of the pickers were and how much the orchard owners made before selling to the company. Even the Stonyfield Farms yogurt that I bought (which is made back home in New Hampshire with no artificial anything) used up a lot of resources getting here to Kentucky...I know the 2-day trip well. Though their business practices look quite good, wouldn't it be better - more environmentally concious - to buy local yogurt?

But is there even local yogurt? And for what local stuff there is (Kroger had bread made in a local bakery)...what do we know about the ingredients they use? Where did their wheat come from?

How can we possibly get it right in a world taken over by corporations and monopolies?

"Of Times, Teens, and Books"

I have to say that by the time I got to the end of this chapter, I was so interested and enthralled in the multiple ideas and changes described that I'd completely forgotten what I'd just read in chapter five. We had already talked in class about graphic novels, and I read Maus (books one and two) when I myself was in middle school (in social studies class, actually, even with us using an interdisciplinary unit with english class).

The change in the way young adult literature is written is just so amazingly exciting. Multimodal, multigenre, multivoice - YA writers and the teachers that use these books are revolutionizing literature itself. We are on the way to throwing "the western canon" out on it head. While there are canonical books that I do believe are incredibly worthwhile reads - Catcher in the Rye and The Lord of the Flies are two - the heirarchy of literature was just as bad as any heirarchy. By devaluing certan types of literature we were devaluing certain parts of culture and certain people. We were saying to our kids that they weren't readers unless they read x, y, and z. What a way to turn kids off on reading.

With works like the ones Lesesne describes, we are catching our students right where they exist and making readers out of them (or reinforcing their existence as such). This is 21st century literacy, baby - there's more to it than dusty old books. That is great for everybody, not just for our kids.

***********

Additionally, I really love the idea of book playlists - not only using the author-provided ones but having kids create their own. The former enhances the process of reading, comprehension, and understanding for our students, but the latter requires that higher order thinking that is so important for our students' success. They have read the book, "read" the music they listen to, and then find a way to connect the two. A person has to develop a in-depth understanding of character/scene/event/etc and the music to do.

This whole idea brings to mind a really great piece of fiction I came across online. There was the text itself, but there were also images, video, and music. The multimodality really enhanced the final product.

The Science Group: Semantic Feature Analysis

What It Is:
Semantic feature analysis uses grids that examine essential vocabulary and features/ideas. The Terms are listed verticially and different features are listed horizontally. Students can use check marks or pluses and minuses to indicate which features apply to which terms. Because of this, semantic feature analysis is a strategy that you would often use when students have already had an introduction to the content and terminology. Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't situations where it couldn't be used as a sort of anticipatory activity.

Semantic Feature Analysis in Use (Our Example):
We examined the five kingdoms of organisms; all living things belong to one of these kingdoms based upon characteristics that they have.

We modified a reading and gave students a grid with the five terms they needed to know (the five kingdoms) and some of the features filled in. Leaving some spaces blank for students to add in their own features culled from the reading can enhance their reading and understanding. In this situation, they are the ones that determined what features were important.

What is also very important is to have students explain their rationale. Having them justify their choices ensures that they have a valid reason for connecting terms with particular features.

Why It's Helpful:
Semantic feature analyis helps students to
-understand/reinforce the meaning of a term
-compare terms and associate them with each other
-understand the similarities and differences between the terms
-differentiate between related terms
-catergorize and classify (which is especially important to us science folks)

It helps students
-engage
-explore concepts
-evaluate their own knowledge (and teachers can use SFA to evaluate students' knowledge too)

Examples in Other Content Areas:
Social Studies:
-examining key political figures (not the best in-depth examination, but you get the point)
-examining the different types of governments

Language Arts:
-compare myths and fables

Math:
-types of quadrilaterals

Art/Languages:
-uh, sorry...I'm sure you can all come up with something

Resources/Bibliography:
See this previous post
A black-line master
Book: Mary Lee Barton & Deborah Jordan. Teaching Reading in Science.

Understanding Language

In my 6 years at a small private school, I spent several years doing weekly vocabulary/spelling tests throughout the entire school year (except for 10th and 12th grades). We were given 10 words on Monday and went over them as a class. On Friday we were tested on our ability to spell the words, define the words, and use each of them in a sentence. I think this is a valuable activity that is getting lost in the morass of portfolios and testing skills. Our team language arts teacher started off with spelling tests at the beginning of the year, but she ended up not following through because "the kids just weren't doing well and so it was a waste of time" (in the words of our team special ed teacher).

But if Janet Allen is right, the study of words is important. More than just how to spell them, but learning what they mean as well. If our students don't understand key words in a text, how can they comprehend it? The answer is, of course, that they can't, not beyond the surface level anyway. Vocabulary is especially important in my own content, science, because there are so many specialized words...or, even harder, words that my students do know (like population or community) that aren't used in science in the same manner as they are in the wider (here's an example right now) educational community.

So we need to fnd a happy medium between the too and accentuate it with effective, efficient strategies. Not learning vocabulary at all is unacceptable and unhelpful, but learning 10 random words - or 10 words off of a "words that 6th graders need to know" list - isn't the best strategy either. We need to connect the vocabulary to the context of the current class topic of study as well as giving the words further real-world context; students need to understand that there is a real-world context/reason for learning vocabulary.

