So many times, vocabulary instruction is thought of only as a means for reading comprehension. I enjoyed reading this chapter because it went beyond reading comprehension and discussed what vocabulary instruction looks like and sounds like in various content areas. This is important because vocabulary has a different purpose in each content area. In English, for example, vocabulary instruction is more focused on word study; whereas, instruciton is more focused on technical vocabulary in Social Studies. As quoted in the text: "vocabulary is as unique to a content area as fingerprints are to a human being." (Vacca and Vacca, p. 314)
Of most interest to me was the portion of the text that stated, "Instrucion often relied on rote memorization of definitions followed by weekly vocabulary tests. Words were rarely derived from texts the students were teaching." I found this interesting because this is exactly how I was taught vocabulary. Throughout my elementary years, we had a spelling book. Each week we had a list of spelling words and a list of 10 vocabulary words that came from that spelling book. While we wrote sentences with the words and did different activities with them, they were never words that we were coming in contact with in other content areas. How much more meaningful would vocabulary words have been to me if my teachers had specially hand-picked vocabulary words from daily lessons and class readings? I believe I would have a much wider vocabulary today if this had been the case.
In my opinion, one of the most widely known vocabulary strategies is word walls; however, I also believe they are one of the most misused. While I see word walls in almost every classroom I visit, I rarely see teachers and students "do" the strategy. Word walls are meant to be an interactive tool for teachers to use to teach vocabulary and students to use to learn vocabulary, yet so many times word walls are just a list of words placed on a wall never to be revisited again. It seems that organization may play a role here. What can teachers do to ensure that word walls are not just decoration but a learning tool?
Overall, I think this chapter offers many fun and engaging activities for teaching vocabulary in both elementary and secondary education. Among my favorites are "Said is Dead," "Shades of Meaning," and "Quiz Me Cards."
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Questioning Strategies in the Classroom
Why ask questions? Questioning is a means of assessing students' understanding of a topic, concept or process. True assessment, however, is found in the type of question asked. As the chapter discusses, too often students are thrown facts that they are expected to spit back out at the teacher when asked a question. The chapter calls this "guess what's in the teacher's brain." These types of questions are usually literal comprehension questions and usually require little thought from the student. A majority of classrooms use the IRE questioning cycle. "A classroom where IRE is the dominant form of discourse quickly becomes a passive learning environment dependent on the teacher for any kind of discussion." (pg 81) So, what kind of questions should we ask? Higher-order questions produce the best results; they are, however, more work for the teacher. Higher-order questions really get students thinking and, when used correctly, can get students motivated too. Using Bloom's taxonomy is one of the best ways to develop higher-order questions.
Should the teacher do all the questioning? No. Let the students ask questions too. When a balance is maintained between asking and answering questions, students are given more responsibility to think critically. But before our students can ask good questions, they must be taught questioning strategies. Questioning strategies such as Questioning the Author, ReQuest, and Question-Answer Relationships all teach students how to develop thoughtful questions. Students can also use these strategies to question the text or themselves when reading.
My experiences with questioning: I was not shocked to read that most teachers ask mostly literal questions. During our tutoring sessions for CIR 412, students read passages from a comprehensive reading inventory and answer questions. There are a variety of comprehension questions ranging from literal, inferential, and evaluative. Students usually do well on the literal questions but struggle with inferential and evaluative questions mainly because they are rarely exposed to these higher-order questions. I also know that developing higher-order questions can be difficult for teachers. When I prepare lesson plans, I find myself writing mostly low-order questions.
My "smart, genuine question that arose from my reading:" Most of the strategies presented in the chapter focus on content area literacy in secondary education. As an elementary teacher, which of these strategies can be best restructured to focus on elementary students?
Should the teacher do all the questioning? No. Let the students ask questions too. When a balance is maintained between asking and answering questions, students are given more responsibility to think critically. But before our students can ask good questions, they must be taught questioning strategies. Questioning strategies such as Questioning the Author, ReQuest, and Question-Answer Relationships all teach students how to develop thoughtful questions. Students can also use these strategies to question the text or themselves when reading.
