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dissertation entitled

ASKING CONTENT TEACHERS: WHAT ARE THE
LITERACY PRACTICES AND PURPOSES THAT HIGH
SCHOOL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS
USE TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOALS AND HOW ARE
THEY REPRESENTED IN STUDENT TASKS?

presented by
KATHLEEN D. MOXLEY

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of the requirements for the

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ASKING CONTENT TEACHERS: WHAT ARE THE LITERACY
PRACTICES AND PURPOSES THAT HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL
STUDIES TEACHERS USE TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOALS AND HOW ARE

THEY REPRESENTED IN STUDENT TASKS?

By

Kathleen D. Moxley

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fuIfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy

2008

ABSTRACT

ASKING CONTENT TEACHERS: WHAT ARE THE LITERACY
PRACTICES AND PURPOSES THAT HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL
STUDIES TEACHERS USE TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR GOALS AND HOW ARE

THEY REPRESENTED IN STUDENT TASKS?
By
Kathleen D. Moxley

The purpose of this study was to explore the views that high school
science and social studies teachers’ hold about literacy. Practices were
categorized in terms of the teachers’ instructional goals and the reading and
writing involved their teaching. This study focused on seven teachers across
urban and suburban perspectives. The teachers represented the disciplines of
science and social studies across upper and lower track class levels. This study
answers the following questions: What literacy practices do high school teachers
use to accomplish their science and social studies instructional goals? What are
the purposes for using these literacy practices? How do these literacy practices
involve reading and writing?

Data collection derived from a range of methods and data sources
including pre and post interviews, observations, and student artifacts. Data was
analyzed through the constant comparison method to get a sense of the larger
patterns around teachers’ goals and related practices and HyperRESEARCH®

software to corroborate the larger patterns and code the pre and post interviews

to expose these patterns in more depth.

It was determined that teachers characterized three goals across
discipline, school, and track. First, teachers described their goals in terms of
federal, state, and district mandates and initiatives. Second, teachers wanted
their students to connect or apply their knowledge and understanding to real
world situations. Third, teachers described engagement in learning as learning
how to learn or motivation to want to learn. While all three goals were described
by the teachers the emphasis placed on each goal told a notably different story at
each school.

Findings in this study indicate a relationship between reading and writing
achievement of students and teacher emphasis placed on goals. Teachers at the
urban high school placed higher emphasis on the demands of mandates,
whereas, teachers from the suburban school placed higher emphasis on
connecting knowledge and understanding to the real world. This study uncovers
a connection between school situation and teacher emphasis on instructional
goals and related practices. This study sets up further discussions about the
distinctions between urban and suburban high school teachers around their

instructional goals and practices.

Copyright by
KATHLEEN D. MOXLEY
2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the following people for supporting me
throughout my program at Michigan State and for laYing the foundation for my
future teaching and scholarship.

I thank Mark Conley for his unwavering patience, encouragement, and
gentle nudging to always press on to the finish line. I am grateful for Mark’s
steady guidance through comps and the grueling dissertation process. I
appreciate his willingness to talk about complex ideas and problems; I counted
on his advice, but I knew he would always lead me to an answer or even more
complex thinking without readily giving it away. He is a true mentor and I look
forward to his support in the future as l embark on this new adventure of teaching
and scholarship.

I thank Janine Certo for her friendship, caring and constant enthusiasm. I
appreciated her upbeat and positive leadership. She gave me wonderful
opportunities to participate in research and taught me to believe in myself. I
enjoyed bonding at conferences and learning how to be part of a research team
with her at the helm. I anticipate and look forward to a research partnership in the
future.

I thank Troy for always being there to listen and offer advice. He shared
his own experiences about the research process and was always ready to

answer questions. I learned so much about conducting research by watching and

listening to him think through problems at team meetings. He modeled a think—
aloud at its best.

I thank Andy Anderson for listening as I shared my data even when I was
not so sure of what I was finding. You stretched my thinking and offered advice
about how to be critical of research. I listened.

I wish to acknowledge the teacher content experts who willingly allowed
me to invade their classrooms and watch and listen and leam. I am grateful for
the opportunity to interview them and ask them about their teaching. Their
thoughtful responses are the content of this study. Without the help of Cate,
Dave, Hal, Spence, Russ, Cam, and Seth and their interest in my work this study
would not have happened.

I thank my family for their constant patience and encouragement during
these last five years. They allowed me to follow my dreams even when it must
have seemed as though I would never reach the end. I am sure it seemed as
though I would never extract myself from the depths of my study also known
as the dungeon. I promise I will sit on the deck again, read a newspaper, and
maybe even a novel. I will become part of the human race again and take time

for life maybe even canoeing or even clean the house!

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... ix

CHAPTER 1 . .

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem .................................................................. 1
Significance of the Study ................................................................... 5

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................ 8
Resistance to Content Literacy .......................................................... 9
Challenges ........................................................................................ 1 3
Content Literacy and Subject Matter .................................................. 17
Cognitive Strategy Instruction ............................................................ 24
Situated Cognition Theory ................................................................. 25
Transactional Theory ......................................................................... 27
Learning and Literacy ........................................................................ 28
Defining Concepts for this Study ....................................................... 31
Rationale for this study ...................................................................... 33

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................... 35
The Researcher’s Role ...................................................................... 35
Data Collection Procedures ............................................................... 38

Sites ........................................................................................ 39
School Descriptions and Demographics .................. ‘ ............... 39
School Literacy Initiatives ....................................................... 4O
Participants ............................................................................. 44
Researchers Suppositions and Explanations ......................... 49
Instruments ........................................................................................ 51
Interviews ................................................................................ 51
Observations ........................................................................... 54
Post Interviews ....................................................................... 55
Students Tasks ....................................................................... 56
Data Recording Procedures .............................................................. 56
Data Analysis and Interpretation ........................................................ 57

CHAPTER 4

RELATING GOALS TO PRACTICE ............................................................. 59
Goal #1 — Federal/State/District/School Mandates ............................ 60

Practices and Purposes .......................................................... 67
Reading and Writing Support .................................................. 73
Tensions - Mandates ............................................................. 77

vii

Impressions about Literacy ..................................................... 82

Goal #2 - Applying or Connecting Learning to the World .................. 83
Practices and Purposes .......................................................... 98
Reading and Writing Support .................................................. 114
Tensions — Real World ........................................................... 118
Impressions about Literacy ..................................................... 1 19
Goal #3 - Engagement in Learning ......................................... 120
Practices and Purposes .......................................................... 129
Reading and Writing Support .................................................. 147
Tensions — Engagement ......................................................... 152
Impressions about Literacy ..................................................... 154
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ........................................................ 156
Summary and Discussion .................................................................. 156
Implications ....................................................................................... 168
Significance, Limitations, and Future Research ................................ 177
APPENDICES .............................................................................................. 183
Appendix A ........................................................................................ 184
Appendix B ................................. _ ....................................................... 186
Appendix C ........................................................................................ 187
Appendix D ........................................................................................ 195
Appendix E .................................................................. , ..................... 196
Appendix F ........................................................................................ 197
Appendix G ........................................................................................ 198
REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 206

viii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1: SCHOOL DEMOGRAPHICS ....................................................... 41
TABLE 2: PARTICIPANTS .................................. » ......................................... 46
TABLE 3: MEETING MANDATES ................................................................ 62
TABLE 4: REAL WORLD CONNECTIONS OR APPLICATION ................... 88
TABLE 5: ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING .................................................... 123

ix

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

When teachers confront the prospect of teaching reading and writing in
addition to their content a few embrace the idea, some balk altogether or linger
somewhere in between, but most struggle to make sense of the task. A belief
that middle and high school teachers should play a role in improving literacy
among adolescents exists (Massey & Heafner, 2004). However, there are
consistent reports that content teachers believe it is not their responsibility to
teach reading and writing (Draper, 2002). Several studies emphasize teacher
resistance to the idea of teaching literacy within subject areas (O'Brien, D. G. et
al., 1995; O'Brien, D. G., 1988; Sturtevant & Linek, 2003). In fact, a perception
among some is that teachers of content resist teaching reading and writing to the
extent that they do not teach literacy at all (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004; O'Brien,
D. G. et al., 1995). While this paradigm of resistance to teaching literacy among
subject specific teachers exists it is restrictive in its depiction of the broader
scope of the problem.

Those adopting a paradigm of resistance view of the problem neglect to
consider the motive behind teachers’ decisions about teaching reading and
writing strategies as well as their own content. Fisher & lvey (2005) recognize
that the idea of every teacher being a teacher of reading is not necessarily
working; they reason that teachers view reading and writing strategy instruction
as not relevant to their content instruction. This melds with another point of view

among researchers suggesting that content area teachers find teaching literacy a

challenge (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004; O'Brien, D. G. et al., 1995). Instead of
pronouncing teachers as resisters we need to position ourselves to look more
closely below the surface to the underlying causes of teachers’ seemingly
disregard of the idea of introducing reading and writing instruction into their
specific subject areas. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the
views that high school teachers' hold about literacy. This study is important as it
will help broaden a limited body of research that considers teachers views in
explanation of their resistance to teaching literacy strategies within content
instruction.

Research on content literacy has consistently described this resistance in
terms of the struggles and hurdles that block secondary teachers from infusing
literacy into their subject matter practices. Researchers have offered common
insights about what effects secondary teachers' abilities to teach literacy within
their subject area (Sturtevant & Linek, 2003). However, the problem is not as
straightforward as it seems. Complicating matters is the notion that teachers are
constrained by a variety of challenges; no single problem determines whether a
teacher chooses to infuse his/her curriculum with literacy instruction.

To begin with, problems stemming from issues of time, materials, and
policy control teachers’ views on literacy instruction. For example, textbooks
place limits on the decisions teachers make about what and how they teach
(Draper, 2002). School, district, state, and federal policies like No Child Left
Behind dictate how, when, and what they teach. Time constrains teachers based

on curriculum mandates and school day parameters (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004;

O'Brien, et al., 1995). Professional development also constrains teachers
especially when it is offered away from the school environment (Campbell &
Kmiecik, 2004; Draper, 2002; O'Brien, et al., 1995).

Additionally, student issues present problems for teachers attempting to
teach literacy. According to content teachers, some of the most challenging
issues that get in the way of teaching literacy center on student motivation,
interests, and attitudes (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004). Campbell & Kmiecik (2004)
report problems of text as likely culprits; often class-assigned reading is
considered boring or not relevant to the interests or experiences of the students.
More importantly, identifying motivational strategies and putting them into
practice continues to frustrate teachers (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004).

Teacher issues also stand in the way of infusing content with reading and
writing instruction. For instance, teachers find helping students learn and use
critical thinking skills, study skills, and vocabulary is hindered by their own
capabilities in teaching literacy strategies (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004). Such
. strategies are thought to increase textbook understanding, but they tend to be
constraining in nature because of their structural operations (O'Brien, et al.,
1995). They are constructed around rules of engagement, which impose a
certain way to think on the learner and constrain how a content teacher
implements a lesson. Teachers and lessons become controlled by the literacy
strategy used (O'Brien, et al., 1995).

Language is another issue that impacts thinking about literacy strategy

instruction within specific domains. Language is the common denominator or

conduit through which all Ieaming occurs. Students need sufficient language
skills and abilities to learn. However, Ieaming in the content areas requires the
knowledge and understanding of certain language specific to that domain. While
the need for language is common across all Ieaming, the specific language used
within a domain is unique and many times not transferable or does not create
meaning in a different domain. Vocabulary, therefore, is unique to its own
domain. Literacy researchers need to find out how literacy is viewed by teachers
in their specific disciplines and collaborate with domain specific researchers to
develop meaningful strategies that reach across disciplines (Vansledright, 2004).

Currently our knowledge about how secondary teachers describe their
views about literacy within the context of their teaching is limited. In order to have
an impact on secondary teachers’ thinking literacy researchers need to ask
teachers directly about their views of literacy in connection to their contexts. We
need to figure out how to make teaching literacy more relevant to content
teachers. We need to determine the skills that content teachers expect their
students to possess to be successful. We need to recognize that a broader
scope of literacies beyond the generally accepted reading and writing strategies
might be more suited to teaching in subject specific domains. With this
knowledge literacy researchers can collaborate with domain specific researchers
to develop meaningful strategies that reach across disciplines (Vansledright,

2004)

Significance of the Study

As demands for more and higher quality reading and writing instruction
heighten (NAEP, 2005; National Commission on Writing, 2003, 2004; IRA, 1999),
responsibility for this instruction is fast becoming a Secondary issue where
expectations for teaching reading and writing have invaded the content area.
More and more students are coming to middle and high schools with reading
difficulties (Moje, Young, Readance, & Moore, 2000). The continuation of reading
support is deemed necessary as many of these students can read fluently, but
are unable to comprehend (Pressley & Block, 2002).

Adolescent literacy is of critical concern to educators, parents, the
research community, and the US. government, as high stakes testing indicators
continue to point to lower achievement scores in reading and writing at this age
level (US. Dept. of Ed, 2006; NAEP, 2005; Alverrnann, 2002; IRA, 1999). The
need to improve reading achievement is crucial. According to ACT, half of all
high school graduates are not ready for college-level reading. Half of African
American and Hispanic 9th graders do not graduate from high school on time.
And, older students who struggle with reading and writing are more likely to drop
out of school (US. Dept. of Ed, 2006).

Furthermore, the most recent NAEP reading results demonstrate a need
for improving the reading performance among secondary students. According to
NAEP, reading performance of high school seniors continues to decline. In 2005,
the average reading score for high school seniors was the lowest since 1992.

Results indicated that students performed poorly when asked to identify main

ideas and understand informational passages (Alliance, 2005). Also, when asked
to think at higher levels students had difficulty making critical judgments,
explaining their reasoning, and extending ideas in text (Alliance, 2005; NAEP,
2005)

Research points to a need to continue reading support throughout school.
Reading difficulties persist over time; they do not go away (NICHD et al., 2002).
Approximately 74 percent of children with early reading disabilities continue to
have reading difficulties years later (NICHD et al., 2002). Even those adolescents
who achieve at the proficient level require continuing instruction, as they are
faced with increasingly complex texts to decipher and understand (NICHD et al.,
2002)

In addition the National Commission on Writing recommends doubling the
amount of time students should spend on writing across grade levels and all
subject areas. This raises issues specific to high school students, especially
those nearing graduation, in terms of employability. The business community
confirms that people who cannot write or communicate clearly will not be hired
and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion (Writing,
2004)

Prominently missing in the literature on adolescent or content literacy,
however, is research documenting teachers’ views or understandings about
literacy specific to their domain areas. The findings of this study can shape and
broaden our understandings of content literacy and will fill the gap in research

literature about how content teachers view literacy. These findings will inform

teacher educators, preservice teacher education programs, and can bring about
a collaborative relationship between literacy researchers and content specific

researchers to impact future content literacy instruction for adolescents.

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

I begin this chapter by presenting a review of literature that forefronts, and
explains a paradigm of resistance toward secondary content literacy instruction,
teachers’ beliefs about literacy instruction and the challenges that may position
teachers toward perceived resistance, current thinking about content and
adolescent literacy, and subject matter instruction.

For years reading consultants and specialists have attempted to educate,
persuade, and coach secondary content teachers about the value of teaching
literacy skills and strategies to their students within their specific domains. We
promised that if they taught reading and writing strategies their students would
become better learners in general, better at Ieaming social studies, science,
math and the like. We even selected what we deemed the appropriate strategies
for them to teach. Some teachers did try the prescribed strategies, but more
often than not we struggled to convince our content colleagues of the importance
of changing their instruction to include these prescribed reading strategies.
Instead we met with resistance from many and heard phrases like “this, too, shall
pass”, “didn’t I hear about that 20 years ago?” “didn’t do it then, not gonna do it
now.” Those of us in the reading community tried to impart our views upon
content teachers; we did not think to ask them how they viewed reading and
writing of content. Teachers more sympathetic to our cause, who set forth to
figure out how they could accommodate our requests of teaching reading and
writing strategies, grappled with the notion that they had too much content to

cram in by the end of the year. Many struggled with trying to reconcile their

content goals with certain specific literacy strategies they had been asked to
implement. This struggle between reading specialists and content teachers
continues today; the same issue plagues new generations of teachers and the
same outcome has become a standard and is seen as resistance to teaching
literacy in the content areas. We need to know whether literacy teachers and
content teachers are on the same page in terms of thinking about literacy. How
do content teachers define literacy? Are long standing commonly accepted
literacy strategies out of sync with the latest thinking about newer or multiple
literacies? How a teacher of content defines literacy could have an extraordinary
effect on how literacy could or should be taught in their respective domains. We
need to understand the complexities underlying this perception of resistance to
teaching reading and writing in specific domains; the only meaningful way to gain
these understandings is to ask teachers. Important questions to ask are:

1) What literacy practices do high school teachers use to accomplish

their science and social studies instructional goals?

2) What are the purposes for using these literacy practices?

3) How do these literacy practices involve reading and writing?
Resistance to Content Literacy

Early research on content reading made assumptions about content

teachers’ reluctance to teach reading and writing within their subject area. One
assumption centered on states’ secondary reading course and teacher training
requirements. As a result of these requirements preservice and inservice

teachers should be comfortable and confident enough in their knowledge about

content reading to be able to incorporate reading instruction in their classroom
lessons (Stewart & O’Brien, 1989). Further, it was assumed that these teachers
understood the importance of content area reading, therefore should consider it
within their realm of responsibility (Stewart & O’Brien, 1989). This expectation
garnered negative reactions by teachers and created a mismatch in terms of
what was assumed and expected of teachers and the reality of teacher beliefs.
This traditional research on teachers of content has categorized content teachers
who do not teach reading and writing within their content into a paradigm of
resistance (O’Brien, 1988; O’Brien & Stewart, 1990; O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje,
1995; Stewart & O’Brien, 1989). Much of the early research documents teacher
reluctance and refusal to engage in teaching reading and writing within their
specific domains with little attention paid to teacher views about the issue. The
literature told half of the story.

Effectiveness of secondary content literacy courses has not yet fully been
established (Gerhke, Shaefer, & Schlick, 1982). Since every state in the country
requires teacher candidates to take a secondary reading/content area literacy
course (Romine, McKenna, & Robinson, 1996) one wonders why there is a lack
of research establishing the value of such a course. Further, since this
requirement exists there should be a consistent standard as to the makeup of
this course and just what it is that secondary specific domain teachers ought to
know about to improve literacy. That brings into question the idea that one
secondary reading/literacy course can accomplish all that this class seems to

infer. It does not seem plausible that one course can provide all that each

10

individual subject area teacher candidate needs to know to infuse literacy into
science, math, social studies, etc. The fact that these courses are typically
taught by literacy people does not seem to lend itself to teaching subject specific
literacy skills. Literacy courses should be revised to reflect a collaborative effort
between the literacy research community and subject specific researchers.
Content area preservice teachers have been required to include a content
reading course among their coursework for decades. This course typically taught
preservice teachers how to teach generic rules and strategies that were directed
at improving reading comprehension. One class taught by a literacy person to all
content area preservice teachers about strategies which are generic does not
seem to be working. Content literacy classes created and taught in conjunction
with instructors who are domain specific.

The prominent infusion model has been largely constructed by university
professionals for pre- and inservice teachers (O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995).
Traditionally, the primary way to infuse reading and writing into content
instruction was through preservice teacher education or teacher inservice
(Stewart & O’Brien, 1989; Stewart, 1990; O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995).
Unfortunately, this has had limited success in terms of change in instructional
practice for teachers (Stewart & O’Brien, 1989, Stewart, 1990).

The literature seems to “blame" the university teacher ed programs for
creating the resistance by not considering the school community (subject matter
concerns) when developing the almighty content literacy course that preservice

teachers were/are required to take. I also noticed that the early literacy

11

researchers questioned (actually couldn't understand) why their teacher
candidates did not transfer the knowledge from their ONE (generic and taught by
literacy people) literacy course to their teaching. Their assumption was that these
teachers had taken the content reading course so they should be prepared to
infuse reading into their content and they weren't so what's wrong with them.

Most of the research relating to teacher resistance to incorporating literacy
strategies into content was undertaken in the 805 and early 905. The earlier
research was essentially disconnected to the challenges underlying the problem.
Since that time when content literacy was defined as reading and writing within
content exclusively, content literacy, today, incorporates a much broader scope
in terms of “what” and “who” and are signified as so under the new monikers of
“new literacies”, “multiple literacies” or “adolescent literacy”. Specifically, the idea
of text has broadened to include in and out of school texts and other forms of
textualization beyond print which can be symbolically represented as pictures,
conversation patterns, film and video, electronic images and performances
(Moje, Dillon, O’Brien, 2000; Neilsen, 1998).

Missing here are the voices of content specific teachers and researchers.
We need to question the resistance paradigm further to include these voices. The
theory that teachers are simply resisting content literacy instruction denotes
negativity, but is a more complicated problem; it is grounded in the secondary
teachers’ role. So, we need to bring content teachers and subject specific

researchers into the discussion.

12

Challenges

Indeed many secondary teachers have not infused reading strategies, in
the traditional sense, into their teaching of content areas. While these teachers
did decline to teach reading and writing, their decisiOns were misrepresented in
the literature and their reasons for failing to comply while seemingly rebellious
were as a result of being misunderstood. This opposition is portrayed throughout
the literature of the 80s and 903 with little acknowledgment of the underlying
complexities surrounding this issue. Early literature also couched this opposition
within a narrower context of literacy, reading and writing, than the literacies of
today warrant. Moje, Dillon, & O’Brien (2000) begin to shed light on the
complexities of the teacher world, the constraints secondary schools place on
content teachers and the mismatch between the idea of a paradigm of resistance
and the challenges impacting teachers’ decisions about what to teach on a daily
basis. The following themes describe and acknowledge the complications of the
teacher world and recontextualize the resistance theory represented in the
literature.

Motivations, interests, attitudes, and texts. Teachers continue to be
frustrated about what to do to help students engage in their Ieaming (Campbell &
Kmiecik, 2004). Many content teachers consider it a challenge to motivate
students to read; students’ attitudes and interest levels significantly get in the
way of their reading of text (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004).

Oftentimes, the text itself is seen as the problem where students consider

class-assigned reading a boring task or not relevant to their interests or

13

experiences (Campbell & Kmiecik, 2004). Students are not alone in regarding
textbooks boring; many times teachers consider textbooks uninteresting as well.
Further, textbooks have been found to be inconsiderate where sections seem to
be unrelated to the topic. Teachers also find textb00ks limiting in terms of the
decisions they make about what and how they teach (Draper, 2002). For these
reasons, teachers choose to leave the textbook behind, at times, in favor of other
instructional tools like storytelling, intemet webcams, hands-on activities and the
like to motivate students’ interest in Ieaming. Instead of the textbook being used
as the primary source of information, teachers reconceptualize a textbook as an
important resource. In addition to textbooks teachers rely on primary sources,
newspapers and magazines, intemet sources, film, and other supplemental
resources to engage students in Ieaming. Bean, Bean, & Bean (1999) concur
that being literate no longer means Ieaming to read and write with traditional print
texts.

Teacher issues. A number of issues affecting teachers deter them from
infusing their content with literacy instruction. First, teachers are uncomfortable in
their own knowledge and preparedness in teaching literacy strategies when it
comes to teaching students how to learn and use the skills necessary to think
critically, problem solve, and understand vocabulary concepts (Campbell &
Kmiecik, 2004).

Another challenge plaguing content teachers is what to do with difficult
text. Teachers feel unprepared to deal with students who have reading problems.

At times teachers choose to spoon-feed texts to their students, reading a text

14

aloud or summarizing an entire text for them to facilitate Ieaming (Massey &
Heafner, 2004). Other teachers may do nothing to help students navigate text;
instead they assign text with little to no support. Either scenario suggests that
teachers may not know how to help students construct meaning from the texts
that are assigned.

Many middle and high school teachers may not provide their students with
needed reading support; they may be reluctant to try new techniques that they do
not see as connected to their content. Teachers may need to see models or
concrete examples of how these techniques do connect to the ideas they are
teaching (Massey & Heafner, 2004).

Professional development issues also constrain teachers especially when
the inservice is offered away from the school environment (Campbell & Kmiecik,
2004; Draper, 2002; O'Brien, et al., 1995). Research on professional
development suggests that a more effective way for teachers to make the
transfer from teacher inservice to their teaching is to participate in the inservice
within their own schools where they have access to their classes and can try-out
new ideas and techniques with their own students and collaborate with
colleagues in the process (Lieberrnann, 1995).

A further issue constraining teachers’ is their own educational
experiences. Teachers form their beliefs about literacy through their experiences
on the job and prior experiences as students (Lortie, 1975). Teachers’ prior
education tends to be so influential that they are likely to do what they were

taught. Much of the negativity on the part of content teachers reflects their views

15

about teaching and Ieaming which were developed throughout their prior
experiences (Lortie, 1975). This leads us to wonder about a possible mismatch to
teachers’ memories as students and how much of what teachers remember is
drawn upon in their own teaching.

Policy issues. Teachers are also challenged by the dictates of school,
district, state, and federal policies. Teachers are faced with the reality of high
stakes testing in standards-based environments where edicts like No Child Left
Behind and state directed assessment programs direct curriculum and
instruction. For example, common among teachers across the country is the task
of aligning district curriculum with state and federal guidelines. Teachers find
themselves monitored and regulated by outside forces in terms of how, when,
and what they teach. Even issues related to local school district mandates about
calendar, curriculum, and the schedule of the secondary school day constrain
teachers regarding their decisions about what, when, and how to teach.

Strategy instruction issues. Literacy strategy use can be constraining in
their use and can restrict the teachers who use them (O'Brien, et al., 1995).
Literacy strategy research still tends to identify and discuss certain strategies
generally accepted within the literacy research community. The problem of
whether reading strategies and practices as defined and structured by literacy
researchers should be expected pedagogy of domain specific teachers raises
interesting issues and questions about how literacy is defined and by whom.

Early literature on resistance described preservice teachers’ feelings of

inadequacy toward using literacy strategies; they were not quite sure they should

16

be included or even taught in their domain (Stewart & O’Brien, 1989). Many
teachers today have not yet embraced the idea because they see these
strategies as foreign to their curriculum (Fisher & Ivey, 2005). Some researchers
conclude that these specific strategies may not be fecused on what really matters
to content teachers or in terms of how students learn content (Fisher & Ivey,
2005). Knowledge has broadened to include new thinking about literacy and
literacy instruction as new technologies require new literacies and new definitions
of literacy practice in classrooms (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004).
Furthermore, literacy strategies can be distinctly different across domains,
defined in multiple ways, as different types of literacy expertise are called for
depending on the content being taught (Mayer, 2004; Moje, Dillon, & O’Brien,
2000; Vansledright, 2004) and across the different Discourse knowledges of the
disciplines (Moje, Collazo, Carrillo, & Marx, 2001 ). Particularly important for
understanding history is Ieaming to read subtextually, for example, when reading
primary sources as a means of understanding the reader would be focused on
the author’s intentions and perspective (Vansledright, 2004).
Content Literacy and Subject Matter

Content teachers have historically been criticized for neglecting to
incorporate reading and writing instruction into their subject matter lessons. It is
time to release subject matter teachers from this culpability. It may be that the
literacy community could have done a better job of understanding content

teachers’ views. The following two sections reflect understandings that content

17

teachers have known and that the literacy community is realizing and helps to
dispel the myth of resistance.

Content Literacy or Adolescent Literacy? Research has come far in the
last few decades in terms of what it means to teach reading and writing in the
content areas. In the 808 when the definition of reading transformed to more
reflect Rosenblatt’s (1978) idea that there was something powerful happening
between a text, a reader and a context in order to construct meaning, we were
beginning to give credence to this dynamic transaction in connection to reading
instruction in the classroom. In school, however, we continued to define text in
narrow terms, specifically as “textbook”. We saw reading in more generic ways
and assumed that reading in one content was generally the same across all
contents. We looked at students as a whole, not as unique in the experiences
they bring to the process of constructing meaning from what they read.

