Final Synthesis Blog: "an ode to content area literacy"

     Before this course, I overlooked the importance of reading in a math course.  When I read the course description on the bulletin I thought to myself, it is not my job to teach kids to read, that is what English teachers are for.  And while it is not going to be my job, as a math teacher, to teach my students HOW to read, it is going to be my job to facilitate good reading skills and strategies as they pertain to my math class.  When a student of mine cannot read the word problems on a test, their inability to read WILL totally be my problem.  I remember on the first day of class when we read the statistics about illiteracy in the United States; chances are, I will have a good number of students who will struggle with reading in my class, and in their other classes too.  Struggling readers will also struggle with math content that they will not be able to read and comprehend-- directly impacting their performance in math.  

Think Aloud/ Thinking Out Loud pun

Shocking, but makes total sense!

     Perhaps one of the most important things I have taken away from the semester comes from the "Think Aloud" reading strategy.  Just like how in my math class I will demonstrate how to solve one variable equations step-by-step in great detail and explaining why I am doing each step, I will need to demonstrate how to read math problems in the same detail in order to help my students succeed in Math.  It is not common sense; you read math differently than you read a novel, and differently than you read a primary document in Social Studies.  Demonstrating what good reading (in a math context) looks like is just as important as teaching the math content.  Saying things like "when I read this problem, I notice that XYZ..." or "So I am going to underline that part, because I think I will need to use that later in the problem..." is helping my students see how I, as the teacher, read math problems and what is going through my head when I am solving them. 
     As someone who has never been a big reader, I sympathize with the students who do not want to read more than they have to in order to pass the reading quiz.  However, throughout the course I have come across some really interesting texts that would be relevant to my middle school math class.  I have collected texts (for my text set and past synthesis blogs) that are relevant to the middle school math curriculum, but that are not Math textbooks.  For many of the assignments that required us to collected a text relevant to our content area, I have come across texts that are aimed at developing financial literacy skills in young adults/teenagers... this has really sparked my interest!  It is way easier than I had originally thought to include a variety of texts into a math class.  Providing a Business Insider article and asking math related questions based on the numbers from the article, for example, would be a cool way of straying from the math textbook every now and then.  These outside readings will not replace textbooks, but they are a rich supplement to textbooks that are fairly easy to come across.
     While there have been some topics in the textbook and covered in class that I do not necessarily see myself including in my classroom (like the book circles, for example), I think I am leaving LLED 3530 with a better understanding of the importance of literacy in all content area classes (and outside of school as well).  I understand the responsibility I will have, as a math teacher, to facilitate good reading skills and practices in my class. 
     

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Help For Struggling Readers

     As history, math and science teachers, it is easy to overlook the importance of reading in content area classrooms.  However, as we have learned throughout this course, our students' reading capabilities will DIRECTLY impact their ability to succeed in other non-ELA classes.  My favorite item on the "Strategies to help struggling readers" list was the bullet about helping students self-monitor their learning.  I had a teacher in highschool who would use the term "meta-cognate" many times a class period.  After learning some new topic or some earth shattering discovery, he would prompt us to think about our thinking-- meta-cognition.  Although it is hard for younger students to do, it is an important skill for students to be able to think about their own thinking, and think about their own understanding of a topic.  I, as the teacher, cannot get inside the brain of my student and tell if they really understand what I am talking about.  There have been many occasions where I studied for a test and thought I knew the material like the back of my hand, but then did not do well on the test; I thought I knew better than I actually did.

     If teachers teach their students to check their own understanding throughout their learning, they are prompting them to ask clarifying questions and ask for help as they learn the material, rather than realizing they do not know anything after failing a test.  Having students "stop and think" also slows down those speedy readers who zip through the reading just so they can say they did it, but in reality they did not process any of what they read (I have a bad habit of doing this).  Teachers who ask students "what do you think about this" as they read material help them self-monitor their reading by encouraging them to process what they just read, and use other strategies to make meaning out of words on the page.        

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Inquiry Units

WRONG! Math is everywhere!

     A super easy way for me to incorporate this would be in the "statistics and probability" unit of any grade math (Statistics is a topic included in the state standards for all middle grades math).  Before any assignment was given out, I would demonstrate proper techniques of how to collect data (whether it was through research or surveying people) and make my expectations of the project very clear from the beginning.  With a less concrete project, it is important for the teacher to set expectations and let students know what she will be looking for when grading.  I would allow for students to pick a topic that would be easy for them to survey about or gather data on; this is a way of letting students exercise their right to "choose."  This would allow the kids that are interested in baseball to do research on baseball statistics of the Chicago Cubs spanning the last 70 years, or if some students wanted to collect the data themselves, they could survey members of the community or class in order to have that data to work with.  