My experiences with questioning: I was not shocked to read that most teachers ask mostly literal questions. During our tutoring sessions for CIR 412, students read passages from a comprehensive reading inventory and answer questions. There are a variety of comprehension questions ranging from literal, inferential, and evaluative. Students usually do well on the literal questions but struggle with inferential and evaluative questions mainly because they are rarely exposed to these higher-order questions. I also know that developing higher-order questions can be difficult for teachers. When I prepare lesson plans, I find myself writing mostly low-order questions.
My "smart, genuine question that arose from my reading:" Most of the strategies presented in the chapter focus on content area literacy in secondary education. As an elementary teacher, which of these strategies can be best restructured to focus on elementary students?
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Multigenre Research Project
My response? Wow. Just the word multigenre is frightening to me. The words multigenre research project are even more frightening. They cause lots of anxiety. I have honestly been dreading this project since I read about it on the syllabus the first day of class. I was hoping I would feel better after reading the example and description. From reading the example and the description of the project, it seems that this requires a love and talent of writing. These qualities are not something I possess. It seems like my brain shuts down when I try to write. Out of the whole project, I think the hardest part for me will be deciding on a topic. This is something I always have trouble with. However, if I can pick a good topic, I believe the creativity will begin to flow.
Even after reading the description, I still do not understand what a repetend is.
Even after reading the description, I still do not understand what a repetend is.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Week 6: Picture This!
This week's reading was about using graphic organizers in the classroom, mainly, to help students comprehend; therefore, I created a graphic organizer of my own to help me comprehend what I was reading.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Week 5: Read Alouds
I enjoyed this week's readings because they gave extremely useful information on read-alouds. Read alouds are without a doubt one of my favorite strategies to use. They are enjoyed by both students and teachers. Not only do they help students become better readers but also help develop oral language, which was the focus of the article Text Talk: Capturing the Benefits of Read-Aloud Experiences for Young Children. I favored this article over the chapter reading mainly because it focuses on the primary grades, which is the grade level I would like to teach.
Text talk, in my opinion, is a well developed strategy that makes the already good read aloud even better. It focuses more on getting students talking about the text in more than one word answers with the ultimate goal being that students will better comprehend the text as well as develop oral language and vocabulary skills. Teachers use open-ended questions and scaffold children's responses to their questions with hopes of probing students to talk about the topic. Something interesting about this strategy is that fact that some pictures are withheld from the students' view and are not shown until after students have given the answer the teacher is looking for. The idea is that students will not be able to answer the question by looking at the picture. Another interesting point is that teachers determine if students are responding to questions using background knowledge and if so, they help the student to seperate that knowledge from the story information.
The chapter gave many ideas for using read alouds and focused on using them in the content areas. I think this really helps to motivate students. I can remember my english teacher doing shared reading in my classes which exposed me to a lot more literature than I would have ever read on my own. Listening to him read was always fun because he made the books come alive, but, at the same time, we were still learning.
Two questions from this week's readings:
1. What exactly does the article mean by "decontextualized language"?
2. When it is not appropriate to use read alouds in content area classes?
Text talk, in my opinion, is a well developed strategy that makes the already good read aloud even better. It focuses more on getting students talking about the text in more than one word answers with the ultimate goal being that students will better comprehend the text as well as develop oral language and vocabulary skills. Teachers use open-ended questions and scaffold children's responses to their questions with hopes of probing students to talk about the topic. Something interesting about this strategy is that fact that some pictures are withheld from the students' view and are not shown until after students have given the answer the teacher is looking for. The idea is that students will not be able to answer the question by looking at the picture. Another interesting point is that teachers determine if students are responding to questions using background knowledge and if so, they help the student to seperate that knowledge from the story information.
The chapter gave many ideas for using read alouds and focused on using them in the content areas. I think this really helps to motivate students. I can remember my english teacher doing shared reading in my classes which exposed me to a lot more literature than I would have ever read on my own. Listening to him read was always fun because he made the books come alive, but, at the same time, we were still learning.