Labels connote certain understandings. Certain terms limit how we think
about things in general and literacy in the narrow sense. Now as more research
has been done we are far beyond the times when the debate centered on
whether content area reading instruction should concentrate on content-
dependent skills or on generic skills. Researchers have agreed that reading
demands in content areas differ across domains based on differences in both
types of texts and the tasks being required, and based on varying structures of
the disciplines having different perspectives on the world and ways of
constructing knowledge (Moore, Readance, & Rickelman, 1983). We no longer

should rely on or advocate a common set of strategies to improve reading and

18

writing across all content areas; strategies should be adjusted to fit the specific
needs generated by each domain. Literacy practices are transforming to meet
the demands of a changing world (Luke & Elkins, 1998). Definitions of text are
also changing. Neilsen (1998) suggests a broader understanding of text beyond
the limited scope of the traditional schooled literacy (conventional practices found
in school where teachers assign reading, questions to answer, themed essays,
and worksheets to fill-out (O’Brien, 1998) to every day life literacy (symbolic
resources) that helps all people shape and reshape their identities.

The 1999 position statement by the international Reading Association’s
Commission on Adolescent Literacy calls for renewed attention to the literacy
needs of adolescents (Moore, Bean, Birdyshaw, & Ryck, 1999). So, there is a
perceived need for a different focus on the Ieaming of adolescents (Moje, Young,
Readance, Moore, 2000). The need for renewed focus on the literacy Ieaming of
adolescents seems clear (Moje, Young, Readance, Moore, 2000). Moje (2002)
sees this as a purposeful shift, where more awareness encourages more
funding.

Recently, literature in the field of secondary content literacy reflects a
paradigm shift from content literacy to adolescent literacy. Maybe we are simply
doing a better job of understanding content literacy instruction at the secondary
level. According to Vacca (1998) content literacy connotes Ieaming which is
identified by the in-school literacy of content specific materials and limited to
reading and writing in academic contexts. This might not map on to the literacy

needs of adolescents as the full range of adolescent literacy is more complex

19

than what is traditionally encompassed within school-sanctioned literate activity
of content literacy.

Literacy defined in terms of adolescents is more complicated. The term
adolescent literacy signifies a much broader scope than secondary reading or
content literacy and is more inclusive in terms of what young people count as text
which include texts beyond traditional classroom textbooks, for example, digital
texts or hypertexts. Adolescents use these multiple literacies to navigate their
daily lives (Alverrnann, 2001; Moje et al., 2000). Thus, effective literacy
instruction for adolescents should consider students’ perceptions of their abilities
as readers and writers, level of motivation and background knowledge, and their
interests. Further, insthction should be embedded in the regular curriculum and
make use of multiple forms of texts read for multiple purposes in a variety of
Ieaming situations where teachers extend and elaborate on the literacy practices
adolescents already own and value (Alverrnann, 2001).

Adolescent literacy and the traditional thinking about content literacy may
be more alike than we think. Teachers use digital literacies in nontransforrnative
ways to help enhance comprehension of more traditional text, for example, using
film to help students understand novels, etc. Many teachers use media texts to
supplement and enhance already existing curricula (Stevens, 2002). Stevens
(2002) found that when her students created their own lessons they were able to
deconstruct traditional texts and address transfon'native processes and practices
more broadly than when they tried to use specific content and strategies from a

textbook. They designed projects that blended various text formats, literacy

20

practices and processes, and afforded opportunities for student voice and choice
(Stevens, 2002).

Stevens (2002) also found a disconnect between the lives and interests of
adolescents and school-sanctioned texts. Teachers need to be more open-
minded to students’ interests when choosing texts/novels that confront bigger
issues of racism, bias, and oppression. Tatum (2008) concurs, but believes there
are ways to use the traditional school-sanctioned texts if teachers extract the
bigger universal issues within these texts where the issues become the content
and the text the vehicle. Adolescent literacy positions students at the center of
these literacy decisions, practices and selection of texts.

There must be a happy medium between adolescent literacy and content
literacy, a relationship of sorts or a melding of the two ideologies. As long as
school sanctioned literacies remain a constant we need to find ways to include
the literacies students use outside of school contexts. There is some evidence
that outside literacies have become inside literacies in places (Hinchman,
Alven'nann, Boyd, Brozo, & Vacca, 2004; Stevens, 2002).

Subject matter concerns. Defining literacy in the content areas is complex
at best. If it is difficult to define literacy as it applies to specific domains then it
also must be difficult to determine or design literacy instruction to fit these unique
content areas. It is plausible then that traditional or generic content reading and
writing instruction would not map on well across all subject areas. In science
alone, there are many ways to talk about literacy. The goal for students’ learning

of science is to prepare them well enough to participate in real worid situations

21

infused with science. Teachers, therefore, need to understand the situated
natures of both science and Ieaming in an effort to design curriculum that
teaches the knowledge students need to navigate real scientific problems.
(Murphy, Lunn & Jones, 2006).

Teachers in different subject matter areas have different beliefs and
practices and different reasons for justifying what it is they believe and do in the
classroom (Grossman & Stodolsky, 1994, 1995; O’Brien et al., 1995). Further,
not only do differences exist across content areas, they are also idiosyncratic.
According to Zeichner and Tabachnick (1985), these beliefs appear to be
individual-specific in nature indicating that teachers within the same subject
domain may have different beliefs and practices about teaching and Ieaming,
content, and literacy. Further, the reading of texts is not about direct
comprehension of meaning; instead it is constrained by the domain specific to
the passage or text being read (Vansledright, 2004). Vansledright (2004) reminds
us, though, that we continue to promote the general or global reading strategies
for specific domains because we have limited knowledge about content specific
forms of literacy. There is little knowledge about how reading practice can be
distinctly different across domains where different types of literacy expertise are
required (Alexander, 2000, Vansledright, 2004).

Even good readers who know how to apply comprehension strategies,
such as rereading, summarizing, and constructing word meanings from context
may know little about the structure of a specific domain. In social studies reading

materials are typically selected to encourage multiple perspectives of social

22

studies include primary and secondary source documents, non-fiction, fiction,
poetry, letters, and textbooks (Massey & Heafner, 2004, Vansledright, 2004).
Social studies teachers want their students to develop historical understanding
skills when interacting with text; students need to know how to evaluate, analyze,
and synthesize historical evidence. Students need reading skills necessary to
gain insights and interpret what happened in the past; they need to engage in
critical thinking skills that allow them to grasp such text structures as cause and
effect and chronological order of events (Massey & Heafner, 2004). It is
important, for example, to know how to read intertextually to corroborate
evidence across sources and how to read subtextually when reading primary
sources and understanding the author’s intentions and perspective is the
purpose (Vansledright, 2004). Specific heuristics required of readers of history go
beyond general comprehension strategies to include assessing where a source
text comes from and who wrote it; what the subtext of the source entails, for
example, the purpose of the author, the text as a rhetorical device; the location of
text in the broader historical context; and how the claims of the text and stories it
tells are concborated by other source texts from the same historical period. This
type of reading of text demands a lot of intertextual reading (Vansledright, 2004).
While other domains might use these same heuristics the degree that historical
reading uses them is unique and therefore demands literacy instruction that fits
the specific ways of Ieaming and knowing.

Reading practices need to be distinctly different representing different

types of literacy expertise across domains (Mayer, 2004; Moje, Dillon, & O’Brien,

23

2000; Vansledright, 2004). Reading and writing in the disciplines is shaped by
the unique conceptual, textual, and semantic demands of each area (Moje,
Dillon, O’Brien, 2000).
Cognitive Strategy Instruction

Recent thinking draws attention to the relationship between instructional
strategies and cognitive strategies. However, we understand little about cognitive
strategy instruction within the content area. Conley (2008) reconceptualizes
content area literacy instruction to include teaching cognitive strategies where
students Ieam to self-regulate their Ieaming, to evaluate and monitor their own
comprehension and thinking. He sites confusion between strategy use resulting
from a teacher’s insthctional decision making and an adolescent’s independent
use of a strategy with text. The confusion exists in the use of the term strategy
which is used interchangeably in both situations when, in fact, the two points of
view are considerably different. One is about the teacher’s performance of a
teaching activity where the teacher rehearses a strategy again and again with
students in hopes that it will eventually stick; the other, from the student’s view is
the use of the strategy as a deliberate action on the part of the student to Ieam
subject matter ideas in a cognitive way. For students, the purposeful use of
cognitive strategies becomes metacognitive, selected by them for their own
purposes and in self-regulated ways to execute Ieaming of ideas (Conley, 2008;
Schumacher & Deschler, 2006).

Conley (2008) also distinguishes those components essential to cognitive

strategy instruction including explanation, modeling, and guided practice. The

24

key to teaching a cognitive strategy is teaching students the steps involved in
using a cognitive strategy, explaining the purpose for using the strategy,
modeling or thinking aloud while carrying out the strategy, and gradually
releasing the use of the strategy to the students as they become more
independent, self-regulated or cognitive users of the strategy.
Situated Cognition Theory

Situtated cognition theory suggests most Ieaming occurs in natural ways
through activities, contexts, and cultures. Schools too often abstract Ieaming by
unsituating it, teaching concepts far removed and unrecognizable from natural
contexts and applications (Lave, 1988; Dewey, 1916; Vygotsky, 1978). Lave
(1988) suggests more naturally situated conditions to include “apprentice-like”
situations. Further, thinking about situated Ieaming suggests Ieaming happens
through authentic contexts where communication among peers and experts
naturally connects to authentic activity, context, and culture (Brown, Collins, &
Duguid, 1989). This study is impacted by thinking about two related areas of
situated cognition theory, cognitive apprenticeship and social constructivism.

Cognitive Apprenticeship. Collins, Brown, & Newman (1989) have
developed an instructional model, cognitive apprenticeships, based on a
representation of an apprentice working under a master craftsperson. They have
identified elements found in best-case Ieaming environments. This model would
include modeling, coaching, scaffolding and fading, reflection, and exploration

(Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989).

25

This perspective that Ieaming and cognition are situated in natural settings
of everyday living (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989, Lave & Wenger, 1991)
implies that discussions about text can improve comprehension, comprehension
strategies can be taught within discussions about text. Lave and Wenger (1991)
extend the perspective on situated Ieaming to their notion of legitimate peripheral
participation. According to Lave and Wenger (1991) knowledge is learned “in
situ” or by participating in the doing of the activity. Legitimate peripheral
participation is a process whereby the learner or apprentice observes the
Ieaming, as modeled by an expert, from the outside or periphery of the activity.
As knowledge develops the apprentice becomes a practitioner slowly moving
toward the expert role of full participation within the social activity. Further,
Ieaming is situated within social coparticipation where it fluctuates between the
different perspectives of the coparticipants. Further, Ieaming often involves
mentoring persons by someone more knowledgeable, thereby making it an
inherently social act where the primary means of Ieaming involves language
(Vygotsky, 1978; Lave and Wenger, 1991 ).

Working from Vygotsky’s (1978) thinking about scaffolding in apprentice-
like ways, authentic tasks should be developed just beyond, zone of proximal
development (ZPD), what students can accomplish independently. Tasks,
however, should not be so challenging that students’ ability to handle them will
not happen even with support, for instance, modeling or coaching by teachers,
strategies, or peers. This support of tasks within the ZPD should help students

reach an appropriate level of task engagement.

26

Social Constructivism. Situated approaches to Ieaming suggest students
who collaborate with one another and their instructor can move toward a better
understanding of content because the understanding is shared. Students Ieam
concepts and ideas more thoroughly when multiple opinions and perspectives
are shared in cultural and social contexts (Vygotsky, 1978). Further, social
involvement between a person and other people and their cultural artifacts
mediates Ieaming; individuals, then, internalize and appropriate the mediated
Ieaming anew.

Transactional Theory
Another related area of research that influences situated Ieaming and this

study is reader response theory (Rosenblatt, 1978, 1983). Reading of text is
explained as a situated event in a particular context of the reader where
interaction with text, transactions, involving the experiences, interests, and
concerns of the reader take place (Rosenblatt, 1983).

Every transaction involves a particular reader, a particular text, occurring
at a particular time in a particular context. Meaning happens only as a result of
this transaction between reader and text where the text “actually remains just
marks on paper” until a reader enacts a transaction with it (Rosenblatt, 1983).
Rosenblatt (1983) discusses two forms of transaction, efferent and aesthetic.
Rosenblatt (1983) distinguishes between the efferent stance as one in which the
reader is primarily seeking information from the text, and the aesthetic stance, in
which the reader is primarily focused on the experience lived through during the

reading.

27

Learning and Literacy

How we think about or define literacy and Ieaming impacts thinking about
the validity of the resistance paradigm in this study. Thinking about how we Ieam
recognizes distinctions within Ieaming which exist Within and across subject
areas and texts. Further, thinking about literacy positions language within distinct
Discourses that identify particular ways of Ieaming within subject areas.
Therefore, if Ieaming, literacy, and language exist in idiosyncratic ways in each
content area, teacher complaints that traditional reading and writing strategies do
not map on well to their specific domains seems plausible as a reason to resist
incorporating them into their lessons.

Learning. Kintsch (1986) defines text as the method of transmitting
information where the text itself is merely secondary to the Ieaming. For
example, a student solving a word problem may be able to read the verbal form
of the problem, but not understand the operations to actually solve the problem.
Misunderstanding of the situation described by the text becomes the problem.
Understanding the text and knowing what to do with the information extracted
from the words are two distinct functions of reading (Kintsch, 1986). It makes
sense that these functions can play out differently within each subject area where
texts demand distinct ways of thinking and acting to make meaning.

van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) make a case for two distinct representations
of text, a textbase model and situation model. The textbase model represents the
interactions a reader or listener has while constructing meaning during the

process of comprehension. The amount of prior knowledge or experience one

28

has will indicate how much of a textbase one needs. In contrast, the situation
model is the mental representation of the context described by the text. A
textbase represents the semantic understanding of the text, whereas, the
situation model reflects a mental map, structure, or operation described by the
information semantically expressed in the content. One textual representation is
constrained by the other, but in ways that allow it to have distinct characteristics
and differences in behavior within text. So, how the text is represented will have
something to do with how the situation is interpreted. By the same logic, a well-
structured situation model would impact how well one interprets text at the
textbase level. It is reasonable that textbases and situation models would also be
constrained by the unique ways of thinking and acting within different subject
areas.

Situated Literacy. How we think about or define literacy also impacts this
study in terms of how language is situated. The traditional definition that literacy
is the ability to read and write does not project the whole story. Gee (2000) thinks
about literacy in terms of “Discourse/s” and explains Discourse as a socially
accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting
that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group
or “social network.” Being trained as a teacher means one learned to speak,
think, and act like a teacher, and to recognize other members of the same group
when they behave in similar ways. Each larger discourse has subdiscourses as
well with different socially accepted ways of being. For example, being a teacher

is the larger discourse from which specifically trained content teachers are

29

members. However, they are also members of a subdiscourse of their specific
domain; social studies teachers are identified by a particular discourse as are
science teachers and the like. The math, social studies and science teachers
participating in this study follow a set of values and viewpoints that identify them
as members of a particular subdiscourse.

In terms of this study, secondary uses of language are evident in
conversation between participating teachers and their students, teachers and
their colleagues and more specifically teachers representing particular domain
areas. Further, if we believe, as Gee (1987) does, that literacy is control of
secondary uses of language, then teaching about and Ieaming content is
language driven with the language being unique in each specific subject area.

Barton and Hamilton (2000) provide a theory of literacy as a series of
propositions which map onto this study as well. Literacy is best understood as a
set of social practices and observable in events which are mediated by written
texts. There are different literacies associated with different domains of life
(discourse communities like those in subject area classrooms). Literacy is
historically situated. A person’s practices can be historically rooted in their history
of literacy. They are culturally constructed. Literacy practices change and others
are frequently acquired through processes of informal Ieaming and sense-
making. This gives credence to the different literacies that adolescents rely on to
construct meaning and adds to the complexity of thinking about why traditional

content literacy instruction did not and does not meet the needs of content area

30

teachers or their students and why content teachers resisted incorporating
literacy instruction into their lessons. In
Defining Concepts for this Study

Literacy. l integrate the National Literacy ACt of 1991, the IRA/NCTE
(1996) standards, and the sociocultural views of literacy (Barton & Hamilton,
2000; Gee, 2000) for a working definition of literacy. I believe that literacy is
defined by one’s ability to read, write, speak, and compute and solve problems at
proficiently enough to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop
one’s knowledge and potential (NLA, 1991). However, this definition of literacy is
broadened to include visual literacies including film and television, commercial
and political advertising, political advertising, photography. The lRA/NCTE (1996)
defines literacy more broadly to include the six English language arts of reading,
writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visual representing. Each represents a
language medium, for example, reading and writing involve written language,
listening and speaking involve spoken language, and viewing and visual
representing involve visual language. Further, considering the sociocultural view
this definition of literacy honors the differences in language and thinking specific
to subject area domain (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Gee, 2000).

Engagement and Motivation. First, I believe that it is difficult to separate
engagement from motivation in relation to school contexts. Engagement and
motivation are interrelated in that they share similar characteristics and are likely
to improve Ieaming. Second, there are several factors that influence my belief

about engagement and motivation.

31

Raphael Bogaert, Pressley, & Mohan Hawkins (2006) define engagement
as on-task behaviors that require thought. They identified highly effective
teachers who motivate students to Ieam everyday; they use a selection of
instructional strategies to produce better student engagement than other
teachers (Raphael Bogaert, Pressley, & Mohan Hawkins, 2006). Such
instructional strategies include cooperative Ieaming with opportunities for student
discussion, student autonomy with participation in decision-making about their
own Ieaming which encourages risk taking and independent thinking, and
student participation in authentic Ieaming activities (Certo, Cauley, Moxley, &
Chafin, 2008; Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006). Further, higher academic
engagement is likely when students perceive their environment as one of mutual
respect among peers and teachers and where interaction with others is
encouraged and valued (Certo et al., 2008; Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006).
Students who consider their classroom a safe, responsive, and emotionally
supportive place will likely have higher social and academic achievement. These
are also factors that increase motivation among students (Certo et al., 2008;
Cothran & Ennis, 2000; Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006).

Authentic Literacy. Duke, Purcell-Gates, Hall, &Tower (2006) categorize
the authenticity of a literacy activity in two dimensions: purpose or function and
text. Both dimensions focus on serving a communicative purpose outside of a
leaming-to-read-or-write context. Purcell-Gates (2002) describes reading a
newspaper to Ieam the news as an authentic purpose. Conversely, reading a

newspaper to identify main ideas in articles signifies a school-only purpose.

32

Examples of authentic texts are those found in everyday life including letters,
fliers, magazines, novels, and mortgages (Purcell-Gates, 2002). On the other
hand, school-only texts are described as worksheets, flashcards and stories
written for Ieamers and the like. Further, Purcell-Gates (2002) describes an
authentic literacy class as one where the teacher often considers the students’
real neighborhood issues when creating lessons. Thus, teachers contextualize
their instruction within the students’ lives and provide literacy instruction their
students will engage with as they live those lives (Jacobson, Degener, & Purcell-
Gates, 2003). Purcell-Gates (2002) suggests “the key was they embedded this
teaching within authentic literacy activities." Most salient, however, was the
finding that students’ engagement in authentic reading and writing in class
increased their reading and writing outside of class (Purcell-Gates, 2002).
Rationale for this Study

Content teachers are still seen in a negative light in terms of incorporating
literacy instruction into their subject area lessons. Calling them resisters is not
productive and announcing that all teachers should be teachers of reading is not
working. Efforts to improve literacy Ieaming for secondary students in the content
area must move fonrvard. In order for that to happen we must understand and
validate the challenges that stand in the way of teaching literacy in specific
domains. We also need to recognize and study what teachers are doing in terms
of the seldom noticed new or multiple literacies. We need to elevate content
teachers’ voices; they need to be heard. The literacy community needs to

collaborate with teachers, and subject specific researchers to find ways to extend

33

what is already happening and collaborate on content literacy instruction
appropriate for the adolescent Ieamer and that matches the unique demands of

specific domain instruction.

34

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study will follow a qualitative approach using an interview and
observation design to explore secondary content teachers’ views about literacy in
relation to the domains of science and social studies. Semi-structured interviews
will constitute the primary data source and classroom observations will clarify the
interviews and the researcher’s description of teachers’ practices. Examples of
student tasks will be collected to further an understanding about how content
teachers cany out literacy practices. Guiding questions for the study include:

1) What literacy practices do high school teachers use to accomplish
their science and social studies instructional goals?

2) What are the purposes for using these practices?

3) How do these literacy practices involve reading and writing?

These questions are significant because they direct teachers’ thinking
about their goals for their students, how they teach their subject area, and the
purposes for the practices they use. Important to this investigation are teachers’
knowledge and beliefs about how reading and writing are involved in their
teaching.
lllerResegrcher’s Role

The researcher is a doctoral candidate at a large Midwestern university
completing her dissertation. From 1973 to 1986 I was a Title 1 reading teacher in
a rural middle school. My chief job responsibility was teaching reading to low
readers who were scheduled to come to my reading class one hour a day. The

way reading was generally taught during those years was by the test and fix

35

method. As reading teachers we tested students and then tried to fix their
reading problems. Much of the teaching of reading happened in isolation outside
of the subject area classroom and not in conjunction with the content specific to
the classes students were taking. I would assign a lot of skills practice from
commercial packages such as Bamell Loft’s Specific Skills Series and
Scholastic’s Reading for Understanding Series; both series delivered practice in
isolated skills and were leveled by reading ability. I was not involved with staff
development during these years. Teachers sent their students to others to fix the
reading problem, usually the special education teacher or the reading teacher.
From 1986 to 2000 my job title changed from reading teacher to
reading/Ieaming consultant in a suburban high school. My responsibilities
included teaching and modeling reading, writing, and study strategies to all ninth
graders, professional development of reading strategies to staff, state
assessment preparation for all students, chairing the English department,
coordinating the high school’s gifted and talented program, coordinating the
district’s writing assessment, and district curriculum development. I primarily
taught reading strategies through novel study in ninth grade English classes.
Students who needed one—on-one help arranged appointments primarily to get
help with other content assignments. Most of the time professional development
occurred at staff meetings where I presented and modeled reading strategies in a
large group format. Sometimes I met with specific departments to help develop
curriculum or plan lessons. I also met with individual teachers to talk about

students needing reading help. Many content teachers were not open to

36

including reading and writing in their lessons. The English teachers were very
supportive of me teaching literacy strategies in their classrooms. There were
times, though, when a teacher left the classroom while I was teaching. The
teachers counted on me to do the actual teaching 'of the literacy strategy even
when they had witnessed the same lesson several times a day for years.

Finally, my last four years as a literacy consultant took place in a suburban
preK-4 elementary building where my primary duties consisted of modeling
reading and writing strategies to 3rd and 4th graders in their regular classrooms
using math, science, social studies, and English content as well as reading and
writing professional development for the larger staff. Here, I was primarily in
charge of teaching reading and math strategies in preparation for the state
assessment.

My perceptions of a resistance paradigm have been shaped by my
personal teaching experiences. For almost twenty years persuading elementary
and secondary content teachers of the advantages of including reading and
writing in their lessons represented the fundamental description of my job.
Oftentimes, teachers resisted my suggestions about infiltrating their lessons with
reading strategies, especially at the secondary level.

Further, from 1986 to 1998 l was involved with the state department of
education in developing reading modules, using social studies content, for
inservicing teachers about reading strategies in terms of preparing students for
the state reading assessment. My involvement included writing practice lessons

and inservicing teachers within the state. Those of us involved in developing

37

these lessons and modules did not include social studies teachers in the
process; we did not consult social studies teachers about the strategies we were
promoting or about how well they mapped onto the content we were using to
teach reading strategies.

I never consulted content teachers about their views about reading or
literacy in relation to their subject areas. My focus was on persuading them to
infuse literacy strategies within their content areas rather than finding out their
perceptions about how compatible the strategies might be with their lessons. I
wondered why some of- my colleagues resisted using them, but I did not draw
them into conversations about their views on literacy. It is only now that I realize I
overlooked the reasons for their resistance to incorporating literacy into their
content; I needed to make an effort to understand their perspectives. I believe my
experiences enhance my awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity to any
challenges, decisions and issues I have encountered in this-investigation.

Data Collection Procedures

The following sections describe the sites, participants, sources of data,
and procedures for collecting and analyzing data. To address my research
questions, I interviewed and observed seven high school teachers representing
the areas of science and social studies. I conducted and recorded semi-
structured pre-interviews with these content teachers about their literacy
perceptions and practices as related to their subject areas. Further, I observed

three or four lessons to provide corroborating data for the interviews. Lastly, I

38

conducted post interviews to give the teachers an opportunity to reflect on their
lessons and practices and to help triangulate the data.
Sites

This study was conducted at two Midwestern high schools. One of the
chosen high schools is from a large Midwestern urban district; the other high
school is from a smaller suburban school district in the same general location. My
objective in choosing these socio-economically different sites was to capture a
variety of backgrounds and beliefs about literacy. My intent was to draw on sites
with enough diversity in school, student, and teacher background that I could see
similarities and differences with respect to literacy views within and across
subject area, upper and lower track classes, and schools.
School Descriptions and Demographics

Urban. The urban district’s classroom profile depicts a breakdown of
ethnicity as roughly 22% white, 41% black, 26% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacific
Islander, 1% American Indian/Alaska Native, and 8% multi-racial. This is a school
district where a majority of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. The
majority of schools in this district are considered high poverty schools where high
poverty is defined as above 40% free and reduced lunch for elementary schools
and 50% for high schools.

South Hill High School’s demographics roughly match the district’s profile.
The high school has 86% free and reduced lunch, 19.5% white, 59% black, 19%
Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% Indian/Alaska Native. South Hill

meets the earlier stated definition of a high poverty school. All of the regular

39

comprehensive high schools in the district failed AYP. South Hill did not meet
AYP in any subject area and is at Alert Phase—4 of AYP. Total enrollment at
South Hill High School is approximately 900 students in grades nine thru twelve.

Suburban. The suburban school district is also located in a Midwestern
community on the fringe of the urban district in this study. This suburban
community supports one high school. The district profile includes roughly 91%
white, 5% black, 3% Hispanic, 1%, Asian/Pacific Islander, .5% American
Indian/Alaska Native. West Park High School’s total enrollment for grades nine
thru twelve is nearly 1200 students. West Park’s demographics closely matched
that of the district. West Park’s profile included 11.5% free and reduced lunch,
95% white, 2% black, 1% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1 student who
was American Indian/Alaska native (see table 1).
School Literacy Initiatives

Urban. Even though South Hill struggles to'meet its goals in reading,
math, social studies, and science, the district’s high schools have been involved
in a comprehensive school reform and restructuring plan for several years. This
is a progressive school district offering many different Ieaming environments and
opportunities from comprehensive high schools to magnate schools with
emphases in many areas including the arts, sciences, and technology. South Hill,
located in the historic part of the city, is one of the oldest high schools in the
state. The school also houses the district’s Montessori High School and the

School of Health Sciences and Technology.

40

Table 1

School Demographics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

High SChOOI Urban Suburban
Demogaphics

Free & reduced lunch 1 1 .5% 86%
White 950/0 19.50/0
Black 2% 59%
Asian/Pacific Islander 1 % 1 %
Hispanic 1% 19%
American Indian/Alaskan 1 Student 1 %

 

 

 

41

 

A literacy initiative specific to South Hill came from an English department
request that teachers use one reading strategy a week with their students to try
to improve reading in the building.

Another district mandate comes in the form of Roger Bybee’s 5E inquiry
lesson plan instructional model. Teachers across subject area at South Hill
incorporate the five steps of engagement, exploration, explain, elaborate, and
evaluate into their lesson planning. As Russ described

We’re supposed to have the SE lesson plan model in every class. What

we have done is we started it, I think maybe three years ago and what

they had basically wanted us to do is one 5E lesson per nine weeks.

And then each year that you teach that same subject again, maybe add

one 5E lesson. So that they didn’t expect you to come up with it right

away, like all of a sudden, boom, we’re gonna do this all at once, but they
wanted you to get used to that format. So the SE lessons are one of the
things that we do, yes.

The urban district has year-end common assessments in place. All
teachers must use common textbooks adopted by the district and must follow the
texts closely to ensure that all students have been taught the content needed to
pass the assessment at the end of the year. For example all high school US.
history teachers use the History Alive program and all biology teachers use the
Biology Human Approach textbook by the Biological Science Cuniculum Study
who’s principle investigator is Roger Bybee.

Suburban. This high school is very progressive in terms of literacy
instruction. They have adopted a literacy initiative to improve reading and writing
across all subject areas and levels. They hired a literacy consultant to guide this

literacy initiative. She recommended a national literacy consultant, Dr. Doug

Fisher from San Diego State University, to provide two professional development

42

days at West Park High School focused on reading and writing in the content
areas.

