Chapter 11 of Content Area Reading - Teaching with Trade Books
Many secondary teachers may find it difficult to teach their content in the course of a school year. How can we add more reading materials if we are already struggling to get through our texts? Chapter 11 of Content Area Reading gives many reasons as to why we will see a higher percentage of student sucesss when we incorporate trade books into our teaching, regardless of our discipline or student age level.
The increase of student engagement is one of the most immediate benefits of teaching with trade books. Standard text books often lack pictures that draw students' attention. Students also may immideately be turned away from reading them because they generally have the assumption that they will be "too difficult" to read. The colorful illustrations found in high quality trade books create an interest in reading for students and improves comprehension.
Another reason I plan to use trade books in my future Spanish classroom is to help differentiate instruction and support English Lanuage Learners. Tradebooks help to match students' abilities. I believe that this will advance their content knowledge and make it easier for them to use the required text.
Chapter 2 of Content Area Writing - Writing to Learn
This chapter of Content Area Writing stresses the importance of using writing to learn activities in the classroom, and also offers ideas of how to do so. Although we may not realize it, we are all writing to learn on a daily basis. Grocery lists, phone messages, e-mails, etc. are all activities that we do without thinking. Not only are we doing all of these activities, but are students are as well. "Low-stakes" writing to learn activites should not take much time, and can help you to assess where your students are at in their learning.
They can also help students to process their learning and practice critical thinking. Some exaples of WTL activites that I plan to use in my future classroom are reflections, blogs, journals, and entry/exit slips.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Los Examenes - How will I Assess my Future Students?
-OJH student
How can I ensure that students in my future classroom NEVER say this about my assessments? Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz have given me a better understanding of successful assessments through the reading of Chapter 4 in Content Area Reading.
It seems as though the majority of teaching that is going on in our schools today is catered to increasing standardized test scores in order to fund our schools and give them better reputations. Don't get me wrong, I know that the assessment of our students is important. I am not saying we shouldn't have standardized testing, but should we spend so much time, energy, stress and focus on it? Should students of the same grade get the exact same test regardless of what level they are at or the relevance of the test questions to them? What do our students honestly learn out of countless multiple choice questions? Are we preparing our students to be critical thinkers who can retain information for longer than two weeks? I don't know about you, but if a student said that about one of my tests I would say I haven't done a great job in teaching him my content.
This chapter focuses on three different types of assessments; formal, high-stake assessments, informal and authentic assessments, and the use of a portfolio.
Formal, high-stake tests are not as effective as informal and authentic assessments. Teaching to memorize will not help my students to fully comprehend what I am teaching. This will also make it more difficult for me to know where each student is at. I remember cramming for exams the night before they took place and simply putting the answers into my short-term memory. Did I pass? Yes. Could I tell you what was on the test two weeks later? Probably not.
I plan to use authentic assessments in my future Spanish class. I believe that it is important to informally assess my students each and every day. Following each lesson I will construct some type of informal assessment so that I can have a clear understanding of what my students have comprehended and where I should begin the next day. What needs to be retaught and what is working well? I like the idea of a 5-4-3-2-1 checkout. One-on-one or group interviews will also be a good way to assess my students, especially in my discipline.
The development of a portfolio is the one that excites me the most. I really like the idea of having students assess themselves, not just the teachers. The portfolio also provides choices which we all know creates more student engagement. We are also aware that student engagement is the key to student overall success. These choices can be made to cater to all learning styles which will help ALL students have the opportunity for success. Not only will the portfolio help me to see individual learning that is going on and different needs a particular student may have, but it will also help students to prepare for their post-high school education, as many colleges are beginning to use portfolios as a means to assessment, and may not award your degree without it.
Let's teach our students to learn and not to memorize!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
La Literatura y La Lectura by Laura Ringen
La Literatura y La Lectura by Laura Ringen: In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Z...: In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Zemmelman, and Steineke explain that writing paves the way to fulfilling employment. They g...
In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Zemmelman, and Steineke explain that writing paves the way to fulfilling employment. They go on to write about how HR departments in the corporate workforce want to hire young people who come out of schools and colleges who know how to use words well on paper, or in the digital ether. This relates to the fact that our job as educators is to prepare our youth to be ready for the world beyond high school, and also beyond college. We should encourage them to be active citizens who know how to voice their beliefs and opinions through writing. We are shaping the future of our community through our students.