Two questions from this week's readings:
1. What exactly does the article mean by "decontextualized language"?
2. When it is not appropriate to use read alouds in content area classes?
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Week 4 - Writing to Learn
This week, I read the article Writing to Learn Across the Curriculum: Tools for Comprehension in Content Area Classes by Knipper and Duggan, as well as Chapter 8 of the text by Fisher and Frey Powerful Pens: Writing to Learn with Adolescents. I found that the overall description of writing to learn in the two pieces complemented each other well because the Fisher and Frey piece gave an example of what writing to learn actually looks like in each subject while Knipper and Duggan actually put that description into words. The explainations given in both the article and the text were parallel. I enjoyed the fact that both gave a wide variety of strategies to use in content area classes, many that I was not familiar with.
As I read, I wondered how much better of a writer, reader, thinker, and learner I would be today had my content area teachers used writing to learn. Both passages said that many content area teachers feel that writing is only the job of the language arts teacher, and sadly, I had those type teachers. It seems like such a powerful tool for both student and teacher. It is a means of, essentially, becoming a better thinker and learner and coming to know yourself as a thinker and learner (metacognition). It is also a means of allowing the teacher to see how the student thinks and if he or she understands what is being studied. With an understanding of writing to learn, I now wonder why all teachers wouldn't make this a part of their curriculum. To me, it is simply good teaching.
After reading the articles, I am confused on whether or not writing to learn pieces should be graded. Knipper and Duggan obviously think they should be because they discuss rubrics and checklists; however, Fisher and Frey state that "writing to learn prompts and tasks are not focused on perfect writing" (pp. 142). This leads to one of my questions:
Should writing to learn pieces be graded? If so, to what extent?
My second question:
If I happen to teach a content area class in a school where other teachers do not use writing to learn, what ways can I ease my students into the concept?
As I read, I wondered how much better of a writer, reader, thinker, and learner I would be today had my content area teachers used writing to learn. Both passages said that many content area teachers feel that writing is only the job of the language arts teacher, and sadly, I had those type teachers. It seems like such a powerful tool for both student and teacher. It is a means of, essentially, becoming a better thinker and learner and coming to know yourself as a thinker and learner (metacognition). It is also a means of allowing the teacher to see how the student thinks and if he or she understands what is being studied. With an understanding of writing to learn, I now wonder why all teachers wouldn't make this a part of their curriculum. To me, it is simply good teaching.
After reading the articles, I am confused on whether or not writing to learn pieces should be graded. Knipper and Duggan obviously think they should be because they discuss rubrics and checklists; however, Fisher and Frey state that "writing to learn prompts and tasks are not focused on perfect writing" (pp. 142). This leads to one of my questions:
Should writing to learn pieces be graded? If so, to what extent?
My second question:
If I happen to teach a content area class in a school where other teachers do not use writing to learn, what ways can I ease my students into the concept?
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Week 1 - Article Critique
My thoughts on the article Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades by Barbara Moss:
As I registered for classes last semester and throughout the summer, I thought about each of my classes and pondered what I would learn in each class. I often wondered what I would be learning in this course, Content Area Literacy, in particular, and how I would use what I learned. I enjoyed this article because it not only explained content area literacy but also gave a convincing argument on its importance in the elementary classroom. It made me understand the importance of this class in my journey to becoming a teacher.
The fact that an average of only 3.6 minutes each school day is spent on informational text was shocking to me. Because I have been exposed to using expository texts in the classroom, I assumed that it was a common practice. While reading through the article I tried to think back to use of informational text in my elementary years. The only time I could recall actually being taught how to use informational text was in fourth grade. Most of my encounters with informational texts in elementary seem to be from a teacher reading aloud the textbook, which is mentioned in the article.
There seems to be a small number of informational texts for lower-elementary students. The article claims that half of the books read in a classroom should be informational; however, a problem arises in finding so many informational texts that appeal to young children. Of course, textbooks are always available, but having younger children read textbooks could prevent a child from reading because the readability level of so many textbooks is above a child’s reading level.
This brings to mind two questions:
What are quality informational texts that can be used by children in the lower-elementary grades?
Because the readability level of a textbook is often higher than the grade level, what strategies can be used to help students besides reading the text aloud?
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