Also, a literacy leadership team was formed where teachers in the building
come together in subcommittees to plan and lead future literacy professional
development or inservice for the entire staff. This leadership team is ongoing and
meets once a month. The reading consultant was chair of the leadership team
and worked closely with the literacy consultant to plan the team meetings. The
principal was an instrumental member of this leadership team in terms of
support. He listened and offered support for what teachers want to accomplish.
For instance, when a team member reported other teachers feeling overloaded
or saying “too much...” the principal asked “... what can we move off ..” their
plate? The subcommittees met to discuss how things were going; they talked
about successes and ways to improve. Subcommittee groups included Sustained
Silent Reading, Writing, Words of the Week, Academic Vocabulary (content area
vocabulary).

Before beginning the data collection process for this study I attended two
of West Park’s literacy leadership meetings held just before their winter break. At
the first session I witnessed teachers evaluating the progress of the literacy
initiative thus far in terms of what worked and what needs improvement. The next
morning teachers returned to discuss plans and needs for future inservice days
based on their previous day’s discussion. West Park teachers are working on

other initiatives including writing common assessments and common syllabi.

43

Participants

The participants in this study are social studies and science teachers who
regularly teach in either Central Hill or West Park. My criteria for selecting
, participants included two science, one upper track class and one lower track
class, and two social studies teachers, one upper and one lower track class, at
each building. My participant profile is based on my interests and purposes for
this study.

The key contact at West Park High School was the principal, a personal
acquaintance. He had previously been an assistant principal in the same school
in which I worked. I called him and explained my study; he was enthused about
the prospect of participating in a study that looked at teacher practices in social
studies and science. He communicated with his staff and suggested certain
teachers that fit my participant profile.

To gain access to South Hill, the urban high school, I petitioned the
director of research and development who was in charge of all research
proposed or being conducted in the district. I completed the requested district
paperwork and submitted it along with a description and copy of the IRB for this
study. He was very helpful and the process was quick and smooth. I received
permission to conduct my research and he contacted the South Hill’s principal for
me. When South Hill’s principal agreed to support my project I begin
communications with him. South Hill’s principal communicated with his staff to

identify teachers who fit my profile.

44

After obtaining approval for conducting this research at both schools I
contacted the principals at each building for their suggestions about teachers
who would match my criteria and might be interested in participating in my study.
Both principals offered names of teachers whom I could contact. Also, both
principals made the initial contact with the teachers giving them a heads-up and
paving the way for me to communicate with them about participating in my study.

Experience mattered in terms of how long teachers had been teaching. I
was looking for teachers who had had between five and twenty years of
experience. I wanted teachers who had had time to acclimate themselves to the
teaching profession, but I also wanted teachers who were still excited about
teaching and were not close to retirement or jaded by the length of their stay in
education (see table 2).

Cate. Cate is in her sixth year of teaching. She has a major in chemistry
and a minor in general science. Cate is presently working on her master’s degree
at a local college in a master of science education program. Her preference is
teaching chemistry, but she was one of the only teachers at West Park certified
to teach physics. Her general science degree qualifies her to teach physics. She
teaches regular and AP Physics classes at West Park High School. I observed
her AP Physics class.

Hal. Hall teaches at West Park High School. This is Hal’s ninth year in
teaching. He previously taught AP and regular physics classes, but two years
ago he transitioned into a part time position as dean of students and as science

department head relinquished his physics classes to Cate. He now teaches the

45

Table 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Participants
TEACHER EXPERIENCE SUBJECT TRACK SCHOOL
Cate 6 yrs. AP Physics ' Upper Track Suburban
Hal 9 yrs. Chemistry Lower Track Suburban
Dan 14 yrs. Humanities Upper Track Suburban
Spence 8 yrs. U.S. History/SE Lower Track Suburban
Seth 5 yrs. Honors Biology Upper Track Urban
Seth 5 yrs. Biology/SE Lower Track Urban
Russ 17 yrs. Honors U.S. Upper Track Urban
History
Cam 9 yrs. U.S. History/SE Lower Track Urban

 

46

 

lower track chemistry classes for part of his day. Hal is very interested in the
“how to” of teaching and is experimenting with teaching the lower track chemistry
students the same curriculum as the regular chemistry classes. He has seen
improvement in his lower track students’ learning When they are held to higher
standards. I observed his Integrated Chemistry (with regular curriculum) class.

Dave. Dave has been teaching for 14 years. Just as his colleague, Hal,
Dave has shifted to a part time position as dean of students at West Park High
School. He has a political science major and a general social studies minor. He
teaches humanities, an upper level, social studies class which has no district
mandated curriculum. I observed this humanities class. The curriculum for this
class has been in place at West Park High School for thirty plus years, but it does
not necessarily tie directly to the state assessment or the ACT. So, there is a lot
of teacher discretion as to cuniculum decisions for this class. Dave also teaches
us. history.

Spence. Spence teaches at West Park High School. He is a former
marine. His travels piqued his interest in history and led him to a history degree.
He remarked was rare because many teachers now obtain group or general
degrees in social studies. He teaches Lower track US. history with special
education and is a co-taught class with the special education teacher. Spence
also teaches economics and civics. I observed Spence’s US. history special
education combined class.

Seth. Seth teaches both the lower track and upper track biology classes at

South Hill High School. He served a dual purpose for this study and participated

47

in both capacities. Because Seth teaches Honors biology and regular biology
classes combined with special education I could interview seven teachers
instead of eight. I observed both of these classes. Seth also teaches
anatomy/physiology. Seth was also in charge of an upcoming dance for the high
schooL

Russ. Russ teaches Honors US. history, regular US. history, and
psychology classes at South Hill High School. He has been teaching for
seventeen years and is the social studies department chair. Russ has always
been interested in history and is an avid reader of biographies and several
newspapers and news magazines. Russ had a student teacher for most of the
year, but reclaimed his class following spring break and one week before I
observed one of his Honors U .8. history classes. Russ is very involved with extra
curricular activities and is senior class advisor. I observed Russ’ Honors US.
history class.

Cam. Cam has been teaching for 9 years. He teaches us. history
combined with special education. Cam had a student teacher for most of the
year, but the student teacher did not teach this class. Cam is interested in
meteorology and history and recently modern American history. He is certified in
geography and has studied maps since he was young. He taught geography in a
middle school. The district had Cam teaching earth science, but after NCLB he
was not highly qualified. Cam needed to acquire a broader social studies
certification taking political science which is not necessarily his main interest. I

observed his combination US. history and special education class.

48

Researcher’s Suppositions and Explanations

To answer my research questions it was essential to uncover teachers’
thoughts and ideas about how they teach their subject areas, how reading and
writing are involved in their teaching and how they Conceptualize literacy and
text. This type of research does not produce answers which are evident or cast in
stone; rather, conclusions are based upon one’s actions and reactions, which
can be multifaceted and complex. Thoughts and feelings are difficult to measure
and, thus, become dependent upon the interests and perspectives of the
researcher (Merriman, 1998). As previously stated, my perspectives and beliefs
regarding this study derive from my earlier experiences as a teacher, literacy
consultant, and professional developer; my prior experiences shaped my present
interest and perspectives, and now, draw me to this particular investigation.
Through my earlier experiences, I witnessed content teachers’ resistance to
incorporating reading and writing into their teaching, though, at the time, I did not
understand why, nor did I try to find out. The voices heard in this study are the
teacher participants and to some extent their students. The teachers’ stories,
their thoughtful descriptions built around their experiences, goals, and beliefs
about teaching their content become this study’s narrative. And to answer my
research questions I become a crucial player, the key interpreter of the data.

A qualitative approach matches my research questions. I chose a
qualitative approach because of my intent to draw on direct quotations from
teachers in the trenches, from their thoughts, feelings and memories of their lives

as teachers of content. Since my objective included describing teachers’

49

classrooms and lessons, listening to their talk while teaching, listening to
students’ talk and observing their actions during lessons, and examining student
tasks to uncover and understand possible connections to the lessons, a
qualitative approach seemed to fit my purposes.

A qualitative approach allowed me, the researcher, to make claims based
on constructivist viewpoints, such as the complexities of numerous meanings of
individual experiences or meanings that are socially and historically constructed
(Creswell, 2003). An objective of this approach is to look for patterns that tell a
story; this story is full of complexities, tensions, and rich descriptions of teacher
practice in relation to their goals, teacher practice in connection to reading and
writing, and teacher practice in relation to student tasks.

Pilot Study. The recipe for obtaining good interview data is asking good
questions (Merriman, 1998). In order to make sure that I had written good
interview questions, I conducted a pilot study in the spring of 2008. The pilot
study served as practice for me in writing questions and interviewing to make
sure I Ieaming what I had intended. To try out my interview protocol, I interviewed
four middle school science, math, and social studies teachers about their
teaching practices and about how reading and writing were involved in their
teaching. I refined my interview protocol by rewording confusing questions. I also
added questions about respondent demographic information to get the interview
started (Merriman, 1998) and questions to Ieam about what students need to

know to be successful in their classes.

50

Also, I observed one lesson per teacher to try out my observation protocol.
Both instruments were altered as I discovered certain questions that needed to
be tweaked and other questions I needed to add. Also, I refined my observation
protocol to include not only what teachers said and‘did, what students said and
did, and the topic of the lesson to include how text was represented.
Instruments

Narrative is one qualitative approach that uses the strategy of inquiry
(Creswell, 2003). As the purpose of the present study is to develop a narrative, I
drew on techniques of inquiry such as collecting semi-structured, emerging data
from interviews, observations and students’ written artifacts. The primary goal
was that of developing themes and looking for patterns or concepts to describe
teachers’ instructional goals and drawing conclusions about how well they map
on to their teaching practices. In selecting my data collecting techniques
interviewing, observations, and mining data from documents seemed to fit my
purposes.
Interviews

Interviewing in one-on-one encounters is one of the most frequently used
forms of data collection in educational studies. The most common way to record
interview data is to tape record the information (Merriam, 1998).

Semi-structured interviews constitute the primary data source for this
study (see Appendix A). l determined that I did not want a highly structured
interview format so rigid that I could not keep a conversational tone or be open to

participants’ line of thinking or unique perspectives. I wanted to be able to probe

51

further on topics if I needed to adjust, if I needed more details, clarification, or
examples. Therefore, I chose a semi-stmctured type of interview because I
wanted to steer the conversation with the teachers toward certain areas such as
their goals and practices, and to stimulate responses about their beliefs about
teaching and Ieaming, but I also wanted to build conversation around those
topics.

I also determined that I did not want an open-ended type of interview
format because I needed a format that provided for a certain skeletal order of the
types of questions I planned to ask. The questions needed a basic order, but
needed flexibility within that order based on my background as a literacy
consultant. I did not want to wear my literacy hat up front and center in the
interview situation by asking questions about whether teachers involved reading
and writing in their lessons. To immediately inquire about reading and writing in
relation to their lessons would have been leading the teachers to a preset stance.
My plan was to ask questions about how they teach their subject areas without
mentioning reading and writing so that if reading and writing happened to be
mentioned it would not be due to prompting by me. There needed to be some
structure, for example, I developed four sections of questions. In the first section
the questions pertained to demographic information such as the grade and
subjects they taught and how long they have been teaching. The second section
pertained to their practices in terms of how they teach their subject areas. The
third section is where I infused questions about how reading and writing were

involved in their teaching. The questions in the second section, therefore, were

52

clean, devoid of any interjections by me that might lead them to think that if they
did not mention practices involving reading and writing they would be wrong
answers. The fourth section of questions asked teachers to delve into their texts
and describe how they asked students to read or uSe the text. I did not need to
determine the exact wording of the questions. I needed to determine the order of
sections, not necessarily the order of questions within the sections.

Within each section of interview questions there was ample room for
probing and allowing teachers to talk about their perspectives on their practice
without projecting a preconceived notion that I was looking specifically for
answers having to do with reading and writing.

I negotiated each teacher interview individually based upon each teacher’s
schedule and availability. I wanted each teacher to be in control of when the
interview happened. My hope was to be able to observe three or four lessons as
close as possible in time to the interview and I determined that the observations
should be consecutive if possible and within the same unit to help me understand
the reasons for making certain decisions about practice.

A couple of deviations from this process did occur. Russ, the honors US.
history teacher, had had a student teacher all year. He allowed me to interview
him before spring break, but requested that the observations take place after his
student teacher completed her assignment at South Hill. He also wanted to have
the students without me there for a week to allow everyone to become
acclimated again before I arrived on the scene. Further, Spence, who teaches

the US. history combined special education class, also teaches economics. The

53

economics class was not a class I had chosen to observe, but he was doing an
interesting lesson involving simulation of stock ownership called Stock Quest
where students were applying their knowledge to the real world by buying and
selling stocks. I wanted to witness this interesting task so I made the decision to
observe the class.

Observations

My interview and observation data are interwoven to provide a more
accurate and complete picture from the data. Observations are research tools to
gather data in a natural setting and represents firsthand encounters in the real
world rather than the secondhand account of the participants (Merriman, 1998).
Observations tend to be highly subjective and therefore can be unreliable so I
used it as one of my research tools. Therefore, using observations to corroborate
interviews adds strength to my findings. I used the observation data to help make
sense of the interview data.

I observed the everyday behaviors of teachers and students. I structured
the observation protocol to serve a specific purpose for recording certain types of
information (see Appendix B). I used the observation data to help make sense of
the interview data.

One lesson following each interview will be observed to increase integrity
of the interview instrument. I wanted a better understanding of the context of the
classes I observed. As much as possible consecutive observations were
scheduled within units of study to keep the observations consistent with the unit.

The observations and fieldnotes provided important support for the interpretation

54

of the interview data collected. Also, each teacher was informally interviewed
after observing their lessons for clarification purposes and to retrospectively
uncover teacher perceptions of the lesson. During these observations the
researcher tracked what was going on in the classroom in terms of teacher talk,
student talk, subject matter major ideas discussed and text representations.
Sketches of each classroom observed depicted room organization, for example,
arrangement of desks and/or tables, utilization of counter space, representations
of content literacy around the room, such as posters, charts, and graphs used to
facilitate learning. This was done to enhance the researchers interpretation of
teacher knowledge and beliefs.

An observation protocol was developed to track observations regarding
the physical setting of each classroom, participants, activities, interactions,
conversations, and other subtle factors (Merriman, 1998). I noticed what the
classrooms looked like in terms of what was hanging on the walls or sitting on
counters, and how desks organized. l tracked what teachers were doing and
saying and what students were doing and saying. Further, I identified the topic,
big ideas, and pertinent concepts of the lesson. Finally, I identified
representations of text throughout the lessons. The observation protocol data
collection tool organizes the data and holds it interpretation and triangulation of
all data.

Post Interviews
Post interviews allow the researcher to ask participants what they were

thinking with regard for certain behaviors witnessed during observations

55

(Merriam, 1998). In this study post interviews were conducted following the
observation of the teachers’ lessons for clarification purposes (see Appendix A).
Also, teachers were asked to reflect on how well they thought the lesson worked.
In order to understand reasons for the teacher praCtices I observed I asked
teachers to explain their purposes for certain practices and the student tasks that
were assigned.
Student Tasks

The collection of student tasks, in addition to interviews and observations,
adds to the triangulation of data. Since one of my research questions asks about
how reading and writing are involved in teacher practice the analysis of these
documents shed light on this issue.
Data Recording Procedures

I began collecting data toward the end of January 2008 following exams at
West Park High School. I conduct seven semi-structured interviews. Interviews
were audio-taped and transcribed and held on my computer for further analysis. I
gathered observational fieldnotes using an observational protocol tool for
recording information on my computer (see Appendix B). The protocol tool was
set up in columns representing Time, Teacher doing/saying, Student
doing/saying, Ideas/Concepts, How text is represented. The post interviews were
also recorded and transcribed and held on my computer for further analysis.

I collected clean copies of all assignments, quizzes, and tests during the
observation data collecting window. At least three students from each class

volunteered to participate in the study. Clean copies of each of the student tasks

56

were collected from each teacher. Completed artifacts were also collected from
the participating students according to assignments given by the teacher and
assignments turned in by the participating students. In some cases students who
participated did not turn in all of their assignments.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Initially, all transcripts were read carefully to get an overall sense of the
data. Transcripts were read to allow for some preliminary thinking about
emerging categories. The method of constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss,
1999) was used throughout the data analysis process as l was continually
looking for similar and different ideas, relationships, and perspectives that
comprehensively described teacher understandings (knowledge and beliefs)
about teaching and Ieaming, how they teach their subjects, purposes for their
practices and how reading and writing are involved.

I used HyperRESEARCH® software to analyze content by coding for
categories and representative examples of each category (see Appendix C). The
preliminary thinking I had done during my initial reading of the transcripts helped
to formulate my codes for data analysis through HyperRESEARCH®. l
determined categories that represent the major ideas voiced by teachers by
constantly comparing codes and grouping like codes within categories (see
Appendix D). I narrowed my list of categories for this paper by selecting only
those major categories that represented my research questions, for example,

codes clarifying teacher talk about their goals, teaching practices that involve

57

reading and writing, and purposes for the practices. Files including the code list
and specific reports are stored in HyperRESEARCH® on my computer.

I created a table for each major category and its representative codes to
capture a broader and clearer picture of how one category fit in relation to
another. I use at the category of teacher goals as the window through which to
examine teacher practices and the involvement of reading and writing. I also
examined each teacher goal in relation to the participant, subject, upper and
lower class track, and school profiles.

Transcripts were read again several times as I made notes in the margins,
highlighted, underlined and tracked interesting trends and patterns comparing my
notes to the coded data and tables. Reading and noting similarities and
differences allowed me to keep track of thoughts and ideas constantly comparing
to the codes and categories that that emerged through HyperRESEARCH®. It
allowed me to compare the coded data and tables to the narrative. Using the
HyperRESEARCH® software, I had buried myself in the analysis of transcripts
for emerging patterns of teacher knowledge and beliefs, goals, practices, and
evidence of reading and writing involvement in teacher practices and student
tasks. I did not want to lose the larger scope of the story; I did not want to lose
the story that teachers were telling behind the data. Rereading the transcripts

after using HyperRESEARCH® helped me to see the data within the story.

58

CHAPTER 4
RELATING GOALS TO PRACTICE

In this chapter, I respond to my research questions by organization my
findings around teachers’ instructional goals. I explore and describe the teachers’
goals derived from the teacher interviews, classroom observations, and post
interviews and connect each goal to teacher practices and purposes. The 1
following research questions steer and underpin this study:

1) What literacy practices do high school teachers use to accomplish

their science and social studies instructional goals?

2) What are the purposes for using these literacy practices?

3) How do these literacy practices involve reading and writing?

It is essential to understand the goals teachers hold for their students
before portraying a relationship between teacher practices and teacher goals.
The instructional goals teachers hold for their students help to determine their
practices and the tasks they ask of their students. In this study teachers’
described their goals in terms of three distinct, but interrelated categories. Goal
one focuses on meeting requirements and directives set by others who have
power, for instance, various federal, state, district, and school initiatives or
mandates. Goal two aims at connecting Ieaming to real world situations;
situations that relate in the present to students’ daily lives and circumstances or
conditions projected to impact students in the future. Goal three targets student

engagement in Ieaming of skills and content and emphasizes the Ieaming of

skills above Ieaming content.

59

This chapter is divided into three sections. I have structured this chapter
around teachers’ goals. I tell the stories of teachers’ goals as they were
described to me through the interviews and observations. In each section I
describe the common goal shared by teachers across school, subject, and
student ability level. I describe the pattern that emerges as I examine the data. I
identify the reading and writing practices used by teachers to accomplish each
goal. Also, I incorporate the observations, post interviews and student tasks to
triangulate the initial interview data. I examine the tensions put forth by teachers
as they describe their instructional goals. Finally, I share my impressions about
the literacy practices of these teachers as connected to their school lives.

Goal #1 - FederallState/DistrictlSchool Mandates

The teachers in this study paint an interesting picture when identifying
their instructional goals in terms of federal, state, district, or school mandates.
Their story seems to be tied specifically to the school where. they teach and their
students’ reading and writing abilities. Teachers from the urban school identify
their students as having generally lower reading abilities then their counterparts
at other schools in the suburbs. Cam reiterates this when he talks about his US.
History students taking the state tests the reading part I think is I say it all
the time I think reading is what holds these kids up on the standardized
tests and Ieaming in the classroom.” The urban teachers seem to be more
concerned with meeting the federal and state mandates and, therefore, their own

district’s mandates.

60

l determined each individual teacher’s level of concern about meeting
mandates by pinpointing the emphases teachers placed on mandates at the
point in their interview at which they first talked about them. I rated teachers’
responses about their instructional goals as very high focus, high focus, low
focus, and no focus. To clarify the emphasis on mandates, very high focus
describes a response where meeting mandates was the only goal stated. High
focus depicts instances where meeting mandates was the first goal mentioned.
Low focus labels teachers who talked about meeting mandates last among goals
mentioned. No focus describes teachers who did not state meeting mandates as
an instructional goal. Five of the seven teachers interviewed responded that
meeting mandates was an instructional goal.

All of the teachers from the urban district mentioned meeting either
federal, state, or district and school mandates very earIy on, if not first in their
responses (see table 3). They feel highly pressured to improve their students’
scores on required state assessments. They also feel a sense of urgency to get
students graduated. Urban teachers talked most often about mandates as
restrictions to their teaching. The types of students they service, for instance,
have more reading difficulties than other surrounding suburban schools.
Restrictions are felt more by teachers from the urban high school, South Hill,
rather than the suburban high school West Park, no matter the subject or reading
and writing abilities of their students.

High focus — South Hill. For example, Cam teaches lower track US.

History in the urban high school, South Hill. When asked about his goals for his

61

Table 3
Meeting Mandates

Goals/Tension Suburban Urban

 

Meeting Social Studies Science Social Studies Science
Federal, State
District,
School
Mandates

 

Very High
Focus
(only goal
stated)

 

High Focus Cam Seth
(stated first) Russ

 

Low Focus Spence Hal
(stated last)

 

No Focus Dave Cate
(not stated)

 

 

 

 

 

 

UT=Upper Track
LT=Lower Track

62

 

students Cam’s primary goal was meeting mandates “obviously, you’ve gotta
cover the content.” Cam feels restricted by mandates; he views his day-to-day
teaching job as limited by the requirements of others it’s all mapped out. It’s
like every day, it’s gotta get to this, gotta get to this, gotta get to this.” Almost in
the same breath, though, Cam talked about the push in his district to teach
literacy strategies, ...you’ve gotta do literacy strategies at least here you do
maybe outside not so much, but that’s probably my number one goal is to
phase in literacy stuff every single day.” Because of the typical high poverty,
lower readers at South Hill, it is difficult for Cam to separate covering the content
from teaching literacy strategies. Both are mandates or initiatives and many
students at South Hill cannot be successful passing the mandated tests if they
cannot read. For Cam, teaching literacy strategies was key to his students’
success in U. S. History and school in general.

High focus - South Hill. Urban teachers stressed the. importance of
passing state tests, of Ieaming state standards and benchmarks. They think
about theirjobs in terms of delivering or covering the state curriculum. Seth
teaches both Honors Biology and a regular biology class that is combined with
special education students. He described more than one goal for his students,
but the goal with the highest import, the first goal he talked about, was meeting
mandates. For Seth, meeting state mandates was indicative of how well he was
doing his job. For example, Seth reported, “I mean, basically, it’s to learn the

content expectations for the State of Michigan that’s the primary goal. That’s

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the goal mandated by the state. I wouldn’t be doing my job if they didn’t learn
those.”

In addition, urban teachers talked about other goals similarly bounded by
requirements or mandates. Urban teachers are deeply focused on graduating
their students. They are concerned about their students having enough credits to
graduate from high school as well as getting students ready for college. Russ
teaches Honors US. History at South Hill. He states his primary instructional
goal as helping his students attain enough credits to graduate. Russ’ Honors
US. History class is a required course

so obviously my initial goal is to get them their five credits. I want them

to be successful towards graduation it didn’t really used to be my goal,

but now, of course you must graduate 100% of your kids by 2013, if
they don’t get my 10th grade US. history 10 credits, they aren’t walking
two years later so we really focus on making sure that they

graduate (46).

Low focus - West Park. A different story is told by the teachers from West
Park, the suburban high school in this study. They are not as overtly focused on
meeting the federal, state, district or school mandates as the urban teachers.
While meeting mandates for two of the teachers at West Park is on their radar,
they talked about other goals ahead of mandates. None of the four West Park
teachers mentioned mandates as their primary goal for their students. Two of the
suburban teachers included mandates among their stated goals while the other
two teachers did not state meeting mandates as a goal at all. Further, both of the

teachers who did include mandates within their stated goals are the lower track

teachers in science and social studies.

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Hal’s chemistry class is integrated with special education students. He has
taken it upon himself to challenge his students by teaching the same curriculum
to his lower track chemistry as his regular classes. He included the meeting of
state mandates in his stated instructional goals, bUt he mentioned them last
among those goals. For Hal, accomplishing his primary goals of creating good
citizens and teaching students how to be good Ieamers will, as a by-product, help
his students to meet federal and state mandates. For example, Hal commented
“you want them to do well on the state exams and the ACT and you’re working
towards those things.”

Another West Park teacher, Spence, teaches a lower track US. History
class which is also combined with special education students and is co-taught by
a special education teacher. For Spence, meeting federal and state mandates is
secondary to getting his students to see the big picture, that events are
related to one another Meeting federal and state mandates is not his main
goal or objective for his students obviously, I want them to Ieam what the
state standards and benchmarks say they have to Ieam, but I think you can
teach that within the context of the bigger picture.” For Spence, focusing
mainly on his curriculum by connecting historical events he can accomplish both
tasks through his subject matter.

No focus - West Park. Neither of the upper track suburban teachers cited
federal, state, district, or school mandates as instructional goals for their
students. Dave teaches humanities, a class which is co-taught by a social studies

teacher (Dave) and an English teacher. This class has no curriculum that is tied

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to state standards and benchmarks. Humanities is a liberal arts course with
curriculum that is purely teacher developed and is based on twelve novels or
historical books, which are chosen by the teachers and revised yearly. Fifty
honors’ students take this class and receive two credits, one social studies and
one English credit. Dave teaches the social studies content around each novel in
terms of the history, politics, and economics of the era; the English teacher
teaches the Language Arts component.

Cate teaches AP Physics at West Park. Since she teaches a class with a
preset curriculum, she follows a set of guidelines. Cate follows the College Board
Advanced Placement curriculum to ensure that her students who intend to take
the AP Physics exam are prepared for this endeavor

it is the one class where I really do teach to the test because at the end

of the year, they take the AP test. So I do teach that class differently than I

would other classes. And their tests, I structure it just like the AP test so

that the multiple choice questions are similar, the written part is similar.

Like the restrictions they have on the AP test, whether they can use the

calculator or not, I do all that when I test them in AP.

However, Cate does veer away from these guidelines, occasionally,
because she understands that not all of her students intend to take the AP exam.
One of the times I observed this class Cate was preparing her students for a
quiz. She informed the students, and this is on a regular basis, that the quiz
would be open-note because she understands not all of her students will
eventually become “...I do realize that some of you are taking this class because
you want to know more about physics, but are not going to take the AP exam so

do not won'y about memorizing the equations and doing the math in your

head?

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Practices and Purposes

Five teachers across both high schools in this study use certain practices
to accomplish their goal of meeting federal, state, district, and school mandates.
Teachers described how they teach their subjects in terms of their use of text and
assessment preparation. Use of text and assessment preparation for most
teachers is interrelated. For teachers from South Hill using questions from the
biology and History Alive texts as practice for the state tests makes sense
because the questions are similarly constructed and they must use their
mandated texts anyway. Teachers at West Park also gave their students practice
questions that mirror the state tests. Teachers in both schools found
opportunities in their lessons to give students practice writing persuasive essays.

Use of text in practice. Previously, I discussed the use of common texts,
specifically within the urban district, in the school literacy Initiatives section of
chapter three. It warrants more discussion. I have included comments about the
use of text in this section because district/school initiatives are directly related to
teacher practice, especially if they are mandated, as in the case of South Hill.