I have to say that I really appreciate this chapter because it not only shed light on my own education as a secondary school student but also on how the study of vocabulary was done in the structured Read XL class I taught this year (learn the word so you can do the reading). I really appreciate reading something that gives me insight on my own teaching practices. I just have to admit that while I find it very easy to apply all these readings to my reading enrichment class (Read XL), I'm still struggling with the issue of application in my science classroom.

BPR chs 4&15: You need flow before you can (want to) understand

Wilhelm and Smith devote their chapter to the issue of inquiry. I find this particularly interesting because the science modules that I teach with in Jefferson County are based on inquiry learning. We are asking questions and finding answers. There's interesting hands-on activities that we do, but the question I have at times is "what is the question," the big overarching one? We would perform the activities and do the work, and it often seemed that they weren't really comprehending the meaning of what they saw. There was no over-arching question that held all this material together, and that left me struggling along with them, as I couldn't recall ever learning about geology (even when I was in middle school). This wasn't even real inquiry learning as Wilhelm and Smith define it; we were "just moving from one activity to the next," or at least the scaffolding and reinforcement I was doing wasn't enough to make it more than that in their minds (235).

Wilhelm and Smith have, in some way, illuminated the problem for me. I need to find the question, that thing that holds it all together, and make it something that seems relevant and genuinely important to my students. At the moment, I really have no idea how to do that with rocks, but at least it gives me a starting point. I can go from there to "build[ing] over time" (235) as W&S recommend to make the unit meaningful, engaging, and something that my students will actually understand (in the Keene sense) and remember.

Now if only Jefferson County would take into account that we need to "move beyond the idea that all students must study the same thing at the same time" (Keene, 37). Of course, the desire for them to do that all across the district is exactly one reason why they bought the modules in the first place.

Note: It occurs to me now that writing a post that is critical of the district I work for - and really love - is not the best thing to do. I really have no desire to get dooced.

But the modules really are handy - I love all the materials and movies provided with them, and they were a lifesaver for a first year teacher. We can only criticize what we care about, right? And considering all this should make me a much better educator in the future.

Alterna-Lit

The experience with the RAFT assignments today was really intriguing (and fun!). It was interesting to hear about the different assignments: the apostrophe writing a persuasive letter to the comma on how it was just as important and could be just as formal; the color red writing to the public on its importance in art and life; a fetus writing a speech to its mother about mercury poisoning in fish (or the fish writing a letter/speech to the companies producing mercury waste). These were all really creative ways for kids to get engaged in a topic, show what they know, and express an opinion.

It would have stayed on my list of things to try in my classroom next year, and I might not have made any more mention of it until then. But then I heard Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" on the radio on my way home. It's a song written from the pov of alcohol about its influence not only on individual lives but history as well. It really got me thinking - these creative ideas are more than just ways to get our students engaged; they're out there in the larger world saying something to a lot more people than just class of students or someone's teacher. They got out there because this alternative format allows the information to get across in a different way that can have a much larger effect on an audience than a five paragraph essay.

Like the poem we read in class that was far better at achieving the final goal than the same student's five paragraph essay, or Taylor Mali's slam poem "What Teachers Make," these more authentic formats are what we need to have our students do. They are what we need to use to have our students learn. A textbook may be the easiest way to get across as much information as policy makers have decided our students need to know about science - or whatever our content area is - but that's not the best way.

It was a convergence of forces that made me have this realization about reading and writing in science. The coincidence of that song coming on the radio at just the right time allowed Brad Paisley to activate my new knowledge, my new schema, and make that connection. I don't have a typical textbook. I don't need a typical textbook. What I need is to figure out how to integrate these new aspects of 21st century literacy, these more authentic uses of literacy, into my science classroom - that's what I need to do.

ETA: examples (ideas from here)
R: planet
A: advertisement readers (or something more creative?)
F: personal ad
T: description of self

R: Mountain (landform)
A: Canyon (another landform)
F: Journal entry
T: How it was formed

Flattening the World thorugh the New Literacy

As a person with multiple blogs, a youtube account, a facebook account, a digital camera, two laptops, and many other assorted pieces of what make up our new technological world, I had realized the importance of teaching our students how to utilize technology. However, the idea that this technology itself is part of our framework of literacy is not something that had coalesced in my brain until just now. Jim Burke outlined that use of discussion boards in the chapter, and I remembered using something similar for English, Women's/Gender Studies, and Biology classes in undergrad; I thought of it then as a tool for discussion, and it is, but it's also more. Technology has its own type or branch of literacy, and it's extended our traditional understanding of literacy - or at least it should. I'm still struggling with this idea, of how it all really clicks together, but I think this process of stumbling to understand is important. Because when I finally do have that epiphany, that moment where it all clicks, it will resonate all the more after my confusion.

