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")
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