At South Hill, in most instances, teacher practice is dictated and controlled
by the text they use. In this urban district, especially, both the social studies and
science curricula are taught through specific texts that all teachers in that subject
area are required to use. All biology teachers at South Hill, for instance, are
required to use the Biology Human Approach textbook by the Biological Science
Curriculum Study who’s principle investigator is Roger Bybee, the developer of

the SE lesson planning approach which these teachers are required to infuse

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within their lessons. Seth explains how the use of this text takes charge of his
teaching practice and is ultimately constrained by its use.

this year, they’re saying we have to teach out of this book. Every lesson

that’s in there has to be done exactly as it’s spelled out in that book.

And, they’re having the kids take these common assessments this year

that every biology student across the district takes and the questions

come from the publisher of that textbook.

A similar situation holds true for all South Hill High School US. history
teachers. They must use the district adopted History Alive program to teach their
lessons. According to Cam, the “History Alive program was purchased by the
district this past summer and then when the new content expectations came
out in October, they made an effort to align all the activities that are in the History
Alive with the content expectations.” The purpose of common texts and
expectations for both science and social studies teachers is understandable; they
are accountable for preparing their students for the districts’ common
assessments. Russ explains that even in his Honors US. History class we do
have a district wide adoption policy, meaning that no matter what the subject is,
everybody in the district should be using the same book.”

West Park High School engages in a different scenario. Even though most
of the teachers at West Park use texts and textbooks with their students, they are
not bound by them in terms of using the lessons and activities exactly as they are
prescribed in the texts. Cate uses AP Physics problems from the textbook.

However, Cate also creates some of the practice problems on my own

some of them I got from the internet.” Although Cate is preparing her students for

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the AP exam at the end of the year, she has the flexibility to borrow problems
from other sources.

West Park’s regular chemistry students use the new state science
standards “... they just came out with a companion document and so I took all of
this from the companion document because it is the exact thing that they expect
the kids to know for this unit The science department decided that since
students were going to be taking the state assessment you might as well go
with exactly what they want you to teach and then just add to it or what you can
fit in.” Hal was concerned about preparing his lower track students according to
the state chemistry standards so we [department] “... need to switch by next year
to make sure all students are able to do chemistry ...” Hal decided to use the new
state curriculum with his lower track students, as well, and was able to veer from
his textbook and make decisions based on the needs of his students. He started
the year using the lower track chemistry curriculum, but ended up “... switching
the curriculum on them. They don’t even know. And so the kids are doing
remarkably well there’s kids that didn’t think they were capable of the next
class are doing it and so I think if you raise the expectation, you raise what
they’re able to do. “

Since there is no preset or required curriculum in Humanities at West
Park, Dave is also able to make choices about his texts and practices. This class
is considered a liberal arts class so is not bound by a mandated curriculum. Dave
and his teacher partner, Meg, “... pay attention to make sure that we could align

with state standards, but we aren’t required to.” Dave and Meg developed their

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curriculum around six major themes (political systems, identity, individual,
environment, spirituality, and culture). They teach the themes through their texts.
Each year they tweak and shape the curriculum and make choices about novels
to keep and novels to replace for the following year.

Spence also uses other kinds of text with his lower track U.S.
History/special education class. He is not bounded by his text. Spence shared
that he does not usually read out of the textbook.” Rather, Spence uses
supplemental readings that he collects from a variety of places. He browses the
internet, for example, “I might be browsing CNN.com and there’s an article about
the inflation versus recession thing. I’ll print that off, give it to my kids and hey,
this is what we’re studying. It’s in the news. Like from books and things from
US. history.”

Teaching Practice as Assessment Preparation. Six teachers across
subject, school, and track talked about their teaching practices in terms of
preparing students for state and district assessments. In order to accomplish
their goal of meeting mandates teachers from both schools prepared their
students for state assessments by giving them practice in answering similar kinds
of questions to those represented on tests mandated by the state. Teachers from
South Hill were most focused on preparing their students for the state tests as
evidenced by the emphasis placed on this goal. However, both lower track
teachers from West Park participated in this practice. At West Park the lower
track teachers talked about writing persuasive essays on a regular basis. Even

the upper track Humanities teacher, Dave, takes into account the state test when

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planning for Humanities. He uses persuasive essay as the format for every unit
test. “They have approximately maybe 75, 80 minutes to answer these essay
questions. They are timed. We specifically design them that they will take the
entire time which is also, in my opinion, preparation for college and/or ACT,
state test, because they are timed.”

Hal finds that his lower track chemistry students have difficulty reading for
information. Hal practices ACT questions once a month with his lower track
chemistry students. This is a practice that is supported throughout the science
department. The ACT practice questions that Hal uses with his students come
right off the website.” Hal reports that the best way to teach his lower readers is
to read to them. At West Park, teachers have been inserviced in the practice of
gradually releasing responsibility of Ieaming to their students. Hal practices this
technique even with the ACT questions, the very first one, we read I read
aloud they did it, or I did it with them basically showed them. The second
one, I read it, but they worked on the questions in groups. The next time, I’m
gonna read it and they’re gonna do it on their own. The next time, they’re gonna
read it and do it on their own.” One example of an ACT practice question follows:

According to Study 1 and Study 2, the crater floor of the volcano Pele has
reflectances most similar to which of the following S allotropes?

A. White S

B. Orange S

C. Red S

D. Brown S

For the South Hill teachers the textbook contained and directed the

mandated curriculum their students needed to Ieam to pass the district

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developed common assessments. For this reason, teachers’ lessons were
dictated by the text they were expected to use. However, students needed to
pass the state assessments, too.

For example, Cam uses wrap-up lessons with his students at the end of
the class to engage his students in writing about the lesson, “... the way I would
wrap up a lesson would be we’ve been doing persuasive essays all the time
cuz that’s on the state test Further, Cam explains that the urban district has
incorporated a district writing assessment geared toward preparing students for
the state tests. Every marking period teachers engage their students in writing
persuasive essays to district prompts. He supports this practice and sees an
opportunity to sustain that effort in his own classes so I figure, hey, let’s hit it
in social studies, too. You know, for example, we just got done with World War I
and I had them write a persuasive essay on which technology, new technology
that was utilized in World War I do you think was the most destructive and
why. You know, just take a stance on it and argue it out.” Further, Cam reports
that he uses the multiple choice questions from History Alive “... they’re well
written multiple choice. They’re more state-style assessments. There is a writing
component to every test, either an essay or short answer sort of responses.”

Teachers at both schools use text in a variety of ways, as authentic text
and as school-only text. If teachers at South Hill use text in their insthction

exactly as determined or mandated by the district without

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Reading and Writing Support

Every teacher in this study talks about how reading and writing is involved
in their teaching. In terms of initiatives or mandates, teachers’ stories center on
the reading and writing abilities of their students and their overall commitment to
literacy. As previously discussed, both schools are involved in literacy initiatives.
Five of the teachers in this study point to the lower reading and writing abilities of
their students as an issue, one that drives their decision-making in regard to
literacy practices. For South Hill the overall lower reading and writing abilities of
their students also steer the literacy initiatives and mandates put forth by the
district.

It has been established by teachers’ comments and by district state
assessment scores that South Hill has more students with lower reading and
writing abilities than other schools in nearby suburbs. They did not meet their
school reading, writing, science, or social studies objectives. Additionally, they
did not meet state AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) and are in AYP Phase 4. A
major academic goal for teachers at South Hill is to improve their students’
reading and writing and they have set specific school objectives to try to
accomplish that goal. Russ recognizes the ability of students at South Hill and
notices even of his Honors US. History students their writing skills are not
obviously what they could be in an honors class I don’t even know in 10th
grade how good of a paper any 10th grader could write demand in an
honors type class. But you know, a lot of times our kids expressing themselves,

they have trouble.” Russ describes his practice in terms of getting his students to

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write, especially in terms of preparing them for the state test. He frequently uses
a newspaper with his students to get them to reflect on current events. His
students collaborate in small groups while looking through a newspaper to find
an article. The article must be a real article this is a state assessment skill,
obviously give me the who, what, where, when and why of what’s going on in
the article and then what’s your opinion about it I try to do that once a month.”

Russ’ use of the newspaper is an example of authentic text and if, as he
suggests, he allows students autonomy in the choice of article they read and if
the article is about something happening in their community or something that
might affect their lives somehow this would be an example of an authentic
reading task. However, the purpose of the task of getting his students to write,
answering the who, what, where, when, and why questions for a grade, and
preparing them for the state test renders it a school-only task (Purcell-Gates,
2002). At times, teachers use authentic texts for school-only purposes.

Cam reported one of the biggest problems that students at South Hill
experience when taking state tests; they often do not provide a counter argument
in their written responses. Cam’s lower track US. History students are no
exception. He sees evidence of this not only on the state tests, but on written
answers to similar types of questions in his own class. If students do not provide
a counter argument to their opponent if you don’t do that on the state test
or even in the district writing prompts, you only get like half credit. You have to

address your opponent. And students just don’t get that. They can build an

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argument. They can use supporting evidence, but they just always forget that
piece and I’m always on them. Don’t forget to address your opponent.”

Because West Park meets state AYP every year, the issue becomes the
challenge of continually trying to push to the next state AYP level which means
moving all students forward in reading and writing. West Park is focused on
reading right now through their vocabulary and reading initiative. Teachers are
not required to participate in the initiative, but it is suggested that they infuse the
practices into their daily lessons. Even though West Park is highly involved in
school-wide literacy initiatives, Hal explains that teachers there have choices
about the literacy practices they use.

How we go about it in our classroom is a little bit up to our choice

except for SSR. SSR. everybody does it at the same time every single

day. We also have words of the week that we’re posting and working on in
our classroom. But we have different review strategies, different
vocabulary building strategies that we’re working on and we can choose
how we use them. But we have professional development where they offer
some of those ideas to all of us.

When asked about how reading is involved in his teaching, Hal recounted
a story about how he came to use read-alouds with his students. Hal’s students
represent a wide range of reading abilities, but since his lower track chemistry
class is combined with special education students, many of his students have
reading difficulties. Hal was first introduced to the practice of reading aloud to his
students by Doug Fisher, who came to West Park to kick-off their literacy

initiatives a couple of years ago. He provided reading professional development

for the entire staff. Doug modeled read-alouds and encouraged teachers to read

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to their students on a daily basis. After experimenting with this technique he
explains his reaction to the idea of reading to his chemistry students.

and it was unbelievable. My first hour class, I said I’m gonna read to

them and my last hour class, I said I’m not reading to them. It was a

total difference in behavior. Then I switched it the other day, I didn’t read

to 1st hour class disaster. Read to the last hour class, better ...it’s like a

pin drop comparison, night and day. It’s unbelievable.

Teachers who talked about doing read-alouds with their students
described reading out loud as a way to deliver content. Instances where reading
aloud was mentioned or described tended to be indicative of reading activities
instead of instruction of cognitive strategies. Most often teachers read aloud to
their students because their students did not read or had difficulty reading the
text independently. I did not observe instances of teachers thinking aloud for their
students as they read. Students need mental models of the cognitive processes
one uses to understand text so they understand how and when to use a cognitive
process and the purpose for using it. They need to deveIOp. a reader’s tool box of
cognitive strategies that they can Ieam and use independently, strategies they
can select and implement as needed to understand text. For these teachers to
change their instruction to incorporate cognitive strategy instruction they will likely
need support (Pressley, 2002).

Further, following transactional theory (Rosenblatt, 1978), when teachers
read aloud to their students exclusively, they remove the opportunity for their
students to experience the event of reading. They prevent students from

interacting with text, from involving their prior knowledge in ways that allow them

to independently reach an understanding (Rosenblatt, 1978).

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Teachers were asked about how writing is involved in their teaching,
Spence reported that he has his student write for two reasons. First, he
acknowledges the poor writing abilities of his US. History special education
class. His students write at least once a week to answer questions and to review
subject matter in short essays. He attributes his students’ poor writing to their
habit of typing everything any time we do a report or they type something
up, | always make them have a hand written rough draft it cuts down on the cut
and paste plagiarizing Second, Spence’s objective is to give his students
practice in writing obviously because of the standardized test that they have
to take where there’s a writing portion involved. And at least this way when
they’re writing, I’ll be able to help them out and give some suggestions
Tensions - Mandates

Tensions exist among teachers, particularly at the urban school where
teachers see themselves as restricted by the demands of the federal, state,
district, or school mandates. For these teachers there seems to be a mismatch
between the mandates they must uphold and the types of students they teach.
This mismatch does not exist in the suburban schools in the same intensity. The
urban teachers seemingly fight an uphill battle to improve their reading and
writing and because of this struggle they teach under tighter restrictions than
their counterparts at West Park. Teachers at South Hill painted a picture of
frustration within a set of interwoven factors. Teachers at the urban school are

caught in a catch-22 situation where mandates even constrain other mandates.

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Tensions derive from seemingly impossible situations for teachers who
must navigate through a vicious circle of mandates. In the chain of mandates
from federal to state to district, teachers are caught between the demand and the
actual classroom situation. Tensions stemming from textbook and curricular
mandates are often pitted against struggling reader issues and time issues. What
is most salable, however, is that the urban teachers still find ways to honor their
beliefs about teaching and Ieaming even in the face of these tensions.

At South Hill Seth talks about how he copes with these tensions by
trusting his own judgment about teaching his Honors and lower track biology
students regarding the activities in which he involves them.

I told you at the beginning that we’re supposed to teach everything in this

book and not deviate part of the problem is we have this limited

timeframe to get through these chapters. I can spend two months
talking about genetics, mitosis, meiosis, DNA. We have two and a half
weeks then there’s this common assessment. And if I don’t get through
it, if I don’t rush through it, the kids are screwed on that common
assessment. So l substitute wherever I can for the activities that are in
here. If I know of a better one, I’m gonna do that. The engagement activity
that was in this chapter, I did something different because I thought I had

a better activity that was engaging. So I would say I do a lot of stuff

outside of this book.

Textbook Mandate. Teachers are constrained by their textbooks at South
Hill. Teachers are told to teach the lessons as they are prescribed in the
textbook. The purpose of this mandate is to meet another mandate, the common
assessments. The district wants every student to be prepared for the common
assessments. For example, Seth reports having to teach every biology lesson

exactly as designed by the text. Since the students at South Hill must take

common assessments at the end of every year, Seth worries if I deviate even

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a little bit, I could be causing them to have lower test scores.” The tension for
Seth is obvious; he is conflicted about what to do, teach the text exactly as the
district espouses or follow his own beliefs about teaching and Ieaming. He seems
to have found a middle ground of sorts by substituting his own activities in place
of the text’s whenever possible.

The mismatch between this mandate and what happens in the classroom
is an issue in terms of struggling readers. The text is mandated, but the
struggling readers cannot read the book. This affects how teachers teach. If
teachers must teach the curriculum exactly from the textbook, but students
cannot read the text, teachers are caught in the quagmire of having to make
decisions about using the lessons and practices dictated by the text or switching
to practices they know will help students grasp the content, even if these
teaching practices may not follow the lessons or practices from the book.
Teachers choose to do other things that will move them to the same place of
covering the content for the common assessment or covering the state
curriculum.

Time Issue. In many instances certain mandates cause tensions, around
the issue of time. Not only is covering the mandated curriculum a worry for
teachers at South Hill, but preparing students for the state assessment adds to
the pressure. Cam recounts his time until the “...middle of October reviewing
stuff, trying to get them ready for the state tests." However, Cam predicts the
problem lies in the students understanding of the types of questions on the state

test. His History Alive textbook has similar types of questions that the students

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practice, but a lot of kids don’t do well on the state test not that they don’t
know the material it’s that they don’t understand the doggone questions. But
we don’t have enough time to address that. We’ve got all this content we gotta
cover. You know, how am I supposed to practice multiple choice questions all the
time?” And Cam says that’s a real problem because his students struggle with
reading and

this year the district is requiring us to use the History Alive tests a
lot of the questions are worded using big words. I don’t know how else to say it
big, big words and you know, vocabulary is one thing if it’s something we’ve
covered, but if it’s something that’s not necessarily vocabulary ...For instance,
this last unit on World War I, we did review, we had a game that we did and we
were so confident the kids were gonna do really good on this test. Horrible. High
score, 72. And I know why I went back and I started looking at the
questions that came off History Alive and I’m like, well, no wonder they got that
wrong. It’s worded horribly. Of course, they’re not gonna understand what the
question’s ask

Because he consumes so much time prepping students for the state tests
Cam has less time to cover his mandated curriculum which is preparing his
stUdents for the district’s common assessments. In that sense meeting one
mandate interferes with meeting another mandate. Teachers are involved in a
catch-22 situation in terms of covering all of the content that will be on the district
common assessment, in the time leftover, after they prep for and administer the
state assessments.

Struggling readers. As typical for high poverty urban schools many of the
students at South Hill read below grade level. This creates tension among
teachers who must teach from a textbook that many of their students cannot

read. The teachers are involved in literacy initiatives that ask them to use certain

reading and writing strategies with their students. The mandate of covering the

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curriculum does not match with the literacy initiatives asked of teachers. For
example, in his Honors US. History class, Russ has compensated for the fact
that we don’t have enough time to stop and teach the kids really how to read
because we’re being told to cover more and more I only use this [textbook]
as the foundation and then I fill in everything else because I can’t count on
the fact that the kids know how to read, but I cannot stop and teach them to read
because I just need to make sure that I covered the statewide benchmarks “
Russ finds his own way to meet the mandates of the district and state by
veering from the text. He does not have his students bring their texts everyday
because some of them don’t have their books, won’t bring their books, don’t
know how to read. The book is not always good for every student.” Russ still
needs to teach history, though, and teaches it according to his beliefs and
experience about how to teach his struggling readers.
I still have to talk about the Great Society. So that’s how I handle it.
Whether or not that is right or not by federal guidelines, I don’t know,
but in my 17 years’ experience, that’s what helps the kids the most is to
get beyond their limitations and say, okay, yup, you’re limited by this. You
don’t speak a lot of English and you don’t have this, you know, and you
don’t have your book today, but you know what? We’re still gonna Ieam
about the Great Society. Even though we have these limitations
When faced with this problem teachers tended to follow their beliefs about
teaching and Ieaming. The strength of their beliefs is not squashed by these
mandates as teachers find ways to honor their beliefs about teaching and

Ieaming by making choices, decisions, and doing what they believe is right within

these boundaries.

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Impressions about Literacy

When you consider student populations at both schools it is easy to
understand why high poverty urban area teachers suffer significant tensions
matching mandates to practice. In fact, the urban teachers in this study must deal
with multiple mandates, all intended to help improve the level of literacy of their
students. In an attempt to raise the literacy levels of the students at South Hill
they are under multiple mandates that get in the way of each other and make it
difficult for teachers to meet each one. West Park consistently meets their
objectives. So, the same level of tension does not exist for both schools.

Tensions exist at some level at both schools, but every urban teacher,
including the Honors teachers, talked about multiple mandates in terms of the
reading and writing difficulties of their students. Even though the lower track
teachers at West Park talked about meeting the state mandates by preparing
their students for the these tests, it was not with the same sense of urgency as
the teachers at South Hill.

Teachers at South Hill are handling the mandated textbook issue by
substituting activities and adding content to lessons when the mandated text is
deemed by them to be insufficient or inaccurate. However, the larger issue here
is that students at the urban school are not meeting state, district, or school
objectives. Due to the generally lower reading scores and low achievement on
state tests at South Hill, teachers work under stricter state guidelines. Therefore,
there is a perceived lack of time to teach content and prepare students for tests.

Priorities might be altered to better allocate time.

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If improving students’ reading and writing scores is a primary objective, as
it is in this district, more time should be allocated on teaching teachers how to
teach cognitive strategies while covering their curriculum. Less time might be
needed for prepping for state tests. Few teachers teach their students to be
strategic readers of their content (Pressley, 2002).

Little cognitive strategy insthction was observed in either school among
teachers of the lower readers. Most often teachers read to their students when
text was difficult or led round robin type reading where students were selected
randomly or by other students (popcorn reading) to read a section of text. I did
not observe teachers explaining the purpose or use of a strategy, modeling the
strategy or guided the students’ use of the strategy over time (Conley, 2008).
Teachers need support to Ieam how to teach their students to be strategic
readers and writers (Pressley, 2002).

Goal #2 — Applying or Connecting Learning to the World

A second goal voiced by teachers in this study emphasizes a connection
between Ieaming and the world. Teachers talked about this goal on two levels.
First, they want students to see how their knowledge and understanding connect
to the real world. Second, beyond simply acquiring knowledge and then
comprehending it, teachers talked about their students doing something with their
Ieaming by applying it somewhere, in other classes and outside of school. Each
goal level demands a different level of thinking. On one level, teachers who want
students to see how their Ieaming and understanding connect to the world might

use scenarios and hypothetical situations to get students to think about their

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Ieaming. Other teachers might actually involve students in the application of their
Ieaming students participate in real world tasks and situations at school.

Further, teachers describe making connections or applying to the world as
something students would do in the future, outside of school, by participating in
real world situations on their own. Teachers describe future goals for students
where students may draw upon the knowledge, understanding, and skills they
learned in school to solve a problem, hold, a conversation, or negotiate
perspectives, or relate past world events to decisions about their current lives.

When teachers voiced this goal, they emphasized application of
knowledge as something they wanted their students to be able to do. However,
teachers described levels of thinking that go beyond knowledge application in
their interviews. For this reason, I refer to the Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) of
cognitive categories of thinking as a guide to teacher descriptions. I wanted to be
able to determine what categories teachers’ talk actually referred to when using
certain words to describe the level of thinking they wanted for their students.
Knowledge application is an accepted higher cognitive process using certain
higher-level literacy skills to operationalize learning (Bloom, 1956). Students,
however, need to Ieam the terminology, facts, how to organize the facts, and the
specific theories and principles of subject area domains in order to comprehend
the content they are Ieaming and then apply that knowledge elsewhere. Using
Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide helps me to separate this goal into two categories
of thinking, using knowledge and. understanding to see the connections to the

world and the application of that knowledge and understanding.

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For example, some teachers who talked about applying knowledge want
their students to be able to compare and contrast which requires going beyond
acquiring knowledge and understanding it to applying it in a concrete situation,
and then analyze it against a similar situation. Further, some teachers want their
students to communicate with others in collaborative situations. In order to reach
that level of literacy one would need to carry the previous analysis or prior
knowledge to a higher level to create a synthesis of new thinking. Finally, some
teachers talked about their students defending their viewpoints or opinions. In
order for students to carry out that cognitive process, they need to be able to
judge the value of their new creation. In terms of this study, I take this to mean
that when teachers talk about wanting their students to apply their Ieaming they
are generally talking about levels of thinking beyond basic knowledge and
understanding.

Teachers describe this goal around five distinct, but interrelated categories
of thinking including Ieaming to be productive members of society, to understand
the world from different perspectives, to hold real world conversations with
others, to see the big picture of how real events are related, and to problem
solve. I originally did not include problem solving in the discussion about this goal
because it seemed to be more about acquiring knowledge, which matched the
third goal better. However, I altered my thinking as l reread teachers’ responses
about what it means to be literate in science. Two science teachers who talked

about problem-solving as a goal described it in more detail, later in their

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interviews. They described being literate in science as someone who could
problem-solve and apply that Ieaming somewhere in the real world.

All four West Park teachers talked about connecting to the world in some
way as either their only goal or primary goal for students. Conversely, the three
South Hill teachers had low or no focus on connecting to real world issues. I
organize teachers’ stories according to the point at which they mentioned the
goal in the interview (see Table 4). Again, I took into account whether teachers
talked about connecting to the world as their only goal to mean very high focus,
primary goal to mean high focus, mentioned last as low focus, and not talked
about as no focus. Also, I use responses from other questions in the interview to
help determine and corroborate teachers’ goals, for example, I asked teachers
what it means to be literate in science and social studies. In addition, I asked
them to describe a good science or social studies teacher.

Understand the world from difierent perspectives. Only one of the
seven participants in this study mentioned understanding the world from different
perspectives as an instructional goal. However, I included two other teachers,
who did not mention perspective taking within their instructional goal responses,
but who described a lesson at a later point in their interviews where their
students’ were involved in taking perspectives.

Being able to understand that different world-views exist requires
knowledge and comprehension. To be able to exercise an opinion about different

world views and defend that position in conversation or in writing demands one to

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draw on personal values and opinions, defend, or judge the value of something.

Understanding world-views demands one to be able to draw on personal values

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Goals/1' ension

Table 4

Real World Connections or Application

Suburban

Urban

 

Real World
Connections

Social Studies

Science

Social Studies

Science

 

Very High Focus
(only goal
stated)

Dave — UT

 

High Focus
(stated first)

Spence — LT

Cate — UT
Hal — LT

 

Low Focus
(stated last)

Russ — UT

Seth - LT

 

No Focus
(not stated)

 

 

 

 

Cam - LT
Russ — UT

 

 

UT=Upper Track
LT=Lower Track

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and opinions, orjudge the value of or defend something. The following teachers
ask students to engage in perspective taking in distinctive ways.

Very high focus — West Park. Dave talks about only one instructional goal
for his Humanities students, understanding the wOrld from different perspectives.
This goal fits the format and content of the Humanities class since the students’
curriculum is delivered through novels and historical books rather than a
traditional textbook. The format of the class is lecture and discussion with some ‘
persuasive writing involved.

There is a high demand on reading comprehension and amount of reading
in this class and since students are expected to be critical thinkers, they must
apply for admission. Admission to Humanities depends on two teacher
recommendations, US. History grade, English 10 Grade, and comprehension
and vocabulary scores on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test. The Humanities
class is a “... high intensity reading class” with a huge reading demand “... you’re
talking 60, 70 pages a day.” Students in this class are required to
communicate and speak out loud and ...defend your opinion looking at
another perspective and then defending what you say

Students read about different periods in history around six interdependent
themes; one is culture. Dave’s objective is to “get these students to see the world
from a different perspective and we constantly, constantly reinforce that. We’re
not telling them that they have to change their opinion but we are saying we
want you to understand there are 2, 3, 10 sides to everything.” The students in

Humanities read a book called Things Fall Apart, which is about colonialism in

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Africa and “it’s from the African’s perspective on what the colonists did to their
culture and you know powerful.” Things Fall Apart is the final book taught in
the year because “our kids would not be ready to understand at the beginning of
the year what that’s really truly like especially in this community which is
predominantly Christian-right, you know... middle class community.” This
teacher pushes his students to understand perspectives beyond their own
existence. Dave wants his students to understand the viewpoints of others, but
then pushes them further, to form opinions and defend them. This requires
students to draw on a much higher level of thinking skills than accumulating
knowledge and understanding it.

not that there’s anything wrong with religion or anything like that,

but they [students] come from a background where you spread

Christianity and that’s a good thing to do and I wouldn’t say that it’s not a

good thing to do, but there is another side to spreading Christianity. That’s

their perspective we just want you to realize what it might be like to
those people and the bad guys are sometimes us or the
missionaries. And I’m not saying that they’re bad people. And we make
sure that we understand that concept. There’s just another side. We want
you to realize both sides. All sides, if you can.

Dave’s selection of text for his students is thoughtful and purposeful in
terms of the historical periods and themes taught. He described another book his
students read called Oliver Wizwell, which is based on the American Revolution,
“but it’s told from a Loyalist perspective not a rebel perspective.” He explains
that in our history books, George Washington, Adams and Hancock are

wonderful, wonderful people who’ve done great things in this book, they’re the

bad guys.” Students must reframe their thinking about history to grasp this new

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view of these American historical icons; reframing thinking demands much higher
levels of thinking.

In addition, two teachers from South Hill told stories about their teaching
practice around perspective taking with their students. Even though it was not
one of their spoken goals, it warrants inclusion here.

Cam talked about making connections to the world, not as a specific
instructional goal, but as something he would like to do, if he had time, after
covering the content and teaching reading and writing. However, he described an
activity he carried out with his lower track US. History students from the History
Alive textbook that he especially likes called Visual Discoveries. This particular
Visual Discovery activity asked student to think about different perspectives.

To begin class, Cam usually has a warm-up activity on an overhead
transparency to foreshadow a lesson and push students to access their prior
knowledge or to review previous lessons. To prepare students for new Ieaming
Cam uses Visual Discoveries where students might look at a picture on the
transparency or from the text and be directed to think about and explain how,
your emotions, how it makes you feel or whatever how you would feel being
put in that position. Or put yourself in this position, hypothetical situation or
something. Have them write.”

Cam is asking his students to make sense of the picture and then explain
it, which requires students to think at the knowledge and comprehension
cognitive levels. When he asks them how they would feel if they were in the

same position students he is asking them to apply their knowledge.