     I love the idea of "inquiry based learning" simply because it allows students to explore a topic in a way that is a bit more exciting compared to a traditional paper-and-pencil exam or an in-class worksheet that teaches a topic.  Especially as a future math teacher, there are a ton of data sets, articles and graphs that can help in inquiry based learning projects; similar to the one mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. 
    Using the information they either collected themselves or gathered from research, the class would put together either a poster board or a presentation in which they explain the data, how they calculated mean, median and mode, and any graphics they created using the data (graphs, charts...etc.)

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Lit Circle Podcast

Synthesis Blog #2

     In this article, Linda Gambrell outlines 7 specific things teachers and educators can do in order to enhance students' motivation to read for pleasure.  Like in the past few chapters in Subjects Matter, Gambrell emphasizes the importance of letting students choose what they want to read when you can.  Logically, students will be more inclined to read things that they are interested in!  She also explains that "students are more motivated to read when they have ample opportunities to engage in sustained reading" (174).  This is the idea of SSR mentioned earlier in the book. 
     And finally, and my personal favorite, Gambrell states that "students are more motivated to read when they have opportunities to socially interact with others about the text they are reading" (175).  This can be done seamlessly with the book clubs addressed in Subjects Matter.  Not only are students able to pick books that interest them, but by talking with other students they are able to have low stakes conversations about what they have read.  In my own experience, I usually prefered to talk with other students rather than have whole class discussions-- which at times can be overwhelming or even chaotic.
     If we can enhance our students intrinsic motivation to read, I assume we (as educators) would see an improvement in student performance across content areas.  A student reading on their own about their interest in outer space can improve their performance in the science class, for example.  As a future math teacher, I can see the advantages of allowing students to have designated reading for pleasure time in my class.




For a good laugh:


Gambrell, L. B. (2011, November). Seven Rules of Engagement: What's Most Important to Know About Motvation to Read. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 172-178.

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"Love From Your Friend, Hannah" book pitch

Content Area Book Clubs

     I find the idea of a "Content Area Book Club" to be a really cool idea to use like once during a school year.  It is an awesome idea for students to be able to CHOOSE a book in the content area (which automatically makes them want to read it more, because usually they will choose a book that interests them), and then have them discuss it with other classmates.  I am a huge fan of students discussing their work, or in this case their reading, with other classmates rather than as a whole class discussion; as someone who used to get nervous talking in front of the whole class, it is less scary to talk to a small group. 
     Again, like I have noticed in other chapters, I think Math is getting the cold shoulder in the "Content Area Book Club."  I think Social Studies and Science teachers could easily incorporate a book club into their curriculum, but as a future math teacher, I am struggling to think of ONE book, let alone enough to give students multiple choices.  In my opinion, Social Studies especially lends itself to this sort of thing because many history teachers and historians love primary documents.  Adding a novel like The Diary of Anne Frank (which is a primary document) or historical fiction into the curriculum would be a really cool way of mixing in non-textbook reading.      
     I am not opposed to the idea of a Math Book Club; I am just not aware of enough relevant, grade-level, and USEFUL math books to use.  I would not want to add in a book club for the sake of having a book club if I didn't feel like it benefited my students' math skills. 

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Strategy Lesson Reflection

     Aside from those couple of moments of me feeling uncomfortable, I think that the lesson went well.  I expected to get mixed reviews on the strategy itself; it is hard for people who want to just read a text to have to sit and write notes out if they enjoy the text.  This is a strategy that I have always used when reading longer books and novels.  I find it easier to keep up with characters, imagery, and symbolism when I can mark them directly in the text; it also makes it easier to flip back and forth between my notes.

    After doing my Strategy Lesson for "Post-it Response Notes" I have realized how SLOWLY time moves by when you are at the front of the classroom, especially when the class is working on some assignment or reading.  When I gave the text to the class to read, I found myself feeling antsy as I waited for everyone to read it, and I also found it challenging to know how long everyone needed to do the reading.  I circled around a little bit to get a general feel, but as someone who isn't 100% used to being at the front of the class yet, it was an uncomfortable feeling.

