In Chapter 11, the big idea is that students need time to use the information that is being given to them to create new patterns which adds to/enhances their knowledge. How students synthesize knowledge is based on their background knowledge, the genre in which they are reading. I feel that synthesizing and summarizing need to be modeled and taught explicitly. The chapter gave many different ways of teaching students to synthesize and summarize that are all very similar-just arranged differently. I think summarizing is something my class could benefit from having a lesson on. They recently had to do a summary task in social studies and many of them had a very hard time with figuring out how to summarize the article. Many wanted to focus on the little details rather than the main ideas. I think that having students practice summarizing and synthesizing would give them a skill that they can use in all their classes-not just literature. I also think that these lessons really lend themselves to students of all abilities because it allows those who struggle to think about the big topics, the main points, the main ideas. They don’t have to worry about the little details.
In Chapter 12 the big idea is how to incorporate content areas into literacy to deepen understanding of both the subject area and literacy. I noticed that the bulleted list at the bottom of 207 can also be applied to “literacy” instruction as well. Why not combine the two in an era of pushing math and language arts. I think that teaching literacy strategies using other subject area contents is more interesting for students, challenges them and helps them connect the strategies they are learning in literacy to the content they are learning in other subject areas. I feel that as teachers we get so focused on teaching “literacy strategies” as its own subject instead of incorporating it into other subjects. When we incorporate into other subjects, I think the students make more connections both strategy wise and content wise. I think about trying to incorporate these ideas into my classroom but it could be very difficult because the students have a different teachers for math/science than they do for language arts/social studies and I think it would require a lot of working together and making sure they are on the same page. I don’t often see what they are learning in language arts working into their other content areas. I think if I were in an inclusive classroom it would be much easier to make these types of things flow seamlessly flow together. Do you think that team teachers should spend more time coming up with ways to bring together literacy and the other subject areas or are the teaching styles of teachers to much of a hindrance?
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ReplyDeleteThough I did not read chapters 11 and 12, from what Abby has stated, I feel that there is a huge connection between those chapters and what I read in chapter 13. In chapter 13 it talks abou topic studies and the research that goes into these. To write a research paper or create a presentation on a given topic, no matter what subject, students are required to not only read through information, but also summarize and take notes on the main ideas and big picture. As Abby said this is a process that needs to be modeled and taught explicitly. Students do not come to school as expert researchers who can summarize and pick out impotant parts of a reading. They need to be scaffolded and eased into this process. Because of this, it seems to me that learning to summarize and syntehsize is a process the preceedes teaching them to do a topic sudy. The two practices go hand in hand with one leading to the other. This chapter also coinceds with chapter 12 becsuae a topic study is the perfect way to show students that literacy learning is something that happens across the curriculum. They will need to have literacy skills to be sucessful in every subject and will see this through a topic study.
ReplyDeleteJust looked over the powerpoint from last week, I think we are taking notes on the chapter that we read and discussing it in our book club groups during class...correct me if I'm wrong :)
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