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Russ turns perspective taking around a bit by frequently asking his
Honors US. History students to think about ideas or historical events in terms of
what they might have done in the same or similar situation. He was teaching a
lesson about James Buchanan “... and the kids are like I have no idea who
James Buchanan is. Why should I care who James Buchanan is? And okay
now, let’s talk about if you had been president in 1860, the year before the Civil
War started would you have done anything until Lincoln took office It doesn’t
work with every kid, but if you can say how would you have done this

Although Russ did not specifically mention perspective taking as a goal in
our interview, the implication ls clear in his response to the question about what
makes someone literate in social studies. Russ described a very high level of
thinking for his students. Russ would like his students to move from knowledge
and understanding to higher types of thinking that involve having an opinion and
defending it.

Most of them [students] will never be in a position to be part of a

movement like the Civil Rights movement now I can ask them would

you have marched in the Selma march with Dr. King with rocks being
thrown at you and would you have been able to just march straight
fonrvard and not get out of line and punch the crap out of somebody?
but most of them will never get to experience that what I can have them
do is be literate in terms of their knowledge base, be able to say, you
know what? I have an opinion about this. And be able to back it up. So,
that, to me, is what I try to get them to do.

Problem solving. I included this category as a representation of
connecting to the real world based on further explanation later in the interview

where teachers defined problem solving in terms of applying a problem to the

real world. Two teachers talked about problem solving in this way. Problem

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solving encompasses more than one higher-level cognitive process, for example,
taking apart or analyzing an issue or problem, hypothesizing about it, rearranging
or reconstructing, or recreating or reframing it in a new way. So, even problem
solving is a more complex thinking skill than simply acquiring knowledge,
comprehending it, or even applying it to other situations.

High focus — West Park. Cate’s primary instructional goal is for her AP
Physics students to be successful Ieamers; she equates successful Ieaming with
being able to solve problems. Cate understands that not all of her students will
walk out of here and become junior scientists and all wanta go into
medicine or engineering, but I try to teach them skills that they can apply to other
classes problem solving is something that I really try for them to work on.”
Cate’s goal statement implies a connection between problem solving and the real
world, but I looked further for corroboration that Cate meant something beyond
just figuring the physics math problems in class.

When I asked Cate, later in the interview, what it means to be literate in
science, she offered another glimpse of her interpretation of problem solving.
She explained that “... if you’re literate in science, I kind of think of it as being
proficient in science and being able to think about things scientifically, not just
like a science problem you’re given in physics class, but to go into the real world
and to approach a problem and no matter where you, kind of think through it in a
scientific way.” Cate spends much of her time thinking through problems in

scientific ways for and with her students.

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Low focus — South Hill. Seth implies connecting to the world as a goal,
but its import follows that of meeting mandates. Seth wants his biology (Honors
and lower track) students to be able to understand and figure out things “and
want to use the knowledge that they learned in here to build on that knowledge.” I
take this statement to mean building on knowledge outside of Seth’s class, but I
looked further in Seth’s interview to find corroborating data.

He defined science literacy as someone who can take knowledge that
they know and use that to synthesize new knowledge or they can use that new
knowledge to apply they can apply that knowledge somewhere the problem
solving is a big thing. I think if they can use what they know about solving one
problem to solve another problem and then build information from that I think
they would be science literate. His definition of science literacy provides more
clarity in terms of his goal of applying science knowledge to solve problems
somewhere in the world. He is describing a much higher-level cognitive process
beyond simply acquiring Ieaming that includes synthesizing new knowledge as
well as building on previously held knowledge.

Productive members of society. Functioning as productive members of
society is the primary goal for one teacher. For two other teachers this goal is
implied in their comments about being literate in social studies. Further, one
additional teacher who did not mention being productive in society in his
instructional goals talked about the possibility of it, but he feels too constrained

by time to implement it. Teachers in this study talk about being productive in

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society in multiple ways as voters, informed citizens, literate citizens, critical
thinkers in real-life situations, and being prepared to vote.

High focus — West Park. For example, Hal’s primary instructional goal for
his lower track chemistry students is to be literate citizens with enough good
scientific information to be critical thinkers in real life situations and be able to

look at science in terms of when they’re voters because the majority of

my kids will not be scientists less than 10% of the kids that take science
in high school will actually have a career related to science when they
graduate so why do we teach it? Well, I think for them to be informed
citizens and informed voters when you talk about stem cell research, is
it good or bad, who do you vote for ...what is your belief system? And
even just simple things I mean, we’ve talked about putting nitrogen in
your tires. The air is 78% nitrogen. You’re gonna pay. $30 when you could
pay 50 cents to put air in your tires? It’s ridiculous.

Hal also talked about world connections as he described what it means to
be literate in science. He describes how connected science knowledge and
science application is to literacy. Hal refers back to his original goal in describing

science literacy.

I think it goes back to my original goal to be an informed citizen, to be

able to read the newspaper, vote, watch TV and understand what’s real

and what’s not. To be informed about stem cell research. What do you
believe about stem cell research? Is that a moral issue or is it not a moral
issue? Do you do stem cell research with embryos or do you do it from the
blood in an umbilical cord or are there different ways that we can go about
this? That gets around what your belief system is.

Hal wants his students to operationalize previously Ieamed knowledge by
applying it to other situations. In the scenario of putting nitrogen in your tires, for
example, students would be applying their knowledge because this cognitive
level indicates a reasonable conclusion to put air in your tires is reasonable; it

will save you money. On the other hand, the scenario of being an informed voter

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thinking about stem cell research indicates a decision based on personal values.
This would move the level of thinking higher because Hal also wants his students
to use that knowledge in ways that require them to have opinions and make
personal decisions like when voting.

Low focus — Central Hill. Russ talked about the district’s mission statement
to produce productive members of our society.” So, beyond preparing for
tests and making sure students graduate, Russ views his job as one of creating
an interest in real world issues among his Honors U. S. History students. He goal
for them is to hold real world conversations with others.

as an educator what I try to do in history class certainly my goal is

to spark the kids’ interest in something. I do not expect them all to become

practicing historians down at the Grand Rapids Museum. But if I can
at least get them so that they can have a conversation about something

I think then I’ve done my job

Russ aims for his students to engage in and maintain conversations, a
higher cognitive process that requires one to apply prior knowledge to new
Ieaming to create new thinking.

Seeing the big picture I how events are related. Two teachers talked
about this instnrctional goal. They want their students to have some
understanding about how events in history connect to current events today. To
understand relationships one must application of knowledge and understanding
are required from one issue or circumstance to another.

High focus — West Park. Spence views his primary job as helping his

lower track U. S. History students to see the big picture, that events are related to

one another. Spence would like his students to see that “things happen for a

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reason and a lot of times with history kids get bogged down with dates
and numbers and for them to see the big picture and to see the effects.” For
example, right now we’re talking about how prohibition actually probably
hurt the United States even though it was a nOble experiment to try to help the
United States why did that happen?”

Answering the whys in history is significant to this teacher’s goals for his
students. His goals are generic to all of the social studies classes he teaches, for
instance, “with economics and civics classes, really try to tie it in to what’s going
on today in the world. Like, we’re doing this stock thing right now and this
semester, stocks haven’t been real good why is that is that leading to a
recession in the United States? Or is inflation the cause? So that’s my overall
main goal and objective.”

Further, when I asked Spence what it means to be literate in social
studies, he corroborated his primary goal of relating events in history. According
to Spence, being literate in social studies means you have to have an
understanding of the past be able to read a current news article and know
what’s going on, you know, in the world today.”

Through questioning, Spence sets the stage for his students to answer the
whys in history and relate passed events to current news. Spence pushes his
students to use the knowledge and understanding of past events when applying
their Ieaming to the world and their current situations.

No focus - South Hill. Russ also wants his students to connect the past to

their lives today. He sees his job as helping students to make those connections.

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Later in our interview, Russ described how a good social studies teacher
somehow relates it from the dull old textbook to something that’s going on today

if you can’t tell me about the Detroit Tigers, then I’m not so sure how
smart you are if all you can talk about is the sports page and you cannot tell
me why it was important or not important that Hillary Clinton won the Ohio
primary last night, then I don’t necessarily think you’re very smart either. And so
to me, it’s that well roundedness. It’s not only current events, but can you tell
me today how the 5th amendment still impacts people today. And so to me
that’s the goal. The goal is not to teach them the dates and the people
because they are dead

Russ sees his job as stimulating his students to go beyond the knowledge
level to be able to use their knowledge at higher levels of thinking including
relating the knowledge to events that affect them today.

Practices and Purposes

Teachers in this study use a variety of practices to meet their instructional
goals of connecting to the real world. However, teachers rarely talked about or
described practices that helped students apply their Ieaming in the world. More
often, teachers described practices where students accumulated knowledge and
understanding to see connections, but did not actually describe applying their
Ieaming.

I identified practices from observations I made in the classroom, from
interview conversations I had with teachers, and from task examples collected
from the teachers and students. I included all practices where I could see
evidence of connections being made to the real world or where students were

applying there Ieaming somewhere. I discuss the practices in terms of hands on

activities, discussing and storytelling, questioning, problem-solving, responding to

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statements, media, and reading and writing. I also identify the literacy skill
involved to connect or apply to the world. For each of these categories I tell the
stories of the teachers who used these practices.

Hands on activities. I define hands on activities as those where students
are physically engaged in the Ieaming process. Students participated in hands on
activities to connect to the real world in two classrooms. I observed Seth involve
his lower and upper track biology students in active physical involvement in their
learning. In the case of Hal I report Hal’s description of activities he uses with his
students on a regular basis.

First, at South Hill, Seth describes how he teaches his upper and lower
track biology classes. When asked how he teaches his subject, he described it is
heavy on the inquiry because it makes the learning more meaningful if
the kids are engaged in it and they can take ownership over it it makes it so
that they’re motivated to learn. They’re not just learning it because they’re sitting
in this class and they have to.”

On this particular day, Seth taught a lesson on genotype and phenotype
to. The overarching lesson topic was genetics and on this particular day the
students were working on dominant and recessive traits. The students in this
class always read a section from the textbook before participating in the
activities.

I recount parts of a lesson I observed in his lower track class. Seth
explained to the students that we’re going to be working on today is genetic

mutation.” This activity is extending or elaborating on their knowledge as one of

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the SE lesson planning stages. Seth announces we’re going to work on this
histogram.” He passes out colored 3x4 index cards, pink for girls and blue for
boys, and tape for the back of each card. Students help by passing around tape.
Seth pulls out yardsticks so that pairs of students can measure their height and
round it to the nearest centimeter.

On the blackboard there are two columns, one for the girls’ pink cards and
the other for the boys’ blue cards. Students are directed to write their heights on
the cards and come up to the board and tape them on the histogram. The pink
cards were taped in the XX column and the boys cards were taped in the XY
column. Then Seth directs the students to page 441 of their textbook and a
student begins to read aloud. Seth stops and talks about the two different
histograms two types of gender many different heights The students
begin answering questions A through G from their textbook about the histograms.
Seth wants students to take a few minutes to do D through G and then we’re
going to stop and talk about them.” As Seth is circulating the room students are
reading and writing, answering questions from the textbook.

Seth brings the class back together and begins questioning what
determines your gender you’re either this (pointing to the histogram on the
board) or this what is responsible for the shape of this (histogram) what
gives this graph it’s shape how many possibilities are there for height?” Seth
continues so there’s this huge variation for height so this tells us that
there’s more than one gene that codes for height Seth connects this Ieaming

to students’ prior knowledge about their school lives when you look around

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the school do you see a lot of people who are seven foot no you guys are lying
I don’t think there are a lot of people who are four foot or seven foot.” Seth
explains that average height is in the middle of the graph we get what we call
a bell curve.”

He also connects to other things the students know by asking what
else would give us a histogram like this (with two distinct columns)?” Students
answer ear lobes, roll your tongue or can’t, butt chin, thumb bent, smell
asparagus pea or don’t.” Seth acknowledges their correct answers, “...ya, these
are controlled by one gene.” As Seth wraps-up the lesson he assigns the
students to read two essays in their textbook. Since his primary goal is to meet
the district and state mandates, he also cues the students to the district common
assessments in connection to this lesson you need to know these [essays] to
answer questions on the district achievement test.”

Here Seth connects students to the real world by connecting to their prior
knowledge. He builds more knowledge by using examples that connect to his
students. I observed Seth’s students involved in higher-level cognitive processes.
They applied previously Ieamed knowledge from their reading to the histogram
activity. Students categorized their 3x5 cards into columns, compared the two
columns and solved a problem for height.

At West Park, Hal also regularly involves his lower track chemistry
students in hands on activities. When he teaches his subject area, Hal includes
an active Ieaming component with labs.” He includes some inquiry that

we do, but there’s also some practice they have notes and practice a lot of

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group work.” Hal described several of these lessons in our interview session.
Since Hal’s students are lower track and have a wide range of reading abilities
and attitudes, he motivates his students by involving them in activities that
connect to their lives. Hal’s primary goal for his Students is real world
connections.

Hal describes how he tries to bring real life into the classroom and in a
way that gets his students to question science, to make sure they are using good
science to interpret the world, make decisions, and function as informed
consumers.

people sell magnets to go in your shoes; they say they’ll increase

circulation. And I have them [students] bend over and stretch once and

then I rub the magnet on their back. They can bend over and stretch more
the second time. They’re all amazed. Well, it’s just a piece of metal I have.

It’s not even a magnet could’ve rubbed a potholder on their back

because they stretch once, they’ll stretch farther the second time. There’s

all these gimmicks out there weight loss diet plans. They have to be
informed citizens to know some things are true and some things are not
true. And all these ads have some science, but it’s not good science
and so I guess that would be my major goal for this class.

Hal involves his students in activities to connect their thinking to real life
decisions they [students] might make in the future and where a certain level of
science knowledge will be needed. His goal is to provide correct science
knowledge to his students so they can be literate consumers in the real world
they have to have an understanding of science, number one. They have to also
be informed in terms of just consumer products and what they’re gonna buy,
what they’re gonna use, and those things. So I think that’s important.”

Hal involves his students in tasks that support his instructional goal. I

observed Hal’s students working on the culminating assignment for the unit on

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the periodic table in the media center computer lab. Hal handed his students a
template of a tri-fold brochure. The directions for the task were printed on the
brochure. He also talked to the students about the task and answered questions.
The task involved selecting an element from the periodic table and researching
this element to find out specific information. Students were to create an element
brochure to advertise their chosen element. Included in the information that
students needed to search for was its common name and real world uses of this
element.

I observed two classes that met in the media center computer lab.
Students met in the lab to complete this task of preparing a tri-fold brochure on
an element of their choice. Students were highly engaged searching the web for
information about their elements. They were given a template that described this
task. Students were asked to create a shell diagram, information about their
element including mass, number, who discovered it, when it was discovered, how
it was named, melting point, and boiling point. The title page should include the
element’s name and symbol. To connect to the real world students were required
to include uses of the element and a picture. This task included research on the
part of the student and creativity. These elements became more familiar and real
to the students as they connect to the element’s real world uses.

To complete this task, students rely on their Ieaming from class
demonstrations, lectures, and read-alouds. Students work in unit packets where
they take notes, work practice problems, and define concepts. Students take

notes, practice solving problems, and write summaries of their thinking. After

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practicing, Hal asks individual students to come to the board to figure out
electron configurations and orbital diagrams on the whiteboard. So, students
draw on their knowledge and understanding, apply this knowledge to practice
solving problems, break down the components in diagrams and compose or
create a brochure to connect to real life uses of their element.

Also, Hal connected to the real world on the knowledge and understanding
level by including a section in the periodic table unit packet entitled Real World
Context. Hal listed several interesting uses of elements, for example:

1. Plastic and glass are used as electrical insulators for power lines.
2. Photochronic glasses (transition lenses in eyeglasses) are made by
adding silver ions to the glass. The darkening is the result of the

silver ions (Ag+) converting to metallic silver (Ag) by picking up an

electron. This color is lost again in the dark.

3. Today’s sport drinks are packed with electrolytes (ions), potassium
(K+), calcium (Ca2+), and sodium (Na+).

Discussion/Storytelling. Teachers connect to real world through
discussion. Some of the teachers in this study use lecture and discussion within
their teaching practices. They tell stories to share experiences, to illustrate a
concept, to relate an event in history, to embellish historical biographies, to
connect to their students’ lives, and most often to motivate or engage their
students in Ieaming. For the purpose of this paper I recount the times I observed
or heard stories or snippets of information where a teacher stopped to insert an
anecdote about a person, personal story, or account of an event into their lecture

that connected students to the real world. One teacher even draws pictures on

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the board to illustrate his stories. Three of the teachers in this study told stories in
some fashion to connect their students with the real world.

Russ is adamant about how he teaches his subject area; he never did
the same thing two days in a row ...I try to do a variety of things.” Russ begins
every unit teaching terms, concepts, people, and vocabulary.” His students do
not bring their textbooks on a regular basis. He shows video clips to provide
background knowledge and if I can get you to connect to anything, it’s what
would you have experienced if you were at that spot.” Further, Russ does a lot of
group work with current events because to me, current events is all about
discussion so many things in our world lend itself beautifully certainly right
now we have the election so that will be a big thing now and in the fall.”

At South Hill, Russ tells stories to his Honors US. History class about
historical events during his lectures and discussions. I observed one such lecture
where Russ’ students were involved in copying notes as Russ wrote an outline of
his lecture on the blackboard. Russ believes that his students are too young to
really understand the scope of some of the topics he covers because they don’t
have the experiences

or their ability to think about things in 8th grade in terms of the Bill of

Rights or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I’m not even

saying in 10th grade, they’re really adept at that there are some things

you can do to sort of bring that home to them a little bit, but it is so difficult
when you’re 12 or 13 or 14 to say I really believe in that 2nd amendment.

Or I really understand what the rights of search and seizure on the 6th

amendment. That just doesn’t make sense to them.

Russ provides his students the background knowledge they need to make

understand and make connections to their lives and the world. As previously

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stated, Russ uses the textbook as the skeletal foundation of his teaching, even
though it is mandated. For Russ, teaching history in a way that makes sense to
his students is important. Also important is covering the material to meet the
district mandate of common assessments. So, Russ becomes a storyteller when
he lectures. On the day that I observed Russ, he was lecturing and-writing notes
on the board about John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Russ stops writing notes
on the board periodically and elaborates on the notes by telling the story of
Kennedy’s assassination. He talks about the police fanning out to talk to people
about what they saw and heard. Russ paints a picture of the scene “... as they
were coming down the parade route, they passed the Texas school book
depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was looking out the 6th floor window
Kennedy is shot and rushed to the hospital where he dies about an hour later
Russ draws an elaborate picture on the board that illustrates the position of the
depository in relation to the car in which President and Mrs. Kennedy were riding.
As Russ continues telling the story, he connects to the real world controversies
that people still talk about today around this event in history. Russ accesses his
students’ knowledge about the controversies. One student raised the issue of the
grassy knoll. Russ pushes his students to think about the “... shots that could
have come from behind the grassy knoll could be the echo of the shots
Russ then connects to the rifle team at South Hill, are any of you on
the rifle team ...?” He goes on to explain the kind of rifle that Oswald had was
you had to aim and shoot and then pull the rifle back and do it again it would

be impossible to aim at a moving target and fire three shots some military said

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it was impossible could one person with the kind of rifle he had in 1963 get off
three shots there was a Warren Commission who decided yes Oswald was the
only shooter I leave that with you to see how you figure that

It was funny at one point when Russ was talking about how people
remember exactly where they were in times like this. Students could relate to
exactly where they were on 911. Russ turned to me and asked if I was old
enough to remember where l was when Kennedy was shot (I was in 9th grade
sitting in typing class when the announcement came over the intercom that
President Kennedy had been shot, and students were immediately sent home).
Russ pointed out that it was the first time for many to be glued to their TV sets
watching history unfold and compared it to our connection to events like that
today on TV like the war in Iraq, 911, and the Tsunami.

In this instance, students were writing notes. Students had already read a
section in their books about Kennedy and had completed a task two days earlier
that required students to read a selection about Kennedy and complete a
crossword puzzle. Both reading tasks provided students with basic knowledge
about John F. Kennedy. Russ told stories to his students to provide additional
knowledge and make connections to passed events. His students were not
applying knowledge in the real world; Russ was making connections for his
students in this case.

On another visit to his classroom I observed Seth’s Honors Biology class.
On this particular day Seth was teaching a lesson on meiosis and mitosis. He

wants to know if his students understand the difference between phenotype and

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genotype. Seth asks his students what about genotype A student offers
isn’t that the inside Seth paints a picture for students that relates to something
they know okay, if I’m building a house is it the way the house looks or the
plan that represents the genotype?” Students reSpond the plan.” “Right.” Seth
connected Ieaming to his students’ prior knowledge to help his students make
meaning.

West Park teacher, Spence, teaches his subject area by incorporating
technology because obviously that’s what the kids nowadays are geared
towards.” He uses some of the traditional methods we’ll do notes and I’ll do
a lecture and question and answer and we’ll do a group reading work
stations just kind of a variety of methods.”

During Spence’s lectures, he shares snippets about his personal life and
connects to what is going on in the world today to make ideas clearer for his
lower track US. History students. On one of the days thatl observed in his
classroom, Spence was teaching The New Deal. He put two columns on the
whiteboard, one column for examples of capitalism and the Other for socialism.
Students were offering examples of each concept as Spence wrote them in the
appropriate columns. Spence lectured about the 19203 when people needed
help, but the government had never helped people before so Herbert Hoover
created The New Deal. Spence likened it to No Child Left Behind as an
example of when the government gets involved to play a bigger role.” One
student asked “Isn’t socialism when everyone is equal and you can’t have private

ownerships?” Spence drew on how Sweden presently runs their government “No,

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in Sweden you pay high taxes to support higher education, medical care
major things are run and funded by the govemment for the most part you are
free to pick your own occupation it’s not like communism a little blend of the
two.”

As students complete there search for descriptions and definitions that
explain the government programs of The New Deal Spence talks a lot, giving
examples and scenarios, connecting to real life situations. On another day that I
visited, Spence showed the movie Cinderella Man to illustrate what the
depression was really like for people. Students were able to pick out examples
from the movie that showed family life in the depression like three kids to one
bed, late on bills, steeling food, lack of toys, ran out of credit, feeding kids first.
Spence shared a snippet of his life how many of you guys sit down as a family
and eat dinner I make sure my kids are done and full before I take more He
also connects to real life today one half of all mortgages were in default

This activity required students think at a higher level in order to categorize
their Ieaming, but they did not apply their Ieaming to the real world. Rather,
Spence connected student Ieaming to the real world by explaining, answering
questions, and telling stories.

Questioning, problem-solving, responding to statements. All seven
teachers used questioning and/or problem-solving to connect to the real world in
their lessons. They used questioning in different ways, for instance, teachers
formed questions orally during a discussion, as an essay question that students

needed to respond to, and as part of worksheets or think sheets. I highlight six

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teacher examples in this section. I combined questioning and problem-solving in
this section because in many instances the questions lead to the act of solving
problems. Also, study guides require students to answer questions and respond
to statements.

Dave uses questioning with his Humanities students at West Park to
connect to the real world as part of the reading of each novel or historical book.
He expects his students to constantly be comparing what they are reading to
their own lives. He asks them to understand the different perspectives of the
characters or real life people who are subjects of the texts they read. Dave
described a unit on world religion where he invites

five or six different speakers who come in and one’s a Buddhist, one’s a

Muslim, one’s a Hindu. A Jewish rabbi comes in, a Christian perspective

speaker and we talk about what it’s like to be a Jew. What is it not? we

can go into a textbook and say oh, here’s the fundamental beliefs of Jews.

What is it like to be a Jewish person? What is it like to be a Hindu?

Especially living in West Michigan or living in this culture basically a

Christian culture. And it’s fascinating to see their eyes kinda just open up.

See the world, this big it’s huge. It’s not just what West Michigan has to

offer. Not that West Michigan’s a bad place. We constantly do reinforce

that. We’re not anti West Michigan we’re not anti-establishment. We just
want you to realize there are other sides to the world.

In this instance, Dave provided his students the opportunity to apply their
Ieaming to real life within their own classroom. They were able to connect and
interact with representatives of different religions, to make comparisons to their
own life, to think about and form opinions and defend them.

Also at West Park, Cate, uses questioning and problem-solving to connect

her AP students Ieaming to the real world. Since her curriculum is based on math

she is constantly giving her students math problems to solve or scientific text to

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figure out based on real life situations. When I observed her class the topic of her
lessons was Work and Force. Typical questions she uses with her students set
up real life scenarios. These were questions that were used as an exam review
activity. Cate has her students participate in an activity she calls Quiz, Quiz,
Trade. “ students are given a question to individually solve and then they find a
partner and they quiz the partner and then the partner quizzes them on the
questions once they quiz each other they have a new question and go find
another partner.” Cate explains, “The whole point of the activity is you let the
person solve it if they need guidance along the way that is important
because they see it another time they Ieam it and they teach it.” For example,

1. During a softball game a batter hits a pop fly. If the ball remains in the
air for 6 seconds, if air resistance is neglected, its maximum height is
most nearly: (answer = 44.1 m)

2. A person who weighs 800 N steps onto a scale that is on the floor of
an elevator car. If the elevator accelerates upward at a rate of 4.9 m/sz,
what does the scale read? (answer = 1,200 N)

3. A truck is stopped at a stoplight. When the light turns green, it
accelerates at 2.5 m/sz. At the same instant, a car drives past the truck
going a constant 15m/s. How long does it take for the truck to, catch up
with the car? (answer = 12 seconds)

Cate’s students do not apply their learning to real life, but Cate connects

their knowledge to real life through the scenarios that the problems describe.

Russ, at South Hill, uses questioning to connect to the real world with his

Honors US. History students, not only orally in his class lectures (remember the
rifle question), but as an essay question on his tests. His recent test covering
President Kennedy included this essay question,

President Kennedy challenged Americans to put a man on the moon by

the end of the 19605. Although we met that goal, space travel was
dangerous, as evidenced by the Apollo | fire. A later mission to the moon,

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Apollo XIII, almost became a tragedy. Describe what happened on the
mission. Why were the astronauts in danger? How did they make it to
safely back to earth? Would you travel in space? Why or why not?

At South Hill, Cam gives his lower track US. History students study
guides that follow his History Alive text. Cam explains that the History Alive
textbook does not have end of chapter questions as other textbooks do.

This has thrown a lot of traditional teachers a huge curve. A lot of teachers

can’t stand using this program because they wanta say read the chapter

and do questions 1-10 at the end and they can’t do it. The supplementary
materials that come with it aren’t like that either. There’s no worksheet
per se to ask questions there’s lots of different graphic organizers and
stuff, but there’s not ten questions at the end of the chapter they have to
do.”

When I observed Cam’s class students were working on The Great
Depression. Students had been given a study guide for Chapter 30 - The Cause
of the Great Depression. Study guide directions to the students follow:

Read the section in your textbook. Then write the definition of speculative

bubble in the circle below. Then list at least four examples of speculative

bubbles from the past and at least one way a speculative bubble might
affect your life today in the squares provided below.

Computers and media. Teachers connected to real world issues through
media and technology. Both Spence and Hal at West Park mention connecting to
real world as their primary instructional goal. Russ also connects to real world
issues even though he did not mention it as a goal. '

Previously in this paper I discussed an activity where Russ gave his South
Hill Honors US. History students current newspapers. Their task was to search
for articles, read the articles, and write good questions for discussion. The

content that these students worked with in this task connected to present-day

real life issues.

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For Spence meeting his goal of making connections to real life is
evidenced in both his economics and lower track US. History classes. I
specifically interviewed Spence about his US. History class, but I was intrigued
with a task his economics students were completing, so I observed one of his
economics classes to see what the students were doing. Students were involved
in Stocks Quest an online simulation game. On the day I observed Spence’s
economics class, students were completing a stock analysis due that day.
Students were working in West Park’s media center computer lab on their final
semester project.

For their project students were required to create a mini portfolio that
compares and contrasts “... two good stock investment opportunities (companies
you would invest in) with two bad stocks (companies you would not invest in or
would shy away from at this time) Students’ projects must include a visual
to back up student rationale and a written paper covering a brief history of the
company, background of the company, and rationale for choosing this company.”

