Number 7

Just about done with all of this. I really enjoyed my placement at Baldwin and enjoyed the students I had. My last two engagements used materials from Janet Allen's More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy. I did one enagagement over using plants for medicine and the other was over the recent oil spill in the Barrier Reef. I wanted to use strategies that would allow students to show what they knew prior to the article and then find out what they learned from the articles. The students really took to the activities and they went well. I'm not going to go into detail about these, I can do that in class if I need to.
Still working on TWS, GSTEP, AR, and Reading. Some of the things in TWS have really helped me in teaching while some of the other stuff......This has been a great experience and I feel much more prepared for teaching now.

Blog #6

Well the time of student teaching is going very quickly for me. We only have 4 weeks of it left at Baldwin. My Physical Science class is still reading Rocket Boys (October Sky) and we have discussions in the class about that book. We took the AP Biology class to the library last week to have them chose a book from the AP Bio list. I had read some of the books and I was able to help the students pick some out.
I did one literary engagement using visuals before the reading. I showed students deforestation taking place in S. America. I had each student right down their immediate feelings about the picture, what facts they saw in the picture, and what question they wanted to ask about it. I did this for 5 pictures and then gave them an article to read about deforestation. The pictures really intrigued the students and I didn't have any trouble getting them to read the article. We then discussed what they saw in the pictures and if the text helped them.
I haven't gotten much accomplished as far as the inquiry project goes, but I'm hoping to get more it done come my TWS. I'm trying to keep up with readicide and I've started asking students, in an informal way, how they feel about reading and especially reading in science. The most common response is they don't have enough time to read for pleasure.

Blog 5....

In the 9th grade Physical science class, my host teacher is having the students read Rocket Boys (the October Sky movie). The students seem to enjoy the book. The teacher doesn't do anything but just review what the students have read and gives quizzes over the reading. My host teacher also has a book area that contains a variety of science related books. I am yet to see any students even look at any of the books though. I quickly realized that there is not much time to do much reading at school anymore. Everyone is so concerned, and rightfully so, about covering as much material as possible. In readicide, I really agree with him on the standards and how they are directing too much of the teaching. I've noticed in class when a student wants to go more in depth the teacher can't because they have to stay on topic and make sure they cover the standards. For the seminar, I'm just looking forward to seeing everyone, but hope we aren't there all night. No progress on the inquiry project....too much other stuff going on.............

Readicide Ch.2

Ok....So now we can understand why our government makes the decisions that it does; people that can't recognize the VP put these people in office, but that is another topic for another day. It is quite sad that students coming out of high school do not have the tools to be a productive citizen in today's society. Lack of reading is not the only factor in this, but it is indeed a large one. Gallagher was talking about the lack of Sustained Silent Reading, I remember in school every student up until 11th grade had a study hall period, and if you did not have any homework to do you were expected to read. Usually we were placed in another classroom with some other class going on so we could not talk. This was our valued time to read. Some students barely have time to complete regular homework after school, much less read for enjoyment. I really like the article of the week and I think I might try to incorporate that into my classroom, even if it is not about science because kids need to know what is going on in the world.

As far as my content area, I am still searching for ways to incorporate more literacy in the lessons. I think this will be a process that takes alot of time. I have noticed that most of the research for my inquiry project (increasing comprehension by starting out with simpler articles and building up) will be done by me. I like the fact that I will be able to see what happens first hand though. Understanding of reading as a learner in my discipline...I'm still learning this so it is kind of difficult to help my students out alot, but I guess we can do it together.

Readicide Intro/Ch.1

So far, I have liked the book. It is reinforcing what I already knew; that students are becoming increasingly inadequate at reading. I find it hard to believe that this country and our schools are still sticking with measuring reading based on a mulitple-choice exam. I can't blame the teachers because if their students do poorly on the test then that means they can find themselves out of a job. It truly is a decision to make: raise reading scores and kill a love for reading OR teach kids to read and enjoy it and don't worry about the multiple-choice test scores. Some students simply are not good test takers.
I was fortunate enough to not have to deal with any end of course tests or reading exams. Since I was in private school, we were encouraged to read what we wanted to, across many genres. Teachers encouraged students to try new authors and when we did have to read a book as a class, it was based on discussion and essay style answering. Very few quizzes we took had any multiple choice questions on it.
I really liked the part where Gallagher said that teaching toward the test is a good thing, if done correctly. When I begin teaching, I really like the idea of giving the students the final question/goal of understanding for the reading. A teacher probably will not be able to cover all of the standards asked of them, but I believe some standards are more important than others and more time should be spent on them. I do plan to incorporate more reading into my science classrooms, and maybe that will help them out on reading scores, but more importantly in reading comprehension.

Inquiry Project

I really don't want to go at this solo, but I haven't talked to anyone else in class. I really want to look at building from simple texts to more advanced ones. Science articles are very difficult to comprehend and the vocab is something very few people have to deal with in everyday situations. I believe if I can start by having students read internet articles (such as ones from CNN) or read studies done by other high school students it can help start a foundation that the students can build upon. I want to have students split up into small groups and read these shorter, easier articles. They would then discuss them with one another. The students could then piece the articles together by hearing each other discuss what they brought out of the reading. I can then give the students a slightly more difficult article and have them do the same thing. Ofcourse, I would have read the articles also and would be able to discuss the articles with them. Eventually, the students will work up to the point where they are able to read and better understand some scientific articles. I am in no way fully committed to this inquiry, but it is something I'd like to look into.

Content Reading in Biology

Beside math, content reading is done less in sciences than any other subject in school. Unless a student is told to do so, that student is very unlikely to pick up a scientific journal and read an article. To the adolescent reader, reading within a subject area is not viewed as important or rarely thought of. Every student knows that in english class, they will be asked to read some books and probably be asked to read some in history, also.
I think one reason content literacy is so poor in math and science is because so few teachers take to the time to teach students the proper way to read articles. Science has its own language, just like every other subject. Reading scientific journals are a difficult thing for the adolescent reader to digest. I remember my freshman year in college being asked to read short journal articles and feeling like everything in the articles was way over my head. I think its important to start students out just asking them to figure out the main points of the article and not to worry so much about the details (such as statistics in the articles). Getting students to understand why this research was done, what was found, and how it can be used should be the most important things to start with.
Teachers can't expect students to be excellent readers of science literature right off the bat, but can slowly build students up. One good way to help students look at articles as being important could be to pick an article and repeat the research done. This can give the students a better perspective on the article as they can then see what it all means. I know when I read the articles, I have to break them up into sections and read a section and then look back on it and reflect to make sure I understand what is going on, then proceed. If I just try to read right through it like reading a book I won't understand why the steps led to the result. Taking the time with students to show them helpful techniques in reading will go a long way.