Our students today are writing more ways than we think. What if we counted the number of words our students texted every day? Add that with the notes they write back and forth to eachother, comments on twitter, instagram, facebook,etc. I don't like that we are putting so much focus on banning electronics in our school, when we could be using it to our advantange. One of othe 8th grade English teachers at our school incorporates technology on a day-to-day basis into her lesson. Her students are very engaged and love going to her class. Not only does she incorporate technology, but she also creates relevance in the content that she is teaching. When giving a writing assignment, students pick the prompt and she approves it. I believe that giving students options creates interest and results in better work.
At first I thought that teaching students how to write was a job for English teachers, but now I know that we should be incorporating it into each of our disciplines. This book tells us that when students have been steadily making their thinking visible in writing, they are likely to score better on all kinds of tests. Writing, regardless of what subject you are teaching, reinforces information. I am excited to learn some of the strategies this book has to offer for incoprating writing into all subjects. It is also important that we understand the difference between writing to learn and public writing. I plan to use many of the writing to learn strategies in my future classroom.
Content Area Reading was a little frustrating to me. I agree with the points that Vacca and Vacca make in this chapter, but am frustrated with the fact that we are teaching so much to state standards and focusing much of our curriculum on getting kids ready for standardized testing. We should be teaching our students to think critically and comprehend readings rather than getting them ready to take multiple choice tests. I do not think that all of standardized testing is bad, I just think that we put too much focus on them. I believe that if we taught our students to enjoy reading and really take meaning out of what they are reading, we would see major improvements on our standardized test scores. North View Junior High, the school I worked at last year, did a great job of this. Creating relevance and choice in reading helped to shape a culture for that school, and made a huge difference in all subject areas.
Reading is important for all subjects. In math we have word problems. In every subject we have text books. I am planning to teach Spanish, and if my students do not have the skillset to read and write in English, it will be near impossible to teach them to do so in another language! With that being said, the first chapters of our texts leave me feeling excited to learn more about how to best incorporate content-area reading and writing strategies in my future classroom in order to benefit mystudents.
Our students today are writing more ways than we think. What if we counted the number of words our students texted every day? Add that with the notes they write back and forth to eachother, comments on twitter, instagram, facebook,etc. I don't like that we are putting so much focus on banning electronics in our school, when we could be using it to our advantange. One of othe 8th grade English teachers at our school incorporates technology on a day-to-day basis into her lesson. Her students are very engaged and love going to her class. Not only does she incorporate technology, but she also creates relevance in the content that she is teaching. When giving a writing assignment, students pick the prompt and she approves it. I believe that giving students options creates interest and results in better work.
At first I thought that teaching students how to write was a job for English teachers, but now I know that we should be incorporating it into each of our disciplines. This book tells us that when students have been steadily making their thinking visible in writing, they are likely to score better on all kinds of tests. Writing, regardless of what subject you are teaching, reinforces information. I am excited to learn some of the strategies this book has to offer for incoprating writing into all subjects. It is also important that we understand the difference between writing to learn and public writing. I plan to use many of the writing to learn strategies in my future classroom.
Content Area Reading was a little frustrating to me. I agree with the points that Vacca and Vacca make in this chapter, but am frustrated with the fact that we are teaching so much to state standards and focusing much of our curriculum on getting kids ready for standardized testing. We should be teaching our students to think critically and comprehend readings rather than getting them ready to take multiple choice tests. I do not think that all of standardized testing is bad, I just think that we put too much focus on them. I believe that if we taught our students to enjoy reading and really take meaning out of what they are reading, we would see major improvements on our standardized test scores. North View Junior High, the school I worked at last year, did a great job of this. Creating relevance and choice in reading helped to shape a culture for that school, and made a huge difference in all subject areas.
Reading is important for all subjects. In math we have word problems. In every subject we have text books. I am planning to teach Spanish, and if my students do not have the skillset to read and write in English, it will be near impossible to teach them to do so in another language! With that being said, the first chapters of our texts leave me feeling excited to learn more about how to best incorporate content-area reading and writing strategies in my future classroom in order to benefit mystudents.
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