Spence also connected the real life in his lower track US. History class.
He used movies and videos to show students what life was like in certain periods
of history. On one of the days that I observed they were studying The Great
Depression. Spence referred to the movie Far and Away that he had shown
earlier remember the movie we watched, Far and Away, where the farmer
never let the land recoup Spence asked, “What was going on with farmers?”
Students responded that the farmers ate berries while crops were growing

dust bowl overproduction of land Later on during this visit, while students

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read aloud and discussed a shift in the depression era to the political left. Spence
referred to a video “... okay we saw in the video over 100,000 Americans moved
to the Soviet Union because they thought the communists had the right idea
everyone had a job, food, clothing

Reading and Writing Support

Teachers used reading and writing to acquire knowledge usually as a
prelude to lecture and discussion or prior to an activity requiring a certain
knowledge base. They also used reading and writing to guide their students’
understanding and encourage thinking at higher levels. However, reading and
writing happened differently according to the needs of the students.

Some teachers of lower track classes and especially lower track urban
teachers tended to read to their students as in the case of Hal using read-alouds.
Some lower track students used a form of round robin reading with their students
interspersed with discussion. Several teachers talked about engaging their
students in reading section by section where they read small sections of text at a
time.

Since South Hill is a high poverty urban school, the issue of reading ability
determines the reading practice used. Teachers tend to involve their students in
less reading because many of their students cannot read the textbook. Even
Russ’ Honors US. History students read sections of text at a time during class,
because they typically do not read at home and generally do not bring their
textbooks on a regular basis. Cam keeps his textbooks in the classroom to

prevent this from happening. Cam keeps all of his students’ assignments in

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folders in class to eliminate the problem of students forgetting to bring them.
Conversely, Seth does not keep student work in the classroom, but he
emphasized the significant problem he has with students not turning in their
completed work. A very low percentage of his IoWer track students return
homework. Understandably, teachers of upper track classes at West Park expect
their students to read text and make connections independently.

Several teachers across subject and school always assign reading before
lecture and discussion to provide background knowledge needed for students to
make sense of and participate in the discussion. For most teachers, teaching
vocabulary, terminology, or concepts is the first lesson taught in a unit.

When teachers were storytelling or lecturing, students were generally
taking notes or filling out study guides to make connections. Also, as students
watched a movie or video they generally completed a study guide of some sort.
All teachers and students participated in class discussions to help build
connections. Students read a range of text to meet this goal. Writing tasks came
in the form of responding to essay prompts, responding to questions or
statements on study guides, and composing text for projects on the computer.

This whole idea of this goal suggests a wide range of opportunities for the
inclusion of authentic types of text for authentic purposes in teaching practices.
While some teachers use authentic text for authentic purposes most of the
teaching practices for Goal #2 used school-only texts and were assigned for

school-only purposes.

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The teaching practices observed in Goal #2 attempted to draw students
into the real world where authentic text prevails. Some teachers were able to
infuse authentic texts into their projects, for example, Hal’s project required
students to create an element tri-fold brochure (authentic text) based on the
Periodic Table. They searched the intemet (authentic text) for information.
Students had some autonomy in the decision about which element to research,
so in that sense their purpose was authentic. Their task was to search for
information about the real world uses for an element of their choice (authentic);
however, students were creating the brochure and composing the text on it for a
grade so the purpose was less authentic. Spence’s project for his Economics
class required students to use the intemet (authentic text) and an intemet site,
Stock Quest, which allows people to simulate buying and selling stocks
(authentic). Students were allowed autonomy in the stocks they chose for their
portfolios. Students followed their portfolio as if they actually owned the stocks
and wrote a paper on their experience for a grade. Working with Purcell-Gates
thinking on authentic texts and purposes, both of these teachers were successful
incorporating authentic text into their lessons, but the purpose for doing so were
less than authentic, more in the realm of school-only.

For Dave, the Humanities teacher, the entire purpose of his class is to
open students’ minds to other perspectives of the world in which his students
live. This class is not a required class; students must elect this class by applying
(authentic purpose). Students read novels (authentic text) exclusively to bridge

the perspective gap. Dave described an authentic literacy activity where he

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invites people from the community into the class to speak about their diverse
backgrounds and cultures. Students participate in discussion, initiating questions
they want to know more about.

Teachers also infused authentic texts and purposes in other ways. Seth
engaged students in discussion about a lunar eclipse that happened the night
before. The science teachers were particularly good at engaging students in
solving problems or participating procedural activities prior to reading and writing
about science. Seth, for instance involved his students in completing punnett
squares in a lesson on genotype and phenotype in biology. Hal involved his
students in completing orbital diagrams in chemistry. Cate involved her students
in solving for work and force in AP Physics. All of this was done either to clarify
reading or to prepare for reading and writing. All three teachers use hands-on
demonstration as part of their practice. For example, Seth’s students participated
in a demonstration where they used yardsticks to measure their heights, wrote
their heights on blue and pink cards an attached them to two histograms on the
board.

Social studies teachers used other authentic texts such as film and video
clips to clarify students’ reading or to prepare for reading or writing tasks. Spence
showed the film Cinderella Man to clarify the programs of The New Deal.
Storytelling is also an example of authentic text as it happens in everyday life.
Russ is an especially good storyteller, but all of the social studies teachers told

stories to clarify and expand upon what students’ reading.

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Teachers used a variety of teaching practices to help their students
connect or apply their knowledge to the real world. Their goal is to connect
knowledge and understanding to the real world and to prepare students to be
able to apply their Ieaming in some higher order way to the real world in the
future. Some of these practices and purposes can be considered authentic, some
less authentic, and some school-only. Duke, Purcell-Gates, Hall, & Tower (2006)
explain that authentic literacy activity in the classroom is always in conjunction
with school-only purposes simply because the focus of schools is teaching and
Ieaming.

Tensions - Real World

Since teachers at West Park cited making real world connections as either
their only or primary instructional goal I was unable to ascertain any real tensions
voiced by these teachers in terms of accomplishing this goal. Conversely,
teachers at South Hill were more consumed with covering content and meeting
mandates; they had little time leftover to think about making connections to real
life. Making connections to the world was not their primary goal. To Cam

“... there is so much of an emphasis on getting ready for tests so much
of an emphasis on the literacy strategies and stuff that it seems goes
back to the question you asked me at the beginning about what goals do

you ultimately want, and you almost had to pull them out of me because I

guess I don’t think of myself as teaching kids to be prepared to vote. I

don’t think of myself I think of all the other stuff.”

Cam described more tension when asked what a good social studies teacher
does a good social studies teacher should be able to get students excited and

enthused about the world around them and voting and politics and I don’t feel like

I have an opportunity to do that.”

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Seth talks about a lack of money, especially at South Hill. He does some
hands on activities, but there is very little extra money in the urban schools for
materials to use in activities

in this school district I’m not sure h0w it is in others, but I’m sure it’s

probably pretty similar. You know, money’s hard to come by now. Hands

on stuff is usually the stuff that costs a lot of money so a lot of group
work and thinking sometimes it’s a paper and pencil activity, but it’s not
necessarily a worksheet. You know, they’re not just filling in spaces on the
worksheet.

Again, the tensions voiced by the South Hill teachers seem to center on
the issue of time when mandates seem to take precedence. I observed all of the
teachers at South Hill, however, making connections to real life on several
occasions. Even though making connections to the world was not on their radar
when I asked them about their goals they described instances when higher-level
thinking was happening in their classes.

Impressions about Literacy

Making connections to the real world requires a broader definition of
literacy than simply reading or writing. To make connections to the real world
students are required to think and make meaning at higher levels than to basic
knowledge. It requires interpretation, comparing and contrasting ideas, thinking
about what they would have done in similar situations, understand other
perspectives, solving problems and apply Ieaming to other situations, understand
how events in the world are related, and be able to hold intelligent conversations

with others. These are lofty goals which require people to go beyond simply

acquiring knowledge and application of knowledge or Ieaming.

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All of the teachers in this study want to help their students apply their
Ieaming to the real world; however, some of them do not see it as their primary
job. However, some of them talked about this goal in outside of school terms. In
a sense this goal would happen sometime in the future in students’ lives outside
of school. Teachers would in effect be preparing them to be able to apply
somewhere in the future. “Even those who mentioned it as their primary goal
provided few opportunities for applying knowledge in real world situations simply
because the nature of school is all about teaching and Ieaming specific stuff in
the present to meet mandates and pass tests. The real world is more often than
not kept at a distance.

Goal #3 — Engagement in Learning

Engagement in Ieaming, an overarching goal shared by all of the
participants in this study, encompasses each of the previously reported goals.
For example, teachers engage students in Ieaming by connecting Ieaming to the
real world. They also believe engaged students will do better on state and district
tests and will reach high school graduation.

Engagement in Ieaming is an instructional goal for the teachers in this
study, but for most teachers it is implied rather than explicitly stated. Teachers
view theirjob as guiding successful Ieamers by teaching them skills and
motivating them to Ieam.

Only three teachers talked explicitly about engaging students in Ieaming.
However, every teacher in this study implied engaging students in Ieaming as a

goal. They talked about engagement in Ieaming as something that good science

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and social studies teachers do. More importantly, I observed several teachers
using a variety of engaging practices in their classrooms even though they had
not overtly mentioned engagement as a goal in their interviews. Two teachers
talked about engagement in terms of wanting their students to be engaged
enough in Ieaming to be successful Ieamers. One teacher talked about
engagement in terms of teaching his students to be motivated to want to Ieam.

Since these three teachers talked specifically about engagement in
Ieaming as instructional goals and all of the teachers in this study implied this
goal through their actions and their responses to other questions I take this to
mean that engaging students in Ieaming is valued to some degree by all of these
teachers.

Supporting data for this section on engagement in Ieaming comes from
interview responses about goals, descriptions of good teachers, class
observations of practice and student tasks. Teachers who specifically stated
engaging students in Ieaming as an instructional goal described them in terms of
engaging students in learning. For example, varying teaching practices and
sparking an interest matches engaging in Ieaming (Raphael Bogaert et al.,
2006).

In both instances of stated or implied goals four teachers’ want their
students to become critical thinkers and problem-solvers who can apply
knowledge anywhere. In order to get their students to that point they view their

jobs as engaging their students in Ieaming in order to be successful Ieamers.

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Finally, I see indications that this goal is difficult to distinguish from goal
one and two in this study; engaging students in Ieaming permeates what
teachers do to meet mandates and it paves the way toward helping students
make connections between their Ieaming and the real world. For some teachers
meeting mandates and connecting to the world seem to be purposes for
engaging their students in Ieaming. For example, two teachers described
engaging students in the world and preparing students for state tests when asked
what good science and social studies teachers do.

I created additional categories of medium high and medium teacher focus
for the engagement goal to reflect the difficulty of determining its distinction from
meeting mandates and connecting to the world (see Table 5). Engagement in
Ieaming seems to influence how well teachers meet the mandates and students’
success connecting their Ieaming elsewhere. Each goal overlaps and feeds into
the other.

Engaging students in Ieaming. Teachers view their job as engaging
their students in Ieaming so they can be successful Ieamers overall. If teachers
can engage their students in Ieaming they can affect student Ieaming beyond
high school, as their students would possess the tools to continue their Ieaming
independenfly.

Both Cate (West Park) and Cam (South Hill) talked explicitly about

engaging their students in the literacy skills they need to become successful

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Table 5
Engagement in Learning

Goals/1' ension Suburban Urban

 

Engagement in Social Studies Science Social Studies Science
Learning

 

Very High Focus Cate
(only goal
stated)

 

High Focus
(stated first)

 

Mid Focus
(perm eates/ in - Cam
between) Russ

 

Low Focus Seth
(stated last)

 

No Focus Spence Hal
(not stated) Dave

 

Implied (All low Dave Hal Seth
or no focus Spence
teachers)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UT=Upper Track
LT=Lower Track

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Ieamers. However, I noticed each teacher referred to or described a different set
of skills. Cate’s focus is geared toward high level literacy skills such as critical
thinking and problem-solving. Cam’s focus is on basic literacy skills such as
reading and writing.

High focus — West Park. Above all other goals, Cate wants her AP Physics
students to engage in higher order thinking and “... to become successful
Ieamers. I try to teach them skills that they can apply to other classes and just
good Ieaming skills.” Learning physics is all about deciphering scientific text
which takes critical thinking and problem-solving skills. For Cate, “... critical
thinking is something big problem solving is something that I really try for them
to work on.” Her focus is on teaching higher order thinking skills to her
students.

I looked to Cate’s description of a good science teacher for supporting
7 evidence of the importance she gives her goal of teaching her students the how
to of Ieaming, especially of problem-solving and critical thinking. Cate reports that
a good science teacher would engage students in some way that helps them
Ieam the material instead of just standing up at the front, teaching all hour.” In
her opinion they would teach in a way that has the students think critically and
problem solve and take what they Ieam and be able to apply it to other classes
and other problems.” Engagement in Ieaming was evident as Cate used teaching
practices that kept her students on-task and required higher order thinking

(Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006).

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Medium high focus — South Hill. Cam’s primary goal is to cover the
content to meet the mandates of his own district and the state. A roadblock to
meeting this goal is the low reading abilities of his students which are typical of
high poverty urban schools. Also, as Cam teaches a lower track US. History
class the urgency for teaching students reading and writing skills and strategies
is high. In order for him to prepare his students for the common assessments of
his district and the state tests he needed to engage his students every day,
every single day to write and read use different strategies use Collins writing
use SQ3R use different strategies that I try to phase in with the History
Alive.” He articulates the purpose and the urgency of his goal

Cuz kids read at 3rd and 4th grade level and I can give them the History

Alive text and they can stare at it all day and not get anything out of it. So,

you know, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta do literacy strategies, at least here

you do. You know, maybe outside not so much, but that’s probably my
number one goal is to, to phase in literacy stuff every single day.

Motivating Students. Most teachers voiced motivating students to want
to Ieam as a priority for engaging their students in Ieaming. Teachers indicated
motivation more often than teaching students content. This emphasis was also
revealed through their descriptions of good science and social studies teachers.
Teachers reported that good teachers motivate students toward Ieaming through
a variety of teaching practices. Their purpose is to keep students focused on
Ieaming (Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006).

Medium focus - South Hill. Russ mirrors the thinking of the science

teachers who acknowledged that not all of their students will become scientists.

Along those same lines of thinking Russ explains, “... certainly my goal is to

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spark the kids’ interest in something. I do not expect them all to become
practicing psychologists or practicing historians down at the museum. If his
students have a passion about something, I think then I’ve done my job...”

Russ acknowledges that most of his Honors US. History students do not
come to class with an innate interest in history or a huge drive to be in a history
class. When asked about what good history teachers do Russ reiterates his goal
and even forefronts the murkiness between the two goals of connecting to the
world and engagement in Ieaming. you have to start out with the
acknowledgement that most kids aren’t interested in history. I mean, at least
initially and you have to start out with that idea and then for me the good
history teacher creates that spark and somehow relates it from the dull old
textbook to something that’s going on today I mean make it interesting.

A few teachers, including Russ, talked about the value of varying their
teaching practices in terms of keeping students interested in their Ieaming. They
avoid doing the same activities and the same routine for every unit “...I mean,
make it interesting. Don’t do the same thing every day.”

Implied Engagement in Learning. Four teachers implied engagement in
Ieaming as a goal through their descriptions of good teachers. On several
occasions I observed evidence of their descriptions of good teachers in their
practice. These four teachers’ implications of engagement in Ieaming represent
the category of motivating students to want to Ieam in interesting ways.

Dave — West Park. Dave has an interesting view of a good social studies

teacher. His view matches the class he teaches and the goal he describes for his

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students. Previously, Dave described his goal in terms of developing his
Humanities’ students’ awareness and understanding of different world views. He
wants his students to understand that perspectives other than their own exist.
Therefore, it makes sense that Dave’s definition of a good teacher includes
the words compassionate and understanding and they’d be able to develop a
relationship with the students.” Understanding and honoring another person’s
viewpoint is humane and compassionate and makes sense coming from a
humanities teacher who strives toward understanding others’ perspectives.

In terms of the goal of engagement in Ieaming, Dave believes that a
compassionate understanding teacher will achieve better results with students.

I think that I don’t care if that’s an advanced class or a special
education class. Those students need to feel as if the teacher cares. First and
foremost you take two teachers, one who’s caring, connected, who likes the
kids, who wants to know about the kids versus one who just wants to deliver
information the person who’s caring and connected will get much better results
in my opinion and that ability to relate and just to talk to kids. I think the first
and foremost is being a caring, connected teacher most important thing. I
really believe that but I think it’s having that caring attitude, being
approachable. It’s so incredibly important our whole model is based upon
relationships. Our behavior model everything how we do business in this
school is based on relationships and I strongly believe that. That’s the most
important thing

Other research on engagement in Ieaming matches Dave’s thinking.
Students who consider their classroom a safe, responsive, emotionally
supportive place will likely attain higher academic achievement and higher
motivation toward Ieaming (Certo et al., 2008; Cothran & Ennis, 2000; Raphael
Bogaert et al., 2006).

Hal - West Park. Hal believes that varying his teaching practice will create

excitement and interest on the part of his lower track chemistry students. He

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describes a good science teacher as someone who can catch their [students]
attention, build enthusiasm someone that’s good at delivering information
through demonstrations, labs, inquiry and teaching.” Most importantly, as a result
of engaging students in learning, a good teacher would be someone who gets
results with their students I guess would be the bottom line.”

Seth — South Hill. Seth talks about developing curiosity as the primary job
of a science teacher. According to Seth, using inquiry with his honors and lower
track biology students is most important because inquiry is a big thing I
mean, science is inquiry to figure something out, you gotta be curious about it
first. You gotta wanta know about it first. I think that definitely needs to be
modeled. And just getting the kids motivated I think is a huge part of it.”

Seth also believes that engaging students in Ieaming is key to
remembering what they learn a good teacher will get the kids invested in
what they wanta learn so that the kids will hold onto that information.”

Spence - West Park. The murkiness that exists at the dividing lines of the
three goals expressed by the teachers in this study is accentuated by Spence’s
depiction of a good social studies teacher. Spence talks about getting his
students engaged in Ieaming by getting them engaged in the world around them.
His thinking overlaps both making connections to the world and engagement in
Ieaming getting the kids engaged into what’s going on in the world today

and how we got here that’s the simplest way I can put it.”

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Practices and purposes

For the goal of engaging students in Ieaming l narrow the scope of
teacher practices to those that stand out to me in terms of number of teachers
who described using them and number of teachers I observed using them
specifically to engage students by teaching them how to Ieam and motivating
them to want to Ieam. I included those practices used to engage students that
interested me and contributed to the sense I make of this study. I took into
account both the interview and the observation data in making this selection.

For example, two teachers specifically talked about modeling instruction in
their interviews. It is important to note that I observed three other teachers model
instruction in the classroom even though they did not specifically talk about it in
their interviews. So, I counted five teachers who valued modeling in the
classroom as a way to engage students in their Ieaming. Teachers used
modeling for both purposes of engagement, teaching students how to Ieam and
motivating students to Ieam. Teachers also used modeling in two interrelated, but
distinctive ways, to make their own cognitive processes visible as in how to think
about something and to show the steps of a process as in how to do something.
Teachers also provided picture cues for students to clarify Ieaming.

In addition, one practice that all seven teachers talked about in this study
was summarizing. I chose to exclude summarizing from the practices I talk about
in this section because in the interview I specifically asked teachers if they ever

asked their students to summarize. It is not particularly interesting to me that they

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all affirrned they do ask students to summarize because the issue was not raised
without prompting.

The practices are discussed in this paper in the order of those most talked
about and observed. These practices include cooperative group work,
questioning and predicting, notetaking, modeling thinking, drawing, and varying
teaching practices. I combined modeling thinking and drawing in one section
titled making learning visible because I noticed how important it was for teachers
to think out loud about content, skills, and strategies and draw illustrations of
ideas and concepts to engage students in understanding the lesson. During
many observations, I witnessed a combination of thinking aloud and illustrating
on the whiteboard, blackboard, or an overhead transparency to make Ieaming
visible for students. I also included in this section, a practice specifically related
to reading. Several teachers described a reading practice where students read
their texts section by section rather than an entire chapter at a time. Reading
section by section was common across subject, school, teacher, and track.

Cooperative group work. All seven teachers explicitly talked about using
cooperative or collaborative groups to teach literacy skills like critical thinking,
problem solving, vocabulary development, communication, and discussion. In
addition, teachers used groups to review for tests. Further, teachers assisted
weaker students by providing a knowledgeable other in their group. Teachers
also used cooperative groups as a way to motivate or engage students in

Ieaming. I observed group work being done in most of these classrooms.

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Cate — West Park. For Cate, group work happens frequently with her AP
Physics students to practice problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Whether
it is working in their pods solving physics problems together, participating in the
review game Quiz, Quiz, Trade (previously discuSsed) or Ieaming a new law,
Cate sees value in students working in groups evidenced by the physical
arrangement of her classroom. All students sit in pods so they can help each
other when needed. She believes that cooperative group work, working
through the problems together is something they’ll see often.” For one unit,
Cate’s regular physics students had to Ieam about Newton’s three laws.

there’s a group of say four students they were assigned to be the

experts on Newton’s first law, then Newton’s second, Newton’s third. And

there were specific requirements I had for what they had to Ieam about it.

And then they go into their Ieaming group, I call it and then they get into

their teaching group. They have a representative from each of the three

groups, one for Newton’s first, second and third and they teach each other
about it and then they broke up and formed a group where there
were representatives for each of the laws and they taught each other.

Hal - West Park. Hal’s lower track chemistry students have notes and
practice, a lot of group work.” His students have trouble staying focused in class.
They need to be motivated and sometimes taught in smaller group settings. “A lot
of times they miss the connection or miss something, when something’s going
on, the whole group setting. So if you have cooperative groups, you have groups
that are kind of helping each other, but then the groups that are not, you can go

over and teach to them in a smaller setting, which is how these kids work the

best”

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Hal does a lot of review with his students in round robin reviews.” In
groups, his students are involved in a compare/contrast task using thinking skills
to compare the ideas of the different scientists they are studying.

I’ll place eight different questions around the room and they rotate

through the questions for example, on the last we talked a lot about

early atomic theory and what some of the scientists thought we were
comparing Democritus and Aristotle we were comparing Ernest

Rutherford and Robert Milliken. They all had ideas about what the atom

looked like inside. Compare and contrast their ideas. Can you differentiate

between what Robert Milliken thought and Ernest Rutherford thought?

Those kinds of questions and I put them around the room and they work in

a group. What do you think? They can look at the notes. They have the

information right there, but they have to compare. What’s similar, what’s

different? Why did the previous person’s information add to what this guy
thought? What did he take and what did he improve on?”

For Hal, the round robin group collaboration works to keep his students
motivated and on—task; the students like the round robin thing number one,
they’re out of their seats they’re moving around.” The students can answer the
questions and then reassemble as a whole-group where Hal can ask further
questions and lead discussion, for example,

“... what did your group think about number three and I’ll say did you

think of anything different for your group let them tell me the right

answer. I don’t like to tell the right answer. They already know it. They can
figure it out

Spence -West Park. Spence also talks about how he varies his teaching
practices to keep his lower track US. History students interested. He combines
traditional teaching practices with group work we’ll do notes and I’ll do a
lecture and question and answer and we’ll do kind of group reading. “ He does a
lot of writing with his students and occasionally, he sets up work stations for his

students I try to switch things up like I might have a packet for chapter 12

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we might work in groups of four and go though six different stations just try to
not make it so monotonous at least it keeps them doing different things, and
they can’t complain.” Spence likes to assign his cooperative groups hands-on
tasks. His lower track students enjoy working together making things that help
them understand or connect to the content.
we might do the Road to War and so they get in their groups and I
pass out all the propaganda posters and we talk about what are the goals
of propaganda what are the tools used then they have to make their
own propaganda poster. Now, before we read section two, what are some
of the things from section one why do you think we’re gonna declare
war the British cut the cable and they used all that propaganda for us to
hate the Germans so then we can get into what are U boats and
then we’ll do a read. So it’s never, it’s never just book, book, book, book
Dave — West Park. Dave teaches critical thinking skills to his Humanities
students on a regular basis. I observed Dave’s fifty students working in small
groups. Students were beginning to read Rumor of War on one day that I visited. -
Dave lectured to provide background knowledge on the Vietnam War. Students
Were then allowed time in class to read. On the next day that I visited students
were given a study guide of discussion questions. In small groups they searched
their books to find evidence to support their thoughts and recorded the page
numbers coordinating to their evidence. After working in small groups the class
reassembled for a whole class discussion. When students contributed to class
discussion they were able to pinpoint their evidence so the other students in the
class could follow along. Dave uses small group collaboration not only to

develop good critical thinking skills, but to motivate students toward better

communication skills as well.

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On your own, go at it, bounce it off each other and then we’ll come back
together in the large group. The reason we go in a small group is 50
kids still can be intimidating to some. Even the brightest aren’t always
comfortable speaking in front of 50, but if had a chance to talk about
something in a group of four or five, maybe their thought has been
reinforced so they have a little more confidence in talking to the large
group. And then we come back together in the large group and I say, hey,
what’d you find out? What do you think? And that’s designed to help foster
that ability to communicate and speak out loud and to defend your opinion.

Cuz often there’s an opinion. What would, what would the author do in this

situation? You know, and it might be a completely opinion based question.

So it’s an opportunity for them to defend that.

Examples of questions from the discussion guide:

1. What impact does Sullivan’s death have on Caputo? What is the real

vs. illusion?

2. What impact does Levy’s death have on Caputo?

Seth — South Hill. Seth uses cooperative groups to teach vocabulary skills.
Students are introduced to new terms while reading an essay. Seth wants to
make sure they understand the new concepts beyond the definition so students
got in groups of three and I had them talk about it in their group and then
report back to the large group ...I had them try to relate words to each other
say what is they Ieamed what phenotype is, they Ieamed what genotype is. I
said, okay, what is the relationship between genotype and phenotype? What is
the relationship between a gene and a so that’s sort of one way of
summarizing it Instead of regurgitating the definition Seth wants his students
to understand what it means and be able to talk about how terms and concepts
are related. He wants his students to be able participate in talk about biology.
First, though, his students need to translate and understand biological

terminology.

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Cam — South Hill. Rather than using the textbook exclusively, Cam uses
primary source documents that go along with the History Alive textbook with his
lower track US. History students. History Alive provides excerpts from actual
books orjoumal entries from that time period. Cam organizes small groups and
we’ll rotate the readings around and have the students in groups of three or
four, read the documents what the main idea was or whatever, present it to the
class.” There is a lot of reading associated with History Alive usually with some
sort of group activity a lot of times they’ll [textbook directions] ask them to
read a section of a chapter and then sit down with a group and do some sort of
activity. If they couldn’t understand the reading, how are they supposed to do
the group activity?”

Cam also uses cooperative groups to support weaker readers. He pairs
his students’ up...

where there’s somebody strong in a group, somebody weak in a group,

but the reading is very daunting. It’s an enormous amount of reading in the

History Alive program because they’re trying to push literacy. But if they

don’t get that, it’s hard for them to get the rest of the program.

Further, Seth uses cooperative groups as one way to vary his teaching
practice we change it up all the time.” Sometimes we’ll have them popcorn
read around the room sometimes we’ll put them in groups and have them read
with each other sometimes we’ll do paired reading where they bounce
back and forth

Russ - South Hill. Russ does group work with his Honors US. History

students around current events to practice thinking skills and discussion skills.

One of Russ’ goals for his students is to be able to enter into and maintain

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conversations about current happenings in the world in terms of connecting to
their own lives.

because to me, current events is all about discussion and obviously, so

many things in our world lend itself beautifully... certainly right now we

have the election so that will be a big thing now and then again next fall
if there’s not a political thing going on there’s always something we can
talk about—environmental things. We just burned these homes out in

Seattle so if I was talking about environment right now, boy, I’d latch onto

that and we’d have a discussion of where does it cross the line being

the person who likes to look at newspaper and television I try to do that
for the kids. So group work is once a week thing

Questioning. All of the teachers in this study used questioning as part of
their practice to teach higher-level literacy skills. Some of the purposes for
questioning include engaging students in prediction, anticipation, and accessing
prior knowledge. Science teachers, especially, talked about inquiry in terms of
how they teach their subject. In addition, teachers agreed that teaching students
through inquiry motivates them to Ieam.

