Final Synthesis Blog

I was surprised and thought it was a mistake when I first saw the classes I was supposed to be taking. I'm math and science, why do I need to do a literacy class? I was scared that I would not excel in such a class, since I'm not going into Language Arts for a reason. Reflecting on this semester, it's not what I was expecting at all. This class has been a really positive and eye-opening experience for me as a future educator, and I only wish that all education programs offered such a class.  I didn't think that I could be talked into having novels in a math class-yet here I am!

In this course, we have learned many methods for ~synthesizing~ literacy into our classroom.  I think the initial turn-off many educators experience is that they think the expectation from this course will be that we ignore our content and read poems and novels every day.  That is not what this class is getting at at all.  To be an effective teacher, your students need to come to class with the basic skills required to understand your lesson, and many of them do not have the reading abilities to understand what you're talking about in higher-level mathanese.  You are part of a team of educators responsible for each student, and you are failing them if you don't help get them where they need to be, even if it means reading in math.  The big idea here, though, is that if you don't have time for novels in your classroom, that is a-ok!  There are so many reading strategies available that directly relate to your 

class and what the students are learning.  Teachers can use literacy in their classroom to simultaneously increase the students content area understandings as well as their general reading skills.  Examples include KWL's, where students have an opportunity to refresh on what they know about a topic and pinpoint what they would like to learn about it, and later refresh on what they learned from the lesson.  The writing format of this assignment allows students to access their knowledge throughout a lesson and record it for better long-term memory.  Additionally, teachers can use these to understand the basic concepts the class knows and what they actually got out of a lesson.  With Post-it response notes, students can record their thinking as you go through a lesson, making them more aware of the events taking place and inscribing it better into their memory.  Both of these are major ways for students to practice literacy while not taking away from, but actually adding an additional layer to your content area lesson.  

I found it interesting that many of the preservice teachers in the article Teachers and Content Area Reading: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Change did not have the changed feelings that I had.  My inclination is that their coursework was not as clear cut about how literacy can be in their classroom, rather it be a class reading of a novel or simply literacy-including activities.  I understand teachers' feelings that a novel would take too much time away from their class, but I would still feel inclined to do it.  My preference would be a novel that has some math concepts that year, but it would only take 10-20 minutes each week and it could have such a strong effect on not only the literacy skills of my students in both math and language arts, but on the relationships I form with my students as a result of this leisure time and step outside of the norms of a math classroom.  Here's a wonderful resource I found that lists math books with their related grade level and the concepts they address.  This is something I definitely see myself referring to in two years.  My goal would be to design a whole class year or semester around a book, having each unit themed around the chapter(s) we read right before learning the materials of the unit, and having my classroom decorated in such a way.  I really wouldn't do this just on the basis of having literacy in my classroom; I truly think this would be really fun and interactive for my students to be a part of.

Additionally, here is an article that states out 10 Ways Literacy Can Promote a Deeper Understanding of Math, if I haven't convinced you yet!  My favorite "Way" was to have the students explain to a partner how they solved a problem.  I think the best way to go about this would be to have partner A do one problem and partner B do another, so that they truly feel an obligation to their partner to teach it well enough that their partner will learn from them.  I enjoyed these "ways" because they are all pretty logical and have a natural flow in a classroom with minimal planning required.  I know that a major concern going into the teaching field will be the shame I may experience trying to bring literacy into a math classroom.  However, I would feel encouraged to speak to the needs of the classroom and the difference they can make. It would be my hope that literacy would not only be a part of my classroom, but that multiple classes could thread the same text through, helping students to relate concepts between different content areas and to learn literacy in every class!

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Author's Note: Thank you Mr. Robinson for a wonderful semester :)