     As I spend more and more time at the front of the classroom, I think I will start to get more and more comfortable transitioning from student to teacher. 

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Independent Reading Workshop in Content Areas

     Although I am a huge advocate of the idealistic "lifelong learner" goal, I think this chapter is a little unrealistic in its goal.  Very rarely does a teacher have time to spend, once a week (as suggested in the section that attempts to address the whole "time" issue) to implement a Reading Workshop on a regular basis.  If teachers and students did not have standards to meet and standardized tests to take, I would say "the more reading workshops the better!" 

     However, in an ELA class, I think the idea of a reading workshop is great!  At my high school, one of our summer reading books every year was a "Teacher Seminar Book" where in the spring, students would come to school early one morning in order to sign up for a book club, each headed by a teacher at the school (faculty members included teachers from all content areas, administrators...etc).  After returning to school in the fall, students and their faculty member would have a book club-like discussion about the book.  This summer reading strategy allows students to choose the book they want to read (mentioned many times throughout the book as a huge influence on students) and also it is a low stakes reading workshop because we did not have to write papers, or take a test on the novel; the teacher would assign a grade based on the students' participation in the discussion.  As great as this was as a student, I do not think the benefits of a reading workshop across content areas outweighs the lost time that could be spent covering content area material.

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Guide-o-rama: Intro to expressions and equations

This is a Guide-O-Rama reading guide to introduce the basics of "Expressions and Equations" which is its own section of the Common Core Standards for 6th grade Math.
The reading guide begins with introducing some basic vocabulary including expression and more specifically an algebraic expression.  The definition of both of these terms are on page 200 of the textbook.  
The next section goes into detail about parts of algebraic expressions, and defines what a coefficient is.  In order to help students identify that coefficients will not always be super easy to identify (like in the example of 5X, the coefficient will be 5), I had them draw what 5X represents... they should draw an image similar to  
                                X X X X X
With that same reasoning, they could reason that the coefficient for X would be 1 by drawing...
                                                                               X

The next section delves into Order of Operations:
Parentheses
Exponent
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction 

By prompting students to create their own mnemonic device, they are being creative, and can be silly, and it will most likely be easier for them to remember a mnemonic that they came up with themselves.  Encourage them to share their devices with each other!
    
The "Check Your Understanding" is a way for them to make sure that they comprehend the skills they learned in this section, and they can check their answers in the book as well.  

(Textbook: Everyday Mathematics: The University of Chicago School Mathematics Project       ISBN: 978-0-02-138360-3) 

Building a Community of Learners

     I'm going to step on my "teacher soap box" for this post because this whole chapter is the reason I wanted to go into Education.  The classroom climate is a huge factor in student learning that is so often overlooked.  If a student dreads going to your class, I can almost guarantee they will not listen to your lesson, they will not be engaged in the subject material, and they WILL NOT LEARN what you are trying to teach them.  If a student does not feel safe contributing to classroom discussions, or feel comfortable stepping outside of their comfort zone (which is vital to learning new skills and subject matter) their capacity to learn will be drastically diminished.
     The classroom climate all begins with the teacher-- they 100% are responsible for that.  Teachers who belittle their students, disrespect their students, and do not share the power distribution in the classroom are not creating a classroom that is conducive for creating the ideal "community of learners" that this chapter describes.  The goal of any teacher should be to have their students love their subject as much as they do.  Teachers can do this by being a "champion" for their students (the embedded TEDTalk describes what that is), treating their students as people, not kids that need to be controlled while they are in your classroom, and certainly seen as life long learners.  A successful teacher is one that can spark a students interest in their subject matter.  If I can convince a 7th grader that algebra is cooler than something they saw on Instagram, I would be the happiest teacher ever.

        
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How to Use a Textbook

 

