Draper Chapter 9

Jo Draper, R. (2010). (Re)imagining content area literacy instruction. New York, NY:       Teachers College Press.

Summary: Chapter nine is about finding the literacies in a science classroom. Rather than just having the students reading about science, the science teacher gave a project based off of a question that was formulated. The students had to conduct research and experiment and then come to a conclusion. Through this, they were learning science and the process, but also literacy was involved both related to science and learning to read.

In this chapter, I kept my interest by figuring ways that I could use the information given in a math class. I chose this chapter on science to read because I felt that science was close related to mathematics. Science uses math and many of the strategies used can be reflected back to math. One of the strategies that I found was the 5L learning cycle. The five phases are engagement, exploration, explanation, extension, and evaluation. I related this to math because I figured that if I could engages the students in a problem or concept, they would want to explore it and figure out the solution.  They may come to me for an explanation, the book or extend it and go to outside resources and research about the information. Once they have gathered all of the information, they would be able to evaluate the problem and find a solution. It may not be as fun as a science experiment, but it could be engaging if the problem was something that related to the students and something they were interested in. Also in this chapter, I liked the idea that the science teacher had the students do a project that caused them to look up information in articles and relate the information back to what they were learning. I feel that when teachers just give students an article to read, but it is not something that is beneficial and cannot be used in class, then it means nothing but a grade. But this science teacher showed why articles were important in his class and being able to read them because it allows you to find out the information to come to a conclusion about your question.

Draper Chapter 2

Jo Draper, R. (2010). (Re)imagining content area literacy instruction. New York, NY:       Teachers College Press.

Summary: The second chapter of the books is about redefining text and literacy. In order for content area and literacy teachers to be able to collaborate, they must have the same meaning of literacy and text. Originally, texts meant sentences, words and printed material, but teachers have now redefined it to mean any object or resource that one goes to for meaning that is for a particular purpose. Literacy on the other had started off meaning being able to read and write texts and printed text but now refers to being able to negotiate and create texts for a particular discipline that is recognizable as true to others in that area.

 Reading this chapter at first was boring, and I had to make sure to turn off my reciting voice and try and get into the book. To keep my interest as I read, I would make text to self connection because of the examples of the mathematics teacher. At the beginning of the chapter it gave situations as to how literacy and content area teachers were not really collaborating. It made think that I would probably do the same things that these teachers had done to incorporate literacy. But now that literacy and texts have been redefined it gives a better understanding why literacy is so important in each discipline. It is easy to incorporate literacy with the knowledge of the redefined text and literacy because it is already things that are being taught. Nothing needs to be changed except teaching the students how to use these traditional texts and non-traditional texts. As I thought about how I will incorporate literacy into my classes, I figured that I would teach a lesson on non-tradition texts such as how to use calculators so that the students can become literate and be able to navigate properly through mathematical problems. Most students only know the basics such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, but calculators can be used for so much more and especially for upper division math classes, calculators can be very important and useful in quickly navigating through difficult problems. Another literacy that I could incorporate into my lessons that is a traditional text would be word problems. It is the most difficult to read and understand and in order for students to do well in life outside of school, they need to be literate in word problems.

Draper Chapter 3

Jo Draper, R. (2010). (Re)imagining content area literacy instruction. New York, NY:       Teachers College Press.

Summary: Chapter three discussed the three instructional ways, which were meaning, activity and literacy, which literacy needs to be presented. It also discussed the importance of literacy specialist and teachers collaborating to make it beneficial for the students.

            This chapter, unlike the others was more related to my content area and was still a little difficult to get into at first, but once I was able to see that there was new information being given, I became interested. I think that it is hard to get into because I feel like I have already covered so much information on literacy that I know it already and could figure it out on my own if I needed to. Once I got into the information I was able to find new information that could be useful. While reading, I would frequently relate back to the math classes that I have had and notice the different strategies that my teachers used and how they had incorporated literacy into the lesson. The literacy principle I found very important, because it made the important point that the literacies need to be from the content area and be beneficial. Since the word literacy connotes reading words, teachers think that they have to give the students articles to read about math. What this principle is emphasizing, is that the literacies from each content area are different and that the literacies that are chosen for the classroom need to be beneficial and go along with the lesson. Reading an article about calculators would be boring and the students would probably not learn anything because it is not something they need to know in order to be literate in mathematics. But if the teacher taught a lesson on how to use calculators, the students would take away something useful that could be used throughout the class and life.    

Draper Chapter 1

Jo Draper, R. (2010). (Re)imagining content area literacy instruction. New York, NY:       Teachers College Press.

Summary: Chapter one went over why it is important for collaboration between content area teachers and literacy teacher to occur. Content area teachers bring their expertise in the discipline, and know the best way to teach the information so that the students understand the lesson. Literacy teachers bring different ways that teachers can teach the literacy's of that specific discipline. Although the literacy teachers are not literate in all subject areas, they know general tools that they can go over with the content area teachers and find out which best suits the literacy of the discipline.

At first this chapter was very difficult to follow and I was unable to become interested. The whole chapter was a struggle, but I kept re-reading the text, I slowed down and tried to comprehend what I was reading, and I also tried imagining and predicting the information that they were going to tell me in this chapter.  Since we had gone over the different types of literacy in each different content area, I understood that students had to be literate in mathematics and it is a teacher’s job to teach it to them.  I agree that literacy and content area teachers need to come together because most teachers are not going to know how to teach reading if it is not their subject area. For example, most mathematics teachers do not enjoy reading and probably chose mathematics because it was far from English. Thinking that they have to teach students how to read mathematics literacy, is out of what they would normally think. By bringing in a literacy teacher, they could give the teacher helpful ways that can help the students understand and learn mathematics through reading. The whole goal behind students becoming literate in different subjects is so that they can put it all into practice outside of school. This is not only when they are done with their schooling, but also currently while they are still learning in school, but can apply it to their lives outside of everyday school. In doing this, the students are interested and enjoy learning the information, which is a shared goal of both literary and content area teachers; that the students are able to use the learned information outside of school.