Thinking skills - Cate. Cate uses questioning to engage her AP Physics
students in predicting before she introduces a concept. She engages her
students in thinking about what might happen before I do a demonstration in
class, like what do you think will happen if I do this or with a lab? Or with a
problem which do you think would exert more work and they have to predict
and then we get to the answer after we solve the problem. So I think prediction is
a big part of science.”

Thinking skills - Cate. Cate’s teaching style is one of questioning to get

her students to thinking through a physics problem. I observed her in action as

she easily jumped from one question to another moving her students along

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through the problem solving process. Cate questions and probes students
throughout her think-alouds. Through inquiry Cate engages her students in
Ieaming. This is glimpse into her thinking.

So we have to solve for d

How many of you found

Okay, now do we know the net force yet?

Cate draws out the problem while thinking out loud

How would you solve for

What did you guys get for the force?

So, your net force really equals

If you had to draw a vector to describe the net force

Notice that this theta is different than this theta

So, if we plug everything in

What did you get?

Thinking skills — Dave. The foundation of Dave’s class is lecture and
discussion. In Humanities students’ thinking is constantly challenged with
questions throughout the course of the unit about the ideas and perspectives
of the books they are reading. Dave also asks students to use their thinking skills
to anticipate essay questions that could be asked on a test.

We encourage them to get into groups on their own, I’ll say anticipate

what we might ask what could potentially be a good essay question?

Knowing the themes we’ve discussed, knowing the discussions that have

taken place in class, what potentially might we ask? Sometimes kids nail it

and they say you know what? We knew you were gonna ask that and we
nailed it.

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Further, Dave questions his students frequently probing them to get them
to access their thinking about an issue, for example simply asking what do
you think “ about something forces them to look inward for answers. With fifty
students in his class there are usually ten different groups of students working,
exercising their thinking skills collaboratively. He uses this specifically to open a
window to all students in his class to other perspectives “... look at, that group _
over there had something completely different. Make sure you’re paying attention
to, wow, that’s another way of thinking.”

For these honors students, the hardest problem is supporting their
opinions. In terms of critical thinking skills that’s probably the thing that the
kids struggle “ with most, critical problem solving, “...and that’s a tough skill to
teach.”

Prior knowledge - Spence. Spence motivates his lower track US. History
students to want to Ieam by accessing their prior knowledge about the 19203. He
is indirectly teaching them thinking skills.

You know, the other day, we started the 19205, we spent 25 minutes, I

just asked them, I put down 19205 on the board. I said what do we, what

do we know about the 20s? What do we wanta know? What are we
leaving out? You know, just kind of spurred a class discussion. Actually,
it went pretty well. But we just, we went through and listed things

As Spence continues to talk about the 1920s they are about to start
another section of the text. He asks them questions to access prior knowledge
before they even open their textbooks.

don’t even open your books we just talked about Prohibition. You

know what Prohibition is write it down on your paper we went through

and answered as much as could without even opening up the book in
there, it says Harlem Renaissance. Does anyone know what the Harlem

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Renaissance is? Kids are like jazz music? Well, that’s part of it okay,
open your books here, all right. Then we’ll read it and then we’ll talk
about“.
Prior knowledge — Cam. Cam uses questioning to access prior knowledge
and connect to something that we Ieamed abOut the day before.” Also as a
way to engage students in what’s coming up Cam does an activity from
History Alive called Visual Discoveries. Cam engages his students in thinking
about concepts and ideas that are connected to the next unit in history. He
access’ his students’ prior knowledge by asking questions around the picture. He
also uses Visual Discoveries to move students in to notetaking, writing, and
discussion.
They come in, there’s usually a warm up on the overhead either look at
a picture or look at a picture in the book and explain how, your
emotions, how it makes you feel or whatever. How you would feel being
put in that position what do you see? Or sometimes they have these
placards and I’ll put them in groups and I’ll pass the placards around.
Usually I try to come up with some sort of graphic organizer or something
that they can fill in when they’re doing something like that. Because if
they’re just asked to look at it gotta force them to document
something. And then we will do the activity and then we’ll report out
what did you Ieam? What themes did you see
Prior Knowledge - Dave. Dave’s practice is based on a lecture and
discussion format. Dave lectures about the history, politics, and economics of the
era on which the particular novel or book is based. Dave prepares his students
for the discussion about the book by accessing his students’ prior knowledge
about the Vietnam War. Students were asked to take out a piece of paper and list
everything they knew about the Vietnam War. I observed Dave’s introduction to

the novel The Rumor of War where he drew out and built his students’

background knowledge about the concepts having to do with the Vietnam War.

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Discussion ensued about their lists of prior knowledge as Dave track the
students’ ideas on the board. Dave used the ideas listed on the board as stems
for his lecture and discussion. When Dave transitioned to his lecture students
took copious notes. During one of my observations Dave used study guides as a
tool to direct students to various themes in the novel. In cooperative groups
students collaborated to answer questions in anticipation of more discussion
later.

Notetaking. Six teachers talked about or were observed in the practice of
notetaking with their students. These notetaking strategies were used to engage
students in thinking, to organize and Ieam content or terminology, and for
retention of their Ieaming. Some of the notetaking happened in a traditional
format where the teacher lectures and records notes in outline form on the
blackboard and students copy them into notebooks.

Interestingly, several teachers across school, subject, and track talked
about a notetaking technique called foldables. Teachers at both schools reported
being introduced to foldables at inservices or they had read a book about the
process. At West Park foldables was one of the notetaking techniques that
teachers Ieamed at an in-school literacy workshop. I found this to be an
interesting phenomenon as I had never heard of foldables, yet the teachers at
both schools used them widely.

Foldables — Cate (West Park). Cate uses foldables with her regular
physics classes, “It’s just honestly a more creative way of taking notes with

a partner for the Newton’s laws ...they take the paper and they fold it so they

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have these three flaps. And so if they wanta Ieam about Newton’s first law, they
just unfold it. And then I had these specific things that they had to find about each
law.”

Foldables - Spence (West Park). Spence also uses foldables to teach
terminology and concepts. He has been doing more foldable type things. You
know, maybe with a definition on the front, you open it up, okay, there’s the main
idea, the summary, the topic Spence uses a lot of hands-on activities to
engage his students in their Ieaming both for Ieaming skills and for motivating
them to write.

During one of my observations in Spence’s class he directed his students
to make a foldable (previously explained) as method of Ieaming and keeping
track of the programs established by The New Deal. For example, the three
categories of programs identified as Relief, Recovery, and Reform became an
organizing tool for students as they match these types of programs with the
specific program that reflected its purpose. Spence not only wanted students to
include the acronym of the programs, but the definition as well. T.V.A.
(Tennessee Valley Authority), for instance is a relief program so would go next to
the Relief foldover tab and W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) would go
next to the Recovery tab. Spence prompted his students, “Here’s a hint if the
word recovery is in the title or definition that is the type of program it is .”

Foldables - Cam (South Hill). Cam uses foldables when he lectures.

Rather than a traditional lecture and notetaking format Cam engages his

students or motivates them by using something different. “It’s not just stand up

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with an overhead and notes. I’ll use something like foldables that’s a little twist
on lecture.” Cam talked about other notetaking techniques he has tried. “...the
district has trained us in Cornell notes. I like foldables a little bit better up until
this year, I used to use SQ3R on a weekly basis. I don’t have time to do it
anymore ...”

Cam’s students use their foldables as tools for writing persuasive essays.
I’ll say to them, okay, you’re gonna write about this pull out that foldable
that we did this week and use that stuff for your supporting evidence that’s
what it is that’s supporting evidence it’s in that foldable use it.”

Foldables — Hal (West Park). One of the big things West Park has been
working on is foldables. Hal has been using foldables frequently in past two
years. This year is when they’re just kinda bringing it on board, but I was
fortunate enough to go to the professional development when they were in the
talking stages a couple years ago.” Hal shared a success story about using
foldables.

Last year, when we did vocabulary, we didn’t do as much of the foldable

type things. On the test when we talked about vocabulary, they would do

tenible. This year they’re at I would say the average would be 80% for
the class in terms of knowing the vocabulary. So that strategy has worked
for them. And so that’s good to see because just writing the definitions
down before, when you have to organize it in a different way then they can
practice and use that. It’s been better.

Another notetaking strategy that I observed was the use of sticky tabs to

mark interesting and important information and concepts within novels and books

as a way to mark and evaluate thinking.

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Sticky tabs — Dave (West Park). One strategy Dave has taught the
students is the use of sticky tabs as they read to track their thinking about the
major themes. Students are taught to mark examples and evidence of the
themes in preparation of whole and small group discussion. At the beginning of
every unit, Dave cues his students to the five major themes of the book that
you need to take notes on.”

this is a specific reading strategy that we use in class and we tell them

to read about 20 pages. They take a sticky note little sticky tabs and if

there’s something important on that page, sticky tab it. You think it’s
important, sticky tab it. There might be three sticky tabs on each page.

You read 20 pages, then, after you read 20, 25 pages go back and

determine if those were truly important. Don’t write down three quotes per

page. That becomes redundant. And maybe something you thought was
really important on page 302 ends up not being that big a deal as you go
down to page 315. So you just take your little sticky tab, put it there, and
that’s a great reading strategy. Our kids’ books are colorful with their tabs.

And some of them color coordinate to go with what we say are the five

things you should take notes on.

Two column notes - Spence (West Park). During one of my visits to
Spence’s lower track US. History class he showed the movie Cinderella Man.
The class was talking about the relief, recovery, and reform programs of The
New Deal. Spence engages his students in notetaking by asking them to take
notes on examples of each of the types of programs on the 2-column study guide
they had already prepared. Spence wrote the headings for the 2-column
notetaking guide on the board. Students were to record evidence or
representations of Signs/Effects of New Deal and Signs of New Deal

Programs/Government Involvement in the two columns. Students’ findings

became the content of discussion following the movie.

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Making Ieaming visible - Modeling thinking. Two teachers talked about
modeling their thinking. I observed one in the process of thinking aloud to engage
students in Ieaming. Teachers think aloud to open windows into certain cognitive
processes that students do not automatically come to school knowing how to
execute. They show their students how to think in certain ways using critical
thinking skills. They need models and practice to achieve a certain level of
thinking including problem solving and supporting opinions with examples from
texts.

Cate — West Park. Cafes mode of operation in AP Physics is that of
modeling her thinking out loud. She constantly questions students to keep them
thinking and cued into the step-by-step problem solving process. For Cate,
thinking out loud allows her students to see and hear the thinking process as it
happens. so let’s see if we can simplify this. I’m going to cross this out so, I
plugged my mass in I just plugged my speed in Cate typically cues her
students to difficulties they might encounter be careful you use the variable
they give you notice also ...what else did I leave out of my diagram here

By modeling the problem solving process on the board and speaking her
thoughts, students get a front row seat into an experts’ thought processes as
they do something students need to Ieam how to do. They get to hear and watch
an expert figuring out the problem.

Making Ieaming visible - Drawing pictures / acting out. I observed
several teachers making Ieaming more visible for their students in terms of

sketching maps, routes, and interpreting math problems in picture form, drawing

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tables like punnet squares and electron configurations and orbital diagrams.
Also, teachers made Ieaming more visible by involving students physically in
their Ieaming.

Cate — West Park. Cate draws a diagram to help you get started to find
out what forces are acting on that crate. “ I observed Cate as she drew a picture
of a spring uncompressed and compressed beyond its equilibrium point so her
students had another way to understand the problem they are solving.

Dave — West Park. Dave is teaching The Rumor of War on the Vietnam
War. He explains that at the beginning of the war the US had a hard time
defending the 38th parallel. Dave draws a picture of Korea divided by the 38th
parallel and shows how the army pushes toward the south and MacArthur
launches a surprise attack at Pusa moves into Seoul captures a large part
of the North Korean troops allows MacArthur to push back the front to the 38th
parallel MacArthur continues northward and gets all the way to the Yalu River
which happens to be the border between China and Korea ...China [Chinese
communitsts] now helps North Korea push back down at the 38th parallel

Hal - West Park. Hal taught from the Periodic Table over the three days
that I observed his class. He draws on the whiteboard to explain concepts and to
help his students understand as he thinks out loud. Hal asks his students
what energy level are these in 1St energy level or 2"d energy level?” He draws
pictures of energy levels on the whiteboard let’s look at the inside of an atom.”
Hal draws the inner shell of electrons “ next energy level next energy level

how many electrons would be in the next energy level

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Seth - South Hill. Not only does Seth use tables on the blackboard to
make Ieaming visible for his biology students, but he gets his students physically
involved in their Ieaming. On one occasion, I observed Seth in the middle of a
unit on genes; he was explaining the difference between heterozygous and
homozygous. He asks, “what are the chances that offspring has black hair how
would you know?” He sets up a scenario and supplies four students with cards
that represent, B=black hair, b=blonde hair, C=curly hair, and c=straight hair.
Four students came to the front of the room holding up the different genotype of
this parent (the dad=Bch), two students on one side of the room (B,b) and two
students on the other side of the room (C,c). As students matched up with each
other the letter combos are entered into the punnett square using the toiling
process for the top row across and for the left column down. Students were
motivated to Ieam how to Ieam.

Russ - South Hill. As Russ lectured and outlined his notes on the
blackboard during one of my observations, he clarified ideas and concepts by
drawing on the board. Russ’ lesson was on John Kennedy’s assassination. Russ
drew a picture describing the motorcade route and the book depository and
pinpointed the car carrying Kennedy. Later in the lecture students were
discussing the controversies surrounding the death of Kennedy. Russ sketched
the grassy knoll and described how shots could have come from behind them.

Varying teaching practices. Teachers in this study varied their literacy
practices across school, subject, and track. They talked in terms of “switch things

up”, “variety of methods”, “try to break that up”, “cannot do the same things

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everyday”, “keep it moving, try to keep it active”, “change things up”, “keep things
fresh, new, and exciting”, “try to not make it so monotonous” when asked how
they teach their subject. Teachers talked about varying their literacy practice to
keep students motivated to Ieam (Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006).

Reading and Writing Support

Both schools presently support literacy initiatives ongoing in their
buildings. Teachers are encouraged to participate in these initiatives to improve
reading and writing. Thus, infusing literacy into their teaching stood out as a goal
for some of these teachers. Hal describes two of the literacy initiatives the
suburban teachers have adopted, for example, a Sustained Silent Reading
program that happens regularly “everybody does it at the same time every
single day.” This follows the thinking that instructional strategies that engage
students in Ieaming tend to promote autonomy with respect to decision-making
and tend to be authentic Ieaming activities Certo et al., 2008; Raphael Bogaert et
al., 2006). Participating in SSR allows students choice in what they read while
providing authentic reading opportunities. Many students choose magazines and
novels to read during this time.

Another goal shared by all of the teachers in the suburban school is
teaching “words of the week that we’re posting and working on in our classrooms
vocabulary that they can use across the curriculum.”

Cam uses literacy strategies everyday to engage his students in Ieaming.
Because his students are lower readers he teaches a variety of strategies to

engage his students with text I try every day, every single day to write and

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read. This teacher talked about using different strategies “use Collins writing
use SQ3R that I try to phase in with the History Alive. His goal of infusing
literacy strategies is based on the reading levels of the students he teaches “cuz
kids read at 3rd and 4th grade level and I can give them the History Alive text
and they can stare at it all day and not get anything out of it so, you’ve gotta do
literacy strategies, at least here you do maybe outside [urban school] not so
much, but that’s probably my number one goal is to phase in literacy stuff
every single day.”

The English teachers at South Hill have engaged the rest of the school in
trying to use reading and writing strategies within their lessons. Russ admits he
does not use the strategies on a regular basis, but-kind of mixes them in
sometimes. He talked about being uncomfortable with strategies like KWL where
he is constrained to a particular way of accessing prior knowledge and predicting.
He does use predicting with his students at the start of his units to get his
students thinking about the topic or person being introduced, but he does it in a
way that works well for him and his students.

every nine weeks we’re supposed to work on a new literacy strategy

something that comes out of our English Department, trying to raise our

reading scores you can pick different ones that you want the kids to
work on. And so I have done that like one nine weeks, I may say you
know what? We’re gonna maybe have one KWL every other week, just to
try to get you guys into that. I don’t know that I use it consistently
though. Certainly at the beginning of every unit, I will always go from
their prior knowledge I’ll say okay, we’re getting ready to cover, you
know, John F. Kennedy or we’re getting ready to cover Richard

Nixon. Does anybody know anything about that? And now I don’t do it
quite in the fashion write on the board the KWL.

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All teachers use some sort of text with their students, however the use of
the text happens in different ways. With the exception of Humanities where
students read up to sixty or seventy pages at a time, reading happens in classes
in a variety of ways. Teachers read to their students, with their students as in
round robin situations, use silent reading, or paired reading. Teachers also
tended to read the text in class because many students did not read at home.

Regardless of the reading practice selected what seems to transcend
subject areas, teachers, tracks, and both schools is reading section by section.
Teachers read a section at a time and intersperse a variety of other practices into
the content to engage students of all reading abilities in their Ieaming and to
produce successful Ieamers. Other reasons for reading section by section
include using text as a resource where they pick and choose sections to teach.
For example, some teachers use supplemental text, lecture and discussion, or
film to deliver content.

Another reason teachers choose to use other means of delivering content
is their dissatisfaction for their text; they believe they can do a better job teaching
the content and carrying out the activities. Further, there is a limited amount of
time to cover the material. They think they can engage their students and deliver
content with their own activities. For example, Russ uses the textbook as the
foundation of the content he teaches I think the book is the skeleton the
book is sort of the basic knowledge and then my job is to fill in the meat, so to

speak.” He lectures, tells stories, and fills in what he believes his students need

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to Ieam to prepare for the mandates. According to Russ, there is no way to
cover the whole book and so you have to break it down into sections.”

Also, most teachers talked about reading the text before lecture and
discussion in class. Teachers generally read with'their students ahead of
beginning a unit or lesson to provide some background knowledge and as a stem
for discussion.

I observed teachers in this study using cooperative Ieaming groups almost
daily in order to engage students in Ieaming. Another meaningful use of
cooperative grouping is to promote collaboration within the group and with the
instructor as a route to a shared understanding of ideas or text. Social grouping
mediates Ieaming where shared Ieaming becomes new Ieaming. Students Ieam
concepts and ideas in much stronger ways when opinions and perspectives are
shared in social contexts.

Duke et al., (2006) suggest that questioning can be considered an
authentic Ieaming activity if it serves a true communicative purpose. Here some
teachers used questioning for multiple purposes including engaging students in
Ieaming, specifically in discussion or conversation about content. For example,
Cate, Hal, and Seth involved their students in science discussions by asking
questions during demonstrations or when solving problems on the board.

Further, teachers used notetaking as a teaching practice when they
dictated notes or wrote notes on the board or on a transparency for the purpose
of copying. When using notetaking in this way teachers kept students focused

and engaged in the activity. Some teachers also taught notetaking in cognitive

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ways as a tool that students could draw upon when needed. I only observed
some of the process of teaching the varied notetaking strategies used by
teachers in this study. Dave explained the purpose for using sticky tabs to me
during our interview. His students understood that they were using the sticky tabs
to track their thinking about the themes in the novels they read. They used
different colors indicating different themes. As they read through the novel they
were moving their tabs, eliminating those that became less important as other
passages came to be more indicative of the themes in the novel. Dave modeled
the strategy and guided their use of it.

Several teachers across both schools used foldables. I observed students
using foldables to record notes from their reading or from a film they were
watching. Cam and Spence used foldables to help students organize their
thinking. Cam’s students understood that a completed foldable was expected to
be used to write a paper because it held the ideas students needed to use in
their essays. Spence used foldables for his students to organize the many
programs of The New Deal. I did not observe Cam or Spence in the act of
teaching these strategies cognitively. However, I did observe students using
them in cognitive ways.

Science teachers also made their teaching visible for students in terms of
modeling their thinking out loud. Teachers modeled their thinking when solving
problems on the board, for example, Cate modeled solving physics problems by
talking through the steps associated with solving the problems. Hal modeled his

thinking while figuring out an orbital diagram or a shell diagram using the periodic

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table. Seth modeled his thinking while filling out punnett squares with genotype
and phenotype information.

I observed no instances, however, of teachers thinking aloud about text.
Teachers did not report using think-alouds as a way to teach students how
transactions with text happen. Teachers involved students in reading, but not in
the instruction of reading.

Tensions - Engagement

Tensions exist among teachers in terms of engaging students in Ieaming
toward becoming successful Ieamers. Most of the tensions reside among
teachers from South Hill. The underlying reason for voiced tensions by these
teachers is the lower reading and writing abilities of their students as typical of
high poverty urban schools. Tensions are exacerbated by the lower literacy
achievement of these students. Specifically, teachers are constrained by
mandates and initiatives so they are more concemed with developing reading
and writing skills and Ieaming the content.

For example, Cam (South Hill) struggles with the perceived mismatch ..
there’s so much of an emphasis on getting ready for tests so much of an
emphasis on the literacy strategies and stuff that it seems a good social studies
teacher should be able to get students excited and enthused about the world
around them am I a good social studies teacher? I don’t know. I’m doing what
the district and what the state’s asking me to do.”

Russ (South Hill) struggles with the time it takes away from teaching his

content to teach literacy strategies suggested by the district. He sees the value in

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teaching reading and writing and is in favor of writing across the curriculum,
but the problem is we’re supposed to cover 100 things and if I felt like that
someone would eliminate 40 of those things, and let me just cover the 60 really
in-depth I think all of us could do a great job with things like helping them
read or helping them study, or helping them write papers or whatever.”

Hal (West Park) struggles with reading issues of some of his lower track
chemistry students. He has solved this problem by doing read-alouds with his
students.

A lot, sometimes we’ll have an article that we’ll read, I read to them. I read

to every single one of them. If you hand them the thing to read

themselves, a lot of them will struggle and so behavior becomes an issue.

And so what we do is we do read-alouds where I read and they follow

along. We do a lot of that.

Teachers at both schools need help to transform their teaching. Teachers
are frustrated with mandates and lower reading abilities at South Hill. The larger
issue here is that students at South Hill are not progressing in reading and
writing. Teachers at both schools struggle with how to teach cognitive reading
and writing strategies to help students become self-regulated Ieamers. Teachers
also perceive they have little time to teach reading and writing, but there are
ways to involve students in cognitive reading and writing tasks and at the same
time teach their curriculum. However, teachers likely will need long term support
in order to reach this level of cognitive instruction. At this point, the teachers at

South Hill do not have this level of consistently focused support. The teachers at

West Park do have this kind of support available.

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Impressions about Literacy

All three goals are connected to literacy by the levels of reading and
writing needed to accomplish them. Teachers define literacy in terms of these
goals. For example, in terms of meeting mandates literacy is defined as passing
tests. They define literacy in terms connecting or applying Ieaming to the world
as using higher order thinking skills. And they define literacy in terms of
engagement as focused and successful Ieamers.

The interrelation between these three goals stems from their
interdependency. For example, in order for students to pass the tests demanded
by mandates and initiatives, students need to possess a certain level of higher
order thinking skills as the state tests require complex thinking and organization
of ideas. In order to progress to higher order thinking students need to be

focused and proficient readers and writers.

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CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Summary and Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the literacy
practices that high school science and social studies teachers use to accomplish
their instructional goals. I examined the purposes for using these literacy
practices and specifically looked at how teachers involved reading and writing
within their teaching. Seven teachers participated in this study representing both
urban and suburban settings. Two teachers at each school represented social
studies, one upper track and one lower track. Two science teachers at the
suburban school (one upper track and one lower track) and one science teacher
at the urban school participated in the study. Only one science teacher at the
urban school participated in this study because he taught both upper and lower
track classes. In order to determine and describe instructional goals and literacy
practices teachers participated in pre and post interviews. In addition, I observed
three to four class sessions per teacher following the initial interview. Each
teacher participated in a post interview to determine the purposes for their
practices and student tasks and to clarify or explain certain aspects of the
observations. Student tasks were collected to provide further insight into
teachers’ practices and purposes and more importantly served as indicators of
how reading and writing were involved in their teaching. The focal point of the

interviews was teacher perceptions and beliefs about their instructional goals and

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teaching practices and how they described reading and writing within these
areas.

This chapter discusses the findings of this study in terms of teachers’
instructional goals as determined through the interviews. Teachers articulated
three goals in response to a specific question in the initial interview that asked
them to explain their goals for their students. However, understanding these
goals is more complex and takes thinking beyond a single answer to an interview
question. Teachers also described their goals in implicit ways throughout their
interviews. Other interview questions that helped provide clarification of teachers’
goals included teachers’ descriptions of good science and social studies teachers
and teachers’ descriptions about what makes someone literate in science or
social studies. Teachers’ explanations of their three goals underpin this study
and draw attention to other complex issues that this study puts forth. There is an
interrelation of goals expressed in this study that relates to and complicates
making sense of literacy, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and Ieaming,
underlying inequities and mismatches, and the relationship of goal emphasis to
reading.
§9_a_|§

In order to make sense of the research questions in this study I needed to
understand the goals teachers have for their students. Teacher practices,
purposes for their practices, how these practices involve reading and writing, and
the tasks students are asked to perform connect in some way to these goals.

Teachers identified three distinct, but interrelated goals. They described each of

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these goals in distinct ways: Goal #1 was described in terms of mandates set by
others including state assessments and district mandates and initiatives. Goal #2
was portrayed as connections between Ieaming and the world or applying
knowledge and understanding to the world. This goal necessitates higher order
thinking skills. Goal #3 was expressed as the engagement and motivation it takes
to make Ieaming happen.

Since South Hill High School and West Park High School encompass
different demographic backgrounds and dissimilar student populations, teachers’
emphases on these goals project quite distinctive pictures. South Hill is a typical
high poverty urban high school where students have generally lower reading and
writing levels than surrounding suburban schools. They struggle to meet their
school reading and writing objectives. South Hill teachers place high to very high
emphasis on Goal #1. All of their teachers are focused on preparing their
students for the state test, covering the curriculum for the district’s common
assessments and getting their students graduated. Conversely, these teachers
place low to no focus on Goal #2. Since most of their time is spent meeting the
mandates of others, they are less focused on planning for activities and lessons
geared toward making connections to the world. Their focus on Goal #3 is
somewhere in the middle and certainly more related to meeting the mandates
then connecting Ieaming to the world. Since their students have generally lower
reading and writing capabilities, some South Hill teachers try to include reading

and writing in their teaching everyday.

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The suburban background of the West Park teachers also influenced their
responses. West Park High School students continually meet their reading and
writing objectives. Students at West Park generally have much higher reading
and writing abilities than South Hill. For West Park teachers Goal #2 ranks
highest as a focus. They all placed high or very high focus on helping their
students connect to or apply their Ieaming to themselves or the world.
Conversely, West Park teachers place low to no focus on meeting mandates.
These teachers do however place, as the South Hill teachers do, a medium focus
on engaging or motivating their students to Ieam. Goal #3 seems to weave
throughout both of the other goals and seems to serve as a foundation or support
for Goal #1 and Goal #2. In other words, achieving Goal #3 makes it possible to
achieve Goal #1 and #2.

There seemed to be two categories of Goal #2. While some teachers
talked about wanting their students to apply knowledge and understanding this
seemed to be more of a future goal, one that students would need to meet
beyond school with the Ieaming acquired in school. There were very few
instances of teacher practices devoted or specifically targeted to allow students
to apply knowledge and understanding somewhere beyond school, to the real
world. There were, however, more instances of teachers making connections to
the world outside of school, for and with students through text, lecture and
discussion at both high schools.

Teachers from both schools described certain literacy practices to meet

their mandates (Goal #1). They described their practices around use of text and

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assessment preparation. In terms of text, teachers at South Hill followed their
texts closely. Their district mandates direct teachers to use their texts strictly as
they are laid out. However, teachers do find ways to honor their beliefs about
teaching and Ieaming by infusing some of their oWn activities and lectures into
their lessons if they are deemed better than those suggested by their texts.
Teachers at West Park have more flexibility to use other activities or
supplemental readings from other texts or the intemet in place of or in
conjunction with their textbooks.

Both sets of teachers use reading and writing to prepare their students for
the state tests. They draw on practice questions from textbooks and other
sources including the intemet. Teachers include persuasive essays in their
teaching whenever possible, often in connection to their own class tests and
exams. They also use district writing assessments as practice.