     Unfortunately, when reading this chapter, the thing that stood out to me the most was not the tips on how to use a text effectively, or how to find the balance between coverage and depth, but rather the emphasis placed on teaching for the high stakes tests.  These tests endanger teacher creativity as well as a student's excitement to learn.  If I am teaching a middle school history class, and have a great idea for a fun, interesting lesson about the Boston Tea Party, but also have to cover the entire Revolutionary War in that same week because it is emphasized on the standardized tests what would be the right thing to do?  Do I teach the breadth of information required by Common Core or Georgia State Standards, or teach my students an enriching lesson that might spark a life long interest in history? 
   I went to a school where students were not required to take the State Standards tests (private schools do not have to take the GPS tests), and my teachers rarely used our textbooks beyond teaching subject relevant vocabulary or practice math problems.  A great example would by my 8th grade History teacher, who every year organized a "Second Continental Congress" reenactment for the entire grade; every student was assigned a specific person who attended the Second Continental Congress, and we had to research them, read about them in our book, and come to school on a designated day dressed as that person ready to act, as they did, in the historical signing.  As a future teacher, I often think about my 8th grade history teacher and how he interested me in history; he used our textbook as a reference book, and did not let it replace his job as the TEACHER by simply overloading on reading assignments.
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Think Aloud Reflection

     Initially, I had trouble selecting a "text" for my think aloud presentation.  Between my two subject areas, Math and Social Studies, a historical text would have been the easier, more obvious choice, but because I intend to teach math one day, I found a worksheet that aligned with one of the 7th grade math standards.  This specific standard dealt with proportional reasoning, including interest rates, percentages and ratios.

     While doing my Think aloud, I tried to demonstrate every single step needed to solve the problem, starting with reading the actual word problem.  I am a very visual learner, so when I read a math problem, or anything really, I like to mark up the text by circling things, drawing arrows, and writing little notes besides certain parts.  Once I read the problem through, I went through each step (including the tedious things like long division), and I think I was very thorough in my explanation.

     This process was not as awkward as I initially expected it would be; I did choke at one point when I forgot what 6x8 was.... I can solve calculus and trig problems without a thought, but 6x8 really tripped me up.

     I think when reading math texts, the step-by-step nature of solving problems lends itself better to the think aloud strategy compared to a science text.  Math teachers do have to teach like this all of the time in math; we have to explain each part of he problem because what may be obvious to me probably is not as obvious to a 7th grader. 

For anyone curious if you could pass the a 6th grade math test today... 
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alfredomurillo/math-for-11-year-olds?utm_term=.rbBdDJ9D2#.scELOwYOa

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Synthesis Blog: Teaching finance to middle schoolers

     In my family, we are constantly sharing silly memes, fun articles, or short tidbits about something we heard that day in our family "Listserv" (yes, my family has a listserv... and it's hilarious).  About a week ago my sister, who is getting her masters in Foreign Language Education at Washington University in St. Louis, sent me an article that she claimed I "HAD to read" because it would "change the way I teach math some day."  This article titled "Teaching Middle Grades Math Through Financial Literacy" explores the multiple benefits of incorporating "financial literacy" skills with the middle school math curriculum.  This article directly aligned with chapter 3 of Subjects Matter which addresses the importance of mixing up our students' reading material; adding in things like personal finance articles can do just that!  Students are reading something other than their textbook (which in a math class, is a break that is definitely needed), practicing math skills that follow state standards as well as Common Core standards, and also learning supplementary financial literacy skills that will help them later on in their adult lives. 

    This article suggests including financial literacy skills when teaching topics like percentages, proportional reasoning, compound interest, and even reading/responding to graphics.  The researchers also suggest using the skills of "planning a budget" when teaching basic algebra skills.  Students have to calculate someones paycheck amount based on their hourly wages, how many hours they worked, and then determine, based on the amount of money that they have made, what they can and cannot afford.  Not only are these kind of readings and problems more applicable to real life situations, but they are a small change that any math teacher can make in order to mix up the "diet" of reading we are giving to students.      

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http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00228958.2016.1156526?journalCode=ukdr20

 

Mixing up Reading Material

     Throughout my years in Middle School and High School, especially in my History classes, teachers emphasized the importance of reading primary sources, newspapers and other historical texts IN ADDITION to reading the textbook.  When learning about World War II, we read The Diary of Anne Frank along with the textbook chapters, when learning about colonization, we read primary documents from explorers coming to the American Colonies, and throughout my time in schools, my teachers always had students present "Current Events" projects-- forcing us to read newspapers and scholarly magazines. 
     A key point mentioned in this chapter is the importance of choice for young readers.  You set the boundary of requiring students to be reading something, but allow them the freedom to read about things that interest them; this kind of reading is definitely more appealing than "read pg. 20-56 in your text book for tomorrow." 

