The last five weeks of this course
have brought to my attention an epidemic in the world of education that I think
we have all acknowledged at some point in our academic careers—perhaps not in
the grand scale of a nation-wide problem, but absolutely at a personal level.
When is the last time you really had to focus on an article you were reading,
which forced you to have to reread, slow down your reading in order to comprehend
(even though you really wanted to fly through, or skim the article to get the
gist of it), perhaps even use context clues to understand a word you kept
encountering and couldn’t figure out, but which was paramount to grasping the
material? For myself, this was a reality for all of the material we had
assigned for our CI course this week alone—as a student only just entering the
world of education, I feel especially responsible for focusing on the content
of the articles in order to catch up to all of my peers who have been studying
education for their undergrad degree. Now, imagine a high school student who is
taking a diverse load of courses—geometry, advanced placement US history, American
Lit, biology, in addition to an additional class or two… Lee & Spratley
explain that “each academic discipline or content area presupposes specific
kinds of background knowledge about how to read texts in that area, and often
also requires a particular type of reading” (2). Let’s put ourselves in the
shoes of that highschooler, who may not have been taught the kind of discipline
that we, as college and graduate students, have [mostly] mastered, but even
worse, imagine not knowing how to go about reading a text, not having the
repertoire of skills required to tackle dense, content-laden texts that assume
that you already have an inkling as to what they are discussing. Especially in
high school, many subjects build upon each other, so that student may very well
have encountered crucial information that was never retained, thereby “if you don’t
know content, you will have a difficult time understanding the texts and if you
don’t understand the texts you are unlikely to understand the content” (Lee
& Spratley, 3)—thus the vicious cycle compounds the situation and becomes a
common theme in other subjects as well.
It is important that as teachers in
training, students like the one we have imagined are not thought of as a lost
cause. Beuhl helps us to understand that students have developed poor habits as
a result of both students and teachers losing sight of the importance of engaging
with texts for comprehension as opposed to merely finding information for the completion
of assignments and then regurgitating it for exams (Beuhl, 32). It can seem
overwhelming to undo years of skimming texts and reading and forgetting, but
Lee and Spratley are reassuring in explaining that becoming capable and confident
readers of academic content-area texts lies in the creation of a culture of
high expectations through building routines, routines which help establish
students’ expectations for what they do, how they do things and why (Lee &
Spratley, 17). This is where the demystification process of reading support
comes into play, where we deploy strategies and disclose a variety of thinking
tools to students while showing them how to effectively use them and then
practice until mastery and confidence is achieved.
I like how you started your post. From day 1 of this course, I have found myself neck deep in literature that forces me again and again to reread. I can understand the struggle it can be to not fully comprehend a text. From my own personal experience, this struggle has only tested my patience for education. So what do we expect from high school students..... To work through every subject area discourse and expect them to fully comprehend and WANT to continue learning that subject area??? I believe this ideology does the exact opposite. We want students to see the struggle that we all must go through. If we, as educators, normalize the problems that all students go through, do you think this could help create a better environment for collaborative learning?
ReplyDeleteI think, Matthew, that normalizing the struggle is definitely a part of the process. Right now, it is "normal" for most people to say "I'm bad at math," or "I'm bad at science," but very few students (or adults) will admit: "I struggle with reading." If we can cultivate an environment where we stop stop locating deficiency within the person, and instead conceptualize struggle as not yet being "a master" or a particular discipline, then we are already making progress, as far as affording a space where students can attempt to learn to unpack the tools required for a discipline in which they struggle.
DeleteWhen it comes to engagement, creative teachers become absolutely vital. My big critique of Reading Next is that it positions reading and writing teachers as supporters of the content area teachers, making it easy for the latter group to lean heavily on the former if they see their students floundering. I would argue that once content area teachers (i.e. disciplinary experts) have the strategies necessary to teach disciplinary literacy, it is up to them to find topics that students will be excited to examine. For example, an earth science teacher could just teach a unit on, let's say, natural disasters. There is a way to do this that seems sterile and uninteresting. Or, one could teach the lesson through the lens of social advocacy and civic engagement, providing students with first-hand accounts from disaster survivors. The teacher could have students write their own disaster plans for people in high-risk flood areas, based on what they read about the phenomenon.
In my mind, it really comes down to finding the best "texts," to garner students' attention. Buehl warns against allowing students to rely on "being told" rather than reading for themselves, so ensuring that the texts we select speak to something students already care about is key.
I think, Matthew, that normalizing the struggle is definitely a part of the process. Right now, it is "normal" for most people to say "I'm bad at math," or "I'm bad at science," but very few students (or adults) will admit: "I struggle with reading." If we can cultivate an environment where we stop stop locating deficiency within the person, and instead conceptualize struggle as not yet being "a master" or a particular discipline, then we are already making progress, as far as affording a space where students can attempt to learn to unpack the tools required for a discipline in which they struggle.