Applying Ieaming and making connections to the world draws on higher
level literacy skills beyond knowledge and understanding. Teachers described
several categories of applying Ieaming and making connections to the world, for
instance, to be productive members of society, to understand the world from
different perspectives, to hold real world conversations with others, to see the big
picture of how real events are related, and to problem solve. Teachers used a
variety of literacy practices to help their students make connections between their
Ieaming and the world, but little actual application to the world outside of class
was observed or talked about. More application was talked about than actually

acted upon. Applying knowledge in and to the world seems to be a goal teachers

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hold for their students in the future as a result of the knowledge and
understanding gained in school.

The third goal described by teachers permeates the other two goals.
Teachers described Goal #3 as engagement in learning and being successful
Ieamers. They want their students to be engaged in Ieaming and motivated to
want to Ieam. Being a successful Ieamer implies a certain level of independence
in Ieaming. Teachers, for the most part, perceived they had little time to teach
students how to Ieam in terms of strategy instruction where the strategy is
explained, students are taught the steps of a strategy, teachers model the
strategy, and students are guided toward self-regulation or independence in
using a particular strategy. Some teachers, however, did guide their students
through problem solving by providing mental models and thinking aloud through
the steps, cuing students to the pitfalls of certain problems. Teachers also guided
students reading through the use of graphic organizers and study guides.
Further, teachers guided their students’ writing by showing them how a certain
type of writing should be organized, for example, specifically directed to state
assessment writing like persuasive essay. Teachers generally described literacy
practices according to the level of students they taught in terms of basic reading
and writing skills or higher order literacy skills.

Making Sense of Literacy

Teachers seemed to make sense of or conceptualize literacy in terms of

their three goals. While each subject area is unique in terms of content,

terminolog)’, structures, and processes, teachers in this study across subject,

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school, and track made sense of literacy in three distinct, but interrelated ways.
For example, in. relation to Goal #1 literacy is defined by federal, state, and
district mandates or initiatives where literacy is gauged or judged by passing
tests. For Goal #2, the interpretation of literacy is' articulated and supported by
teachers’ beliefs about what good teachers do and what makes someone literate
in science or social studies. It is judged by how well one can connect Ieaming or
apply knowledge and understanding to the world. The interpretation of literacy in
terms of Goal #3 seems to be the basic ingredient of achieving both Goal #1 and
Goal #2. For Goal #3, literacy is gauged by whether someone is engaged in
Ieaming and motivated to put Ieaming into action.

Do teaching practices match beliefs?

Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and Ieaming emerged from the interview
data around expressed goals; they described what good science and social
studies teachers do and what it means to be literate in science and social
studies. In some instances teachers’ beliefs do match their practices, however,
there are several examples where practices are incompatible with beliefs.

Belief matches practice: varying teaching practice will engage students.
Teachers believed that varying their practice would keep students engaged in
Ieaming and they carried out that belief. Teachers talked about switching things
up, trying a variety of methods, and keeping things fresh by not doing the same
thing everyday. At both schools teachers varied their literacy practice to keep

students motivated toward Ieaming (Raphael Bogaert et al., 2006). Teachers

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integrated lecture, discussion, using technology, hands-on activities, and
cooperative grouping to teach their content.

Belief matches practice: teachers’ own knowledge and ideas are often
better than the mandated text. Teachers uphold their belief that in many
instances their own knowledge and activities work better than what is prescribed
by the textbook. Even though teachers from South Hill voiced concerns about the
mandates in terms of strictly following their textbooks and the activities
prescribed by the textbooks, they found ways to honor their beliefs about what
was best for their students. Seth and Cam found ways to substitute better
activities and create reading guides or graphic organizers based on their
students’ needs. Russ and Seth interspersed their own content in place of or in
addition to content from the textbook. Russ, for instance, used the History Alive
textbook as a basic skeleton for his content, but filled in with content he had
gathered from other sources. At South Hill teachers make choices about the
textbook activities they use with their students. If they have a better idea they
honor their beliefs and use their own activity.

Teachers from West Park were not as tied to their texts so were able to
incorporate content from a variety of sources. Teachers from both schools used
content from supplemental sources suggested by and included within their
textbooks as well as other sources beyond their texts, including other books,
newspapers, news magazines, or the intemet, for instance, CNN or NASA

websites.

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Belief seldom matches practice: teaching reading and writing strategies is
important. Teachers across both schools voiced agreement that teaching
reading and writing strategies is something they should be doing. Across schools
there is evidence of reading and writing happening within science and social
studies classes. The purposes for the writing tasks were generally for class
assessment or practice in preparation for state and district tests. Further, much of
the reading at South Hill and the lower track classes at West Park happens as a
result of teachers'reading aloud to students, round robin reading situations and
the like.

Teachers taught students how to do graphic organizers, multiple
notetaking techniques, and different types of reading or study guides and walked
students through the use of these techniques. However, I observed little cognitive
strategy instruction where the teacher explains, models thought processes and
reasoning, and guides students to independent use of a reading strategy. One of
the school-wide literacy initiatives at West Park is the use of gradual release of
responsibility. Teachers try to incorporate this process whenever they teach
something new. I observed Hal gradually releasing the responsibility of figuring
out orbital diagrams, but not of teaching a deeply cognitive reading or writing
strategy.

Belief matches practice: content must be taught regardless of reading and
writing level. Teachers across subject area and school believed that all of their
students needed to Ieam their subjects’ content. They believed they had a

responsibility to teach the curriculum regardless of reading or writing abilities. In

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order to ensure that their struggling readers can succeed in Ieaming these
content teachers choose other ways to deliver their content. For example, they
use cooperative Ieaming groups, hands-on activities, demonstrations, and make
Ieaming visible by modeling problem solving on the board. Russ described the
complexities in his classroom you don’t speak a lot of English and you don’t
have this, you know, and you don’t have your book today, but you know what?
We’re still gonna Ieam about the Great Society. Even though we have these
limitations Teachers find other ways to accomplish their goals.

Belief does not always happen: applying or connecting learning to the real
world should happen. Teachers believe that they should be able to help their
students apply or connect to the real world. They tend to help their students
connect to the real world in terms of the teacher pointing out or demonstrating a
connection, but students have very little opportunity to actually apply their
Ieaming outside of school situations.

South Hill teachers focus so heavily on preparing for tests they perceive a
lack of time to incorporate teaching practices that allow students to apply or
connect their Ieaming to real world contexts. However, as a result of normal
practice I did observe teachers verbally connecting their content to the real world
through lecture, storytelling, and physically through demonstrations and hands-
on activities. Teachers at both schools try to use authentic texts like newspapers

and articles, but ultimately the purpose is school-only.

What does the goal emphasis mean?

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The emphasis or valueteachers place on each goal seems to be
determined by reading abilities of their students. School demographics seem to
account for the emphasis given to goals. For example, South Hill is a typical
urban city high school with a high poverty school’population and lower reading
scores (Balfanz & Letgers, 2004). South Hill teachers place high focus on
meeting the federal, state, and district mandates. This higher focus on meeting
mandates stems from the struggle they have improving their students’ reading
and writing scores on state tests. To meet their own school reading and writing
objectives teachers are under considerable pressure from the state and the
district to change these outcomes. South Hill teachers also have district common
assessments; this adds to the stress of meeting mandates. Therefore, it makes
sense that these teachers place such high value the goal of meeting mandates.

At West Park, teachers place very high to high focus on developing
successful Ieamers who can use higher order thinking skills to make connections
between Ieaming and the real world. Students at this school have generally
higher reading abilities than at South Hill. While teachers at West Park are
concerned about reading and writing improvement there is not the same urgency
as at South Hill. So, teachers at West Park have more leeway in terms how they
deliver their curriculum. They focus more on moving their students toward higher
level thinking skills because they are not struggling to teach more basic reading
and writing skills. This is not to say, though, that teachers at West Park are not
concerned about reading and writing on a larger scale; they have a district wide

literacy initiative in place to support all Ieamers. Further, Hal and Spence, who

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teach the lower track science and social studies classes, struggle in similar ways
as their counterparts at South Hill in terms of the reading and writing abilities of
their students.

Major Underlying Tensions

Some interesting mismatches became apparent as the narrative unfolded
in this study. Such tensions have been expressed in terms of multiple mandates
and lack of time.

Multiple mandates. The most visible mismatch exposed in this study is the
struggle South Hill encounters when tying to meet multiple mandates. South Hill
teachers juggle the requirements of distinct, but interrelated mandates. These
mandates include moving their students toward graduation, passing the state
assessments, and passing the district common assessments. District literacy
initiatives are also thrown in the mix. These mandates produce tensions among
teachers clue to the generally lower reading and writing achievement of their
students, hence the mandates. The mismatch exists in the overlap of these
mandates. Teachers must cover their district curriculum in order to meet the
requirements of the common assessment at the end of the year. However, they
must spend until October of each school year preparing and practicing for the
state assessments. This interference produces a time constraint for teachers; if
they practice for state tests until October, they do not have enough time to cover
the curriculum for the common assessments. Thus, one mandate is perceived to

impede another mandate and produces tension among teachers.

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Lack of time. Another tension exists in the seeming lack of time for
teaching reading and writing strategies. Because teachers must practice for the
state tests and make certain they cover the curriculum they perceive a lack of
time to teach reading and writing. But, since their students struggle in reading
and writing the district has set in motion a literacy initiative. Data depicts the
South Hill teachers’ high focus on meeting mandates which stems from the lower
reading and writing abilities of their students. Their students’ reading and writing
abilities stand in the way of their success on the state and district assessments.
But teachers spend more time on practicing for the tests‘and covering curriculum
than teaching reading and writing to their students.

South Hill teachers understand their students’ needs, but feel their hands
tied for a perceived lack of time. Consequently, some teachers focus on covering
curriculum while sporadically infusing reading strategies in inconsistent ways.
Others introduce reading and writing everyday.

Struggling readers. In addition to the perceived lack of time as a roadblock
to helping students make connections to the real world, struggling readers,
especially at South Hill, make it more difficult for teachers to make connections to
the real world. The lower readers in both schools have not developed the level of
literacy in science and social studies to be ready for applying their limited
knowledge and understanding to real world situations in terms of college, work,
and citizenship (Heller & Greenleaf, 2007). Teachers at both schools do try to
infuse more authentic types of activities into their lessons to make connections to

out of school situations, but the activities are often peppered with evaluation such

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as grades, so the purpose is not authentic even though the activity is more or
less so.
Implications

This study provokes questions relating to Content literacy and adolescent
literacy and relates to how we prepare preservice teachers to teach literacy in
secondary content areas. Issues are raised about literacy identity and whose
literacy identity we adopt when making decisions about teaching adolescents or
what literacy practice looks like in content areas. Questions arise about what
literacy strategies we encourage teachers to use and how we teach teachers
about content strategy instruction in a content area literacy course. Further this
study brings about more thinking about what can be done to help teachers in
both schools improve literacy instruction in their teaching.
Content Literacy

This study set out to discover and describe the literacy practices of high
school science and social studies teachers at two high schools. The issue of
resistance to teaching reading and writing in the content areas (O'Brien, D. G. et
al., 1995; O'Brien, D. G., 1988; Sturtevant & Linek, 2003) is rife with complexities
and does not do justice or match the multiple contexts of content teachers. Other
issues come into play when describing teachers as resistors. As researchers we
must evaluate all of these issues when labeling content teachers resistors.
Issues that complexify whether teachers involve-reading and writing in their

lessons, include teachers’ goals for their students, teachers’ beliefs about

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teaching and Ieaming, socioeconomic background of their students,
preparedness to teach literacy strategies, and a time factor.

Cognitive strategy instruction. We need to clarify what it means to teach
literacy in the content area. Do we mean that a teacher has some sort of reading
or writing activity attached to their lesson where students read a section of a text
and write a summary or fill out a graphic organizer, or respond in writing to short
answer questions? Does it mean that students take notes in a two-column
format? The complexity here is that teachers generally involve reading and
writing in their lessons, but never talk to the students about how to carry out the
task. Teachers spend little time explaining, modeling reasoning, and guiding
practice to ensure independent use of the task.

To complexify this issue further, there is a distinct difference between
urban and suburban school needs in terms of literacy. The urban teachers in this
study face high odds from the start due to the high poverty, lower reading levels
of their students. Even in an honors class the reading and writing levels of many
of the honors students in the urban schools do not match the levels of the honors
students in the suburban schools. However, the lower track teachers at West
Park do share some of the same issues that plague the South Hill teachers
around struggling readers. For instance, teachers of lower track students at West
Park and teachers at South Hill generally do not expect their students to read
independently to acquire content knowledge and understanding.

According to Heller and Greenleaf (2007) certain policy issues need

attention in order for literacy reform to happen. Content teachers need clearly

169

defined roles and responsibilities especially in regard to who’s job it is to teach
basic reading and writing. Content experts need to define the specific literacy
skills that align with a particular content area; they need to identify the literacy
skills a teacher should teach. All policy makers (federal, state, and district)
should come together to provide for consistent and ongoing professional
development in teaching the identified literacy skills per content area. Lastly,
these policy makers need to provide essential and adequate funding,
accountability, and tools for teachers to be successful.

Adolescent Literacy

The motivation of adolescents who struggle to read books and chapters
happens by pulling other literacies into the classroom, for example, the
technology that adolescents are familiar with and use outside of school daily
(Stevens, 2002).

Teachers in this study across subject, school, and track described their
teaching in terms of varying their practices. This connects to the goal of engaging
students in Ieam Ieaming. Teachers described engagement in two ways. They
wanted their students to Ieam how to Ieam or to be successful Ieamers and they
wanted them to be motivated to Ieam. Teachers were consistent in their efforts to
motivate their students.

Teachers varied instructional practices to include multiple literacies and
“new literacies”, not only reading and writing in the traditional sense, but they

included supplemental readings from intemet sites like CNN and NASA and

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news magazines and newspapers. Teachers also use hands on activities, inquiry
and story telling, and video and film.

Some student tasks were carried out in the computer lab where students
could connect to the real world through the projeCts they were doing. There was
an effort by some teachers to include as much technology as possible to keep
students motivated. So teachers are bringing the outside world of adolescent
literacy into the classroom to connect to and motivate their students, to engage
them in Ieaming. Teachers also use hands on activities, inquiry and story telling,
and video and film.

Teacher Education

I believe teachers of adolescents need to know how to teach reading and
writing strategies in content areas. To facilitate this understanding I believe
content teachers need to understand the relationship between instructional
strategies (teaching practices) and cognitive strategies. Many teachers use
instructional strategies to deliver content to their students; they need to
understand that it is only when these strategies become metacognitive that
students can internalize them and use them to Ieam in self-regulated ways.
Content literacy instmction should include the teaching of cognitive strategies
where students Ieam to evaluate and monitor their own comprehension and
thinking. I believe that teachers of content need to understand the clear
distinction between teaching practices and cognitive strategies to effect better
readers and writers of content. However, as Heller and Greenleaf (2007) point

out (2007) several policy issues need to be ironed out, specifically which

171

cognitive strategies should be taught in certain subject area domains, for this to
happen effectively. The resolution of these policy issues certainly effects teacher
education in terms of how and what teacher educators teach preservice teachers
about literacy instruction.

Teaching teachers isolated strategies without considering their context
does not work. This study impacts the education of future teachers in terms of
subject matter literacy, what counts as text especially in terms of understanding
the adolescent student, literacy needs across urban schools, suburban, and rural
contexts, and reading and writing strategy instruction.

Content Literacy Course

There are several layers of complexity that should be taken into
consideration when planning and delivering a content area literacy course. For
example, content literacy and adolescent literacy project differing perspectives on
literacy and how on might think about literacy. Other considerations when
planning a content area literacy course include a broader view of text, literacy,
traditional and transformational strategies, school context, and subject mater
idiosyncrasies (See Appendix F).

Content Literacy vs. Adolescent Literacy. When we understand the
adolescent student we understand a broader view of literacy. Adolescent literacy
has been described as “new literacies”, “multiple literacies”, out-of-school
literacy, and the like. These once out-of-school literacies are now being seen as
in-school literacies as well as students and teachers bring them into the

classroom (Stevens, 2002).

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The IRA/NCTE (1996) standards also project a broader view of literacy.
Where basic reading and writing were once considered the level of literacy one
needed to be successful in life. Now, a broader view of literacy has been
established to include speaking, listening, visual, and visual representations in
terms of one’s own values, job, and citizenship. Further, the “new literacies”
concept includes digital literacies (Leu et al., 2004).

Within a situated cognition perspective (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989),
discussions about text can include Ieaming about comprehension strategies.
Recent research has delved into this broader view of text, specifically spoken
text, to uncover how small group discussions can improve comprehension (Certo
et al., 2008). Further, teaching of comprehension strategies within discussion can
be effective ways to improve understanding of text (Certo et al., 2008).

Instructional Strategies vs. Cognitive Strategies. Another complex issue
related to this study is understanding the relationship between teaching
instmctional strategies (teaching practices) and cognitive strategies. Many
teachers use instructional strategies (teaching practices) to deliver content to
their students; they need to understand that it is only when these strategies
become metacognitive that students can internalize them and use them to Ieam
in self-regulated ways. Content literacy instruction should include the teaching of
cognitive strategies where students Ieam to evaluate and monitor their own
comprehension and thinking (Conley, 2008). Teachers of content need to
understand the clear distinction between teaching practices and cognitive

strategies to effect better readers and writers of content. For instance, many

173

teachers use the practice of KWL to help their students access Ieaming.
However, many teachers use KWL to guide students through the reading of text.
They do not teach students how to be strategic with its use. We need to make
sure that preservice teachers understand that it is only when we teach the
cognitive aspects of KWL, like predicting, by explaining its purpose, modeling the
steps or process, and guiding its use that students actually become strategic in
their use of the strategy. Then they understand what types of thinking they can
do on their own when reading to access knowledge and understanding, to retain
that Ieaming, and take their thinking to the next level of application to somewhere
outside of school. If we want teachers to teach literacy in the content areas we
must prepare preservice teachers to teach cognitive strategies in conjunction
with their content and provide ongoing consistent support for their efforts.
Traditional Strategies vs. Transformational Strategies. How one views text
impacts strategy instruction and strategy use. In that sense, how we strategically
read and write text depends on the text being used. For example, there is a
different perspective on what counts as text under the labels content literacy and
adolescent literacy. In a traditional content literacy course text is defined as linear
or school-sanctioned like textbooks and other materials designed specifically for
classroom use. The view of text certainly broadens under the adolescent
perspective as text becomes more non-linear where searching the intemet for
information for a school research project predeterrnines a more transformational

set of reading strategies. Preservice teachers need to understand the broader

174

views of text and the purpose for using them in order to make decisions in regard
to particular literacy strategies that match the type of text used.

School Context. Another issue is addressing the unique qualities of
teaching literacy in urban, suburban, and rural environments. Preparing teachers
to teach literacy in urban schools could be quite different than teaching them to
teach literacy in suburban schools or rural schools.

Differences in school context should be considered when teaching a
content area literacy course. First and foremost, teaching in an urban context
predicts certain struggles in teaching reading and writing. In a typical high
poverty urban high school the reading and writing abilities of the students are
significantly lower than their suburban counterparts. Teaching preservice
students about the expectations and realities of urban contexts would better
situate them as a teacher of content and literacy. We can teach preservice
teachers how to integrate deep cognitive strategy instruction within their content
even in the face of mandates, lack of time and struggling readers and writers or
where there is a higher incidence of English as a second language Ieamers

Subject matter idiosyncrasies. We know that reading practices can be
different across domains where different types of literacy expertise are required
(Alexander, 2000; Mayer, 2004; Moje, Dillon, & O’Brien, 2000; Vansledright,
2004). And we know that reading and writing in the disciplines is shaped by the
distinctive conceptual, textual, and semantic demands of each area (Moje, Dillon,
O’Brien, 2000). Preservice teachers generally take one content literacy course in

their teacher education programs. The complication exists in preparing these

175

teachers to teach reading and writing appropriate for every subject’s conceptual,
textual, structural, and semantic demands in one course.

Even beyond all of these layers of complexity involved in preparing
preservice teachers to teach literacy for all schodl contexts, all types of Ieamers,
all subject matter idiosyncrasies, old and new literacies, and all types of text, we
are still faced with the problem of how best to conduct content area literacy
courses. More important is the issue of how to help preservice teachers gain an
understanding about the importance of teaching literary strategies within a
subject matter course. Conley, Kemer, & Reynolds (2005) suggest tutoring as a
way to motivate preservice teachers to Ieam how to assimilate literacy into their
subject areas and increase self-awareness and seIf-efficacy as teachers.
Teachers

Teachers can improve their knowledge and use of cognitive strategy
instruction through initial professional development and consistent, long term
support (Heller & Greenleaf, 2007) from knowledgeable others. Teachers need to
be taught how to combine their content with cognitive strategy instruction by first
selecting a strategy that fits the content being taught.

Shared reading is an example of a cognitive reading strategy that fits well
with subject matter. Shared reading also provides authentic experience in
reading subject matter (Lapp, Fisher, & Grant, 2008). The teacher shares a think-
aloud with students by explaining the strategy, modeling her own thinking, and
gradually releasing the responsibility to students. During a shared reading the

teacher actually performs a verbal protocol as she comments on her own

176

thinking. Shared reading fits the model of cognitive strategy instruction (Conley,
2008)

Teachers also need to explain the strategy’s purpose, model the
reasoning and thinking processes to make the process visible for students, and
guide students’ use of the process by gradually releasing the responsibility of its
use to the students as they become more proficient. Students need to be guided
toward metacognitive, self-regulated use of these cognitive strategies.

However, teachers will need long term support by knowledgeable others
and will need to be appropriately funded through by federal, state, and district
policies (Heller & Greenleaf, 2007). Implementing cognitive apprenticeships
(Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989) and literacy coaching are examples of
appropriate support by knowledgeable others.

Significance, Limitations, and Future Research

This study contributes to content literacy, adolescent literacy, and teacher
practice. It offers more clarity around the issue of resistance to involving reading
and writing in subject area lessons. The teachers in this study do, indeed, involve
reading and writing in their lessons in multiple ways across schools, subject, and
track. Every teacher acknowledged and believed that reading and writing was
important to include in their practice. However, many also acknowledged they do
not do enough of it for a variety of reasons including strategy fit to subject area,
comfort level in using or teaching strategies, and a perceived lack of time. And,
involving reading and writing in significant and multiple ways does not mean

teachers actually teach students how to be strategic readers and writers. Nor

177

does it mean they teach cognitive reading and writing strategies to the point of
independent use of these strategies.

These issues are complex and offer questions for future research. First,
this study raises questions about how we prepare teachers to teach cognitive
literacy strategies toward the goal of metacognitive or independent use. Second,
this study raises issues about how we prepare preservice teachers to teach
content literacy in the urban school situation where reading levels are generally
much lower and the complex demands are unique to high poverty schools. Third,
this study raises questions about how we educate future content area teachers to
implement more authentic activities with their students to connect or apply
Ieaming to the real world. Fourth, this study raises questions about how well
traditional literacy strategies can transform to the broader view of literacy and
text. Fifth, this study raises questions about identifying common set of literacy
strategies that may fit across subject areas. Sixth, this study raises the issue of
whether a content literacy course can do it all for all types of schools, students,
and subject area concentrations. Further, it pushes us to think about and identify
literacy strategies specific to certain subject area demands.

Although, this study provided in depth look at teacher’s goals and how
they correlate to practices in the classroom, a number of limitations exist
including the following: limited number of participants, limited number of schools
representing urban and suburban settings, and limited number of observations.
First, this study only focused on seven teachers, three urban teachers, two who

taught social studies and one science, and four suburban teachers, two who

178

taught science and two who taught social studies. While this study included two
different subject areas and urban and suburban school settings the findings
cannot be generalized to other urban and suburban schools. Neither can findings
be generalized to other science and social studies teachers. Conducting a larger
study with additional urban and suburban schools and teachers would provide
more generalizability to these findings.

Second, although teachers’ narratives are rich, they provide only a
glimpse into the literacy practices of high school science and social studies
teachers. In addition, other disciplines could be included in future research to
provide more generalizability of findings. And although teacher participants
represented a wide range of situations including different subjects, school
settings, and tracks, the depth of representation was limited. Therefore, results
cannot be generalized to other similar situations.

Third, three to four observations were conducted per teacher during a
single teaching unit. While observations provided rich data about how teachers
taught their subjects, how students carried out tasks, and how reading and
writing were involved in the lessons observed the results cannot be generalized
to other teachers.

In conclusion, I propose that additional studies be conducted at urban and
suburban school settings to build deeper understandings about what is possible
in terms of cognitive strategies instruction in these contexts.

1) We need more investigation specifically in urban contexts where

teachers experience more rigorous demands and students struggle at

179

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

significantly higher levels with reading and writing; we need to
determine the best way for cognitive strategies instruction to happen in
this context.

We need to investigate whether “new literacies” and authentic activities
and texts engage urban students better than traditional strategies and
texts.

Additional studies are warranted to find ways to help teachers
understand the how to use authentic activities to help students connect
or apply Ieaming to the real world.

Small group subject area discussion is another needed area of
research where students are given opportunities read, write and have
conversations like scientists, historians, mathematicians and the like
about subject matter real world concerns to reach improved
comprehension (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989, Lave & Wenger,
1991)

We need more studies that examine the way content literacy courses
teach preservice teachers to teach literacy strategies that specifically
target context in terms of school settings and culture.

An intervention study is warranted where certain cognitive strategies
are tested in content areas to determine fit and usefulness to certain

content areas.

180

7) I would like to see further study of tutoring as a way to teach preservice
teachers greater understanding and motivation for integrating literacy
in their subject matter.

8) I would also suggest considering policy studies explicitly looking at how
best to support certain literacy interventions for teaching adolescents.

9) We need to investigate how traditional literacy strategies might
become transformational when used with “new literacies” and broader
views of text.

For literacy instruction reform to happen existing and preservice teachers
need initial, continued, and consistent long term support (Heller 8 Greenleaf,
2007). Studies are needed to determine effective professional development that
matches these parameters, for example additional studies on literacy coaching
with a variety of school contexts.

I argue that teaching cognitive literacy strategies in-all school contexts is
possible and to students in urban school settings, in particular, it is not only
possible, but warranted. As a research community, we need to think about how
combining subject matter with literacy strategies can be productive for teachers
and students within complex contexts. More importantly, we need to develop
common literacy strategies suitable across content in collaboration between
literacy and subject matter researchers (Vansledright, 2004). However, we need
to determine and understand literacy strategies specific to certain subject areas
as well. I would also suggest that in the face of adversity among lower readers at

both urban and suburban schools and in the absence of professional

181

development and support for teachers, teachers have no other choice than to
find alternate ways to teach their subjects when students cannot read. However,
we can prepare teachers how to teach cognitive literacy strategies within their
content to support the literacy education of their Students. Further, this study
makes a point of acknowledging that content teachers do incorporate reading
and writing within their practice. And in fact content teachers are incorporating
reading and writing within their lessons even on a higher level of literacy in some

classes.

 

182

APPENDICES

183

APPENDIX A
INTERVIEW PROMPTS

 

 

Part 1 Teacher background

How long have you been teaching?

What district initiatives or mandated activities, it any, are
you required to implement?

Describe your sources of knowledge (How and where did
you Ieam your subject area)?

Part 2 Goals and practice

What goals do you have for your students?

How do you teach your subject area (teaching practices and
purposes)?

What do you observe when students struggle?

How do you know they are struggling?

How do you help them?

How do you assess students?

Part 3 Questions about reading and writing

How is reading involved in your teaching?

What do you do to help kids when they are reading?
How is reading involved when you see kids struggling?
How is writing involved in your teaching?

What do you do to help kids when they are writing?

How is writing involved in teaching struggling students?
How is reading involved when you assess kids?

How is writing involved when you assess kids?

Describe a good - teacher. (What does a good
teacher do)?
What does it mean to be literate in ?

 

What do your students need to know or know how to do to
be successful Ieamers?

Part 4 Questions about text

Do you expect your students to read this chapter/text?
When and how?

What are the most important things you want your students
to understand from this chapter/text?

What difficulties do your students encounter in making
sense of this chapter/text? How do you help students when
they experience those difficulties?

Are there other experiences or activities that you expect
students to engage in to help them understand this
content? Describe? How important are they relative to

 

184

 

 

 

reading?

Do your students write anything while they are studying this
text? What? How does the writing help them Ieam or help
you teach?

Do you ever ask students to suggest questions that the
chapter/text