(DEAR/Deer joke)

     When I was in elementary school, there would be days where we would walk into history or science class and on the board would be written DEAR... this was my school's version of SSR (pg. 74) which stood for Drop Everything And Read.  It had to be subject related, but we could choose any book we wanted.  Giving some of the power to the students not only allows them to choose reading material that interests them, but it also creates a more even-powered classroom-- a warmer classroom climate.                                                               

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Are Textbooks Trash?

(How I feel when I read science text books)

       After the first day of class, the UGA bookstore is flooded with students who are rushing to get their "required text books" for the semester.  Thousands of pages, hundreds of dollars, and tens of pounds (I weighed all of my textbooks freshman year and they were a whopping 33 lbs total), but how much do we actually benefit from these dense textbooks?  Well, according to Subjects Matter, not much!  Textbooks can be a great tool for teachers to use to SUPPLEMENT their lessons and help prepare students before class.  However, many teachers today use textbooks to replace their own lectures, activities, and lessons-- this is neither an effective nor an efficient way to teach students.  
      
     In order to use a textbook practically, teachers cannot assign the 30+ pages that have become customary.  Honestly, in high school (and college as well) when a teacher assigns reading in a textbook, I rarely read the entire chapter.  I skim, read bolded terms, and the summaries that tend to follow each chapter.  It is virtually impossible for any student, no matter how good their reading skills are, to both comprehend and remember the magnitude of information in just a single chapter of a textbook.   
     The main issue with textbooks is addressed in this chapter-- teachers are struggling to cover the sheer magnitude of information they have to cover in their classrooms, so they are assigning chapters to read at home.  Unfortunately we cannot change the curriculum (usually); so an important factor in solving this problem would be using the time we DO have in the classroom with our students more effectively so we do not feel the need to cram information through at home reading of textbooks… this is obviously easier said than done! 

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Reading for Meaning

     Every summer (until I was a Senior in High School) I dreaded summer reading.  Reading was never my strong suit, and each summer I was given a stack of books to read and I was expected to be able to ace a test my first day back.  I remember one summer in particular, I was a rising 8th grader and the entire class had to read To Kill a Mockingbird.  Although now it's one of my favorite books, I spent my entire summer struggling, stressing, even crying over the novel and what seemed to me like my inability to read.  I would read a chapter and not have any idea what happened.   
      Chapter 2 of Subjects Matter addresses this problem head on; my phonics were good, but I was unable to "actively build and construct meaning from [the] text" (29).  It was my comprehension that was keeping me stuck.  My mom, being a teacher herself, recognized that I was struggling, and provided the academic support that my teacher should have provided me.  After each chapter, my mom would make a list of questions that we would talk about.  It was from these "book discussions" that she and I could see where my comprehension was good, and where I misunderstood or was confused.
     I had no previous knowledge or understanding of 1930's Alabama; colloquialisms and slang kept me confused in my reading.  Had my teacher provided a packet titled "important things to know before diving head first into To Kill a Mockingbird", perhaps my summer going into 8th grade wouldn't be as scarring as I now remember it to be.  My teacher needed to "develop, build upon and add to [my] prior knowledge" in order to help me get through a pretty hard novel (or at least to an 8th grader). 

Struggling Through To Kill a Mockingbird  (circa 2008)

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Making Students Better IN and OUT of the Classroom

The opening chapter of Subjects Matter describes a school assignment related to fast food. This assignment reveals how engaging school can be when it appeal’s to the students interests and captures their attention.  When students are intrigued, or shocked, by information, they are compelled to learn more about it. So often, students lose interest in school because the subject material has NO relevance in their life or their interests.  The teachers at BPHS chose a subject that was both relevant to the lives of their students, and also academic in nature

This school project crossed content area lines and combined ELA (students had to read Fast Food Nation), Science (students also learned about health effects that fast food has on its consumers) as well as critical thinking skills that are helpful across all subject areas.  Reading primary articles and documents is a skill often taught in History/Social Studies classes; however reading about McDonald's is probably more interesting to a teenage student than primary documents from the Civil War era-- both are utilizing the same skill.      

Proficient literacy is vital to the success of any person who hopes to be a functioning member of society.  Through the fast food project, students were able to practice their literacy skills as well as critical thinking skills which allowed them to advocate for something that they found interesting.  This is a prime example of how literate students are probably more likely to go on to be valuable members of society-- they have a higher potential of being changemakers compared to those people who may be illiterate or who did not learn the importance of literacy at a younger age.  Literacy across content areas is necessary not only just in a classroom setting, but in students’ future careers, and in everyday life.     

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