13+Nov+09+Meeting+Log

Captured Conversations Generated from the November 13, 2009 Content Area Study Group Writing Prompt: What place does literacy currently have in your classroom? What reading/writing practices are you currently using that work well, or what literacy practices would you like to learn more about? · Janine’s response: o Mostly I use the few literacy practices I am familiar with to further students’ understanding of content area. I don’t actually teach literacy practices although because I use the different practices such as double entry notebooks, journaling, peer reviewing, and model them, then I guess I am teaching and using them simultaneously. o I really want to do more with literacy practices that will help my students become more engaged with technical reading that needs to be done in the classroom. I have dabbled with KWL charts and although I see their potential, I haven’t been able to wield them as a truly effective teaching tool. I would like more practice with them but so often I get lazy and just assign pages to read and questions to answer with taking the time to assess prior knowledge. o //(Response I shared with the group)// This year I want to develop more strength using reading literacy tools to help my students master their science content. There are so many great articles about science and their textbook has some excellent explanations, but my students haven’t acquired the taste for science reading that they need to take the journey into some of the text. It like there is this really great peak I want them to see but first I have to get them on the trail and develop their reading stamina enough to endure the trip. · Paulette – use reading and writing to help inform instruction. · Neil – Pine Bush – low reading holds students back so wants strategies to help students read and articulate arguments. · Ellen – Pauling 5th grade rethinking literacy as far as ELA – strategy approach vs book approach – develop reading strategies to any book and apply these strategies to science and social studies. Help them apply strategies cross discipline, evaluate text and know what strategies to use. · Sarah – Pauling 5th grade – continues the social studies work into ELA class. Content area endurance – must know vocabulary to know questions, reading and writing in math. Afraid to guess – no confidence no endurance to push through unknown. · Lisa – Pauling HS – Lots of reading and writing – college level classes – AP Document based questions and how to analyze primary sources, struggle with taking in perspective of author and looking at biases perspective and point of view. · Nicole – Poughkeepise MS – Science – literacy is reading and writing to support hands on activity based science instruction. Would like to do more journaling and differentiated reading, read data tables and graphs, hard to decipher what is important. There are lots of different reading abilities in the class. · Laura – MS Science – reading strategies in particular compiling list or index cards of possible strategies. Not a text driven course, use chat room with a New York Times article. Not sure when see text book if need to read graphs, so also help them determine what is important. Introduce reading with different strategies to help students learn. · Kristen – Teacher consultant; business; Literacy is a focus of my work – I want to be part of learning community. I am especially interested in social approaches to interest content teachers in strategies. · Eric – 5th grade – inclusive classroom. Use literacy all the time – infused in all with reading and writing strategies. Want to try to plug writing in strategically to help deepen student learning. · Jack – 8th English – Literacy is big in my classroom. Our first school group meeting was to introduce new ELA exam – all about timed writing, now want to explore other types of writing in classroom. I am interested in working with literacy in social studies more. Team teaching (English and Social Studies) is a very positive fit. · Trace – 8th English – and strong social studies lens. Disciplinary literacies of English are not always affiliated with literacy at all. In English a teacher can focus on a technique or convention of English without getting into literacy issues so a student can go through class without being able to comprehend a text. What are the disciplinary literacies in a text – use writing as a tool for learning. What different literacies enable a student to write in English but not in science or can’t read in science classroom but does well in English. English teachers may not know if their students are literate. · Learning to read vs reading to learn (Paulette) differences between elementary and HS reading. · “This isn’t English class why are you grading grammar…” Student complaints, having student revise and learn to write. Essays and response writing needs basic work. Have to slide back and forth on scale. · Neil – taught higher students now working with lower levels, but basic skill, not just decode – meanings are changed, finding rewriting essays helps but students don’t want to write and are upset with grammar grading. Not taught to think but only use a formula essay – want teachers teaching essays the same way. But not teaching the child to think – critical thought not necessary in formula writing. · Ellen – student accountability – if you accept papers with errors there is no motivation to use skills or develop them. Just get ideas down – don’t worry about mechanics. Now it is confusing – if accept substandard work that is a bench mark in students’ minds. Must learn to practice – develop a writing muscle by requiring more precise writing. · Laura observes that students don’t know how to write or they don’t know how to rewrite. · Trace – students writing for teacher – so if I focus on one thing that is what they get good for. See if alternating the audience will impact the writing. Lisa’s work with last year writing DBQ changed purpose. · Eric - Use MAP (mode, audience, purpose) when reading and writing to help deepen the writing. Authentic audience is powerful so writing for a test is a disconnect. Scientists do not write in 40 minutes. Need to get ideas down, revisit work, edit and polish but don’t do that on test. · Paulette – testing is a different genre all in itself – not that they will love it but writing on demand is a skill that they must be able to do. Maybe even do as formula but that can’t be the full extent of writing. Do more enriching writing more writing to learn in the class. Students should use MAP for their writing. · Kristen – writing for purpose in tech school. Write well in technical area but not in English. Students saw no purpose for their writing. Need to tell kids this is the purpose of this writing – writing for test. · Ellen – need to be explicit in why we are writing what is the purpose so they can learn to write differently. Need to give students different opportunities to write. Provide opportunities for different kinds of writing in content areas. Write a poem and write a lab report – writing is thinking. Covering the material is a trap many content teachers fall into and we sacrifice some rich writing experiences. · Jack – the essays become the content. What you write in SS beside the DBQ. Need rich experiences in classes. Can write the DBQ but can’t find the primary sources – a skill needed for the historian. · Lisa – going to have kids make the DBQ so maybe change attitude about reading them if they know how they were generated. They want other students to do their DBQs. I want to do it all – is that asking too much? · Maybe have 8th graders create 7th grade DBQ and that will improve the audiences aspect. · Neil – I give them a document book that and have them argue using it on the DBQ. Find the opposing view point – munity vs rebellion. · Eric – I have kids come up with questions about a document and model from the other document but it went flat. Writing questions are hard. Ellen – what was the problem – Eric they were too literal. Questions about what do you see what color… Paulette – that is a great opportunity to introduce strategies of questions. - Showed a trout lab in old paper format and then responses put on wiki as students write a collaborative lab and gather background and data. - Group Observations: o Responses for areas assigned showed more thoughtful writing – longer and better detail. o Teaching students a 21st century literacy and that is online writing. o More peer pressure to write well since doing it for a group and not for self or teacher.
 * Group Respones: **
 * Discussion on Shannaon Article of skill triangle – disciplinary/intermediate/basic literacy.**
 * Janine – How does wiki writing impact literacy?**