I think that all of our teachers need to grapple with this issue and the changing nature of literacy and all education and learning and thought and knowledge in our "brave new world" (165... the amazing Aldous Huxley before that). Alison said it herself in her EDTP 504 blog: "what is important is not always easy." In fact, what is important is often what's hardest for us to understand, and that struggle to understand adds an extra depth to our knowledge. The point I'm trying to make is that we as teachers need to struggle and work to expand our understanding of literacy so that we will be successful in this flattened world and can help our students be the same. We and they cannot afford to fall behind.

Of course, now comes the issue that Lauren brought up in her blog: how do we figure out what is "enough" for us to teach our students? How do we figure out what it is they really need to know? How do we stay on the "cutting edge" when we things change so fast that we can't figure out what and where the cutting edge is?

Semantic Feature Analysis

Note: This post is intended to be a research and brainstorming tool for the reciprocal teaching assignment, not a reflection post.

Indiana University Description

Brief Description from IU Link: "Semantic-Feature Analysis (Anders & Bos, 1986) is a strategy that helps reinforce vocabulary that is essential to understanding important concepts in a text. The teacher builds a grid in which essential vocabulary words are listed vertically and features and/ or ideas are listed horizontally. Students complete the grid by indicating with a check mark (ü) or minus sign (-) whether each word possesses the stated features or is related to the ideas."

"Develop word associations...elicit prior knowledge...monitor [own] comprehension"


San Diego U: Comparing and Constrasting

Use to divide/sort words by similarities and differences. The charts/grids in semantic feature analysis "help students explore how related words differ from one another."

The page outlines the procedure and gives a 4th grade science example (which could be used in my class!) - types of rocks and how they form (would really help them differentiate the types of rocks for the rock cycle).


LearnNC.org: Guided Comprehension

SFA is a "strategy that teaches [students] to identify characteristics associated with related words or concepts."


My Thoughts: Students will mark what features apply to the vocabulary words; this helps them create better connections between the word and the meaning. This would help them differentiate between concepts and words that do get mixed up. Thinking of: Metamorphic and Igneous rock. Heat and pressure vs. heat. A lot got confused on that point.


Investigating Science with Dinosaurs (on Google Book Search)

More than just what mentioned above. Students learn to categorize and classify as well as "identify relationships." Can model as a class first, have them split up to do it on their own, and then review as a class and complete the class chart (me: so have something for display?).


My thoughts: the FOSS individual, population, community, or abiotic activity is a semantic feature analysis (from the FOSS Module Populations and Ecosystems). It was a huge chart with a list of things (rabbit, squirrels, forest, birds and insects, rock, etc.): the students were performing a semantic feature analysis as they assigned each of these items to a category. Of course, it seemed to work in the opposite direction - the vocabulary was across the page horizontally (because there were less words) and organisms aren't what I would really call features, but isn't this the same premise? Using a chart to reinforce the meaning of vocabulary words and build more connections and relationships in one's own head - I (groups of) organisms aren't features, but it seems to me that it's still the same basic strategy.

The aspect of how to integrate the reading end of literacy in my science classroom - beyond the text - is still an issue not quite in the reach of my understanding, but I feel that I've been getting a much better grasp on the writing end of things and how particular literacy skills apply very well to my content.

This reciprocal teaching assignment on semantic feature* analysis has made me realize that I was incorporating reading strategies in my own classroom this past year without even realizing it (Kristin realized the same thing).

*Best link of 3

21st Century Literacy vs. The Current "Measure of Our Success"

I will admit that I left class with a similar feeling to Maria's as she noted in her blog tonight. I wasn't sure what we were meant to understand by "adolescent literacy" - I assumed that we would need to consider how reading other than what is found in textbooks and writing other than the answers to the questions at the end of those chapters. How would we incorporate stories and novels and such into my classroom? I thought about how I read The Magic School Bus: Lost in Space to my 6th grade science students before they began their planet projects, and I wasn't sure how you would ramp that up and how it would really fit in with the science modules Jefferson County mandates for their middle school science classrooms. And while I'm still unsure on the issue of how I will fit literacy into my own classroom, I recognize that it's far more than reading science-related stories together to enhance my students' learning.

In particular, it threw my issues with my reading enrichment class into a revealing light. I was assigned a group of students about 2 years below grade level in reading, and I was to use Scholastic's reading program Read XL to help my students learn the reading/writing skills they lacked. They were supposed to read through series of short stories, each section devoted to a different skill but with the exact same structure as all the previous sections. They were bored out of their minds and totally uninterested (as was I), and because of that they were not engaged in learning. Like with Collin in chapter 1 of Adolescent Literacy, my students did not connect with their subscribed "low-level" reading class. They sense that the administrator's - and by extension I as a new science teacher who had no idea how to teach reading - are "just completely out of it" and have "no clue" what they're capable of (10), and so they don't connect and they don't engage. Not only do we need to teach our kids more than simple academic literacy skills (i.e. 21st century literacy skills), we need to treat them with respect. Not only are these "catch them up" texts not engaging, they send a message that keeps our students turned off - "we don't expect you to be able to learn and utilize literacy skills in anything more complex than a short story." That doesn't do anything for their learning or their self image.

EDTP 620

Rachel's Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum/Adolescent Literature Blog: First Post