DeleteWhen it comes to engagement, creative teachers become absolutely vital. My big critique of Reading Next is that it positions reading and writing teachers as supporters of the content area teachers, making it easy for the latter group to lean heavily on the former if they see their students floundering. I would argue that once content area teachers (i.e. disciplinary experts) have the strategies necessary to teach disciplinary literacy, it is up to them to find topics that students will be excited to examine. For example, an earth science teacher could just teach a unit on, let's say, natural disasters. There is a way to do this that seems sterile and uninteresting. Or, one could teach the lesson through the lens of social advocacy and civic engagement, providing students with first-hand accounts from disaster survivors. The teacher could have students write their own disaster plans for people in high-risk flood areas, based on what they read about the phenomenon.
In my mind, it really comes down to finding the best "texts," to garner students' attention. Buehl warns against allowing students to rely on "being told" rather than reading for themselves, so ensuring that the texts we select speak to something students already care about is key.
Margaret,
ReplyDeleteI too feel a little behind other students in the terminology, reading and approach toward our degree in education. One thing that I can appreciate is that these readings have not been so boring and wordy that I end up reading pages of information and not having a clue what I have read. Majority of the readings has made it into conversations of my personal life, which lets me know that an impression was made. This week’s reading reminded me of a military joke I once heard.
“One reason the Military Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don't speak the same language. For example, if you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors. The Army would occupy the building so no one could enter. Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat. The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.”
It is extremely important to recognize that your discipline of choice has a particular language and understand that language enough to relay it to others while being be able to explain the meaning of that language. Like the joke, there are words that are shared amongst different disciplines and unless the student is educated on the connections and differences in the use of the words, the students may be left with their own interpretation of the use of those words
I totally agree with your blog post and feel like it really does express all students, from the highschool level and onward to the college level. I too realized how there is a cycle that continues with assumption between educator and student knowledge. You pointed this out when you quoted Lee and Spratley and it made me think how it is hard to further learn content when it is assumed you know what the instructure or class is talking about. This being said as teachers i feel like it is important that we help guide the student at the start of the year in how they should be reading content. You also mention this in your last paragraph when you discuss thinking tools that we can provide for the class room. I see this now in my observation class where the teachers work together to help students establish a routine of reading ususally in th begining of the week. They continue to practice this and work on the things they struggle with with the help of the teacher. I feel it is important that we dont asume but guide and assist a student in our own classroom.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your blog post and feel like it really does express all students, from the highschool level and onward to the college level. I too realized how there is a cycle that continues with assumption between educator and student knowledge. You pointed this out when you quoted Lee and Spratley and it made me think how it is hard to further learn content when it is assumed you know what the instructure or class is talking about. This being said as teachers i feel like it is important that we help guide the student at the start of the year in how they should be reading content. You also mention this in your last paragraph when you discuss thinking tools that we can provide for the class room. I see this now in my observation class where the teachers work together to help students establish a routine of reading ususally in th begining of the week. They continue to practice this and work on the things they struggle with with the help of the teacher. I feel it is important that we dont asume but guide and assist a student in our own classroom.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you on many points. First of all, the fact that I am with you on trying to understand what we read in this class. I myself have spent years skimming texts or just reading to find quotes or forgetting what I read soon after I read it. As teachers, we need to be able to show our students how to read properly without skimming to find the gist or just trying to get the work done. High school students are taking multiple subjects and I doubt every student is interested in everything they are learning. Some students spend more time with English because they don't like to read novels, other spend more time in math and science because they don't understand equations and formulas, and others find History difficult because it doesn't capture their attention. Students aren't focused on building on lessons with information because school has become skim, regurgitate, and move on. As Buehl states, "...many students do reading to get work done rather than engage in reading to understand." (Buehl, 2011). It has become such a common practice to read just to get work done that the purpose of reading and being in school has become overshadowed. There is a lack of learning and actual understanding that we need to get back if we want future generations to be able to succeed in school and not feel overwhelmed by academic texts. And yes, as teachers within our disciplines we need to take the time to teach our students how to read and understand texts through our lens in order for them to actually grasp the material and apply it.
ReplyDeleteResponse from Christopher Sunnner:
ReplyDeleteMargaret:
The gauntlet has been thrown down to teachers and future teachers to take up the challenge of improving literacy in our respective content areas. Building routines is certainly key to getting our students to understand the tools and resources that will enable them to become better readers. We have a great deal of resources and tools that can allow us to help our students, but I see two challenges that will make ANY teacher struggle for the first five years when implementing reading apprenticeship and other programs successfully in our classrooms:
1) Time—Many teachers must get through topics, units, and lessons by a certain period of time by the end of a grading quarter, semester, or year. How can we do what we need to do in a certain limited allotment of time as demanded by our curriculum and school administration?
2) Balance—How do we strike the right balance of strategy, routine, order of lessons (one building to the next that then builds upon the next, etc.) and use of diverse text in our classrooms? And the problem is that it may change each year as we get a new batch of students, or change because the course content and its goals/objectives change. I was struck by the Carnegie Report that there is a balance to be achieved by the use of the fifteen elements, and how best to achieve that balance. It will take a few years for teachers to become fully familiar with the elemental practices as well as when to know when to deploy each one and in which order and what should come after that strategy or element? It will take a few years of mistakes, successes, and reflection to know how to achieve a workable and achievable balance that will demonstrate some success. But I fear in some instances, it may not be enough if the administration is not working hand-in-hand with the teachers to foster a change in school climate/culture to assist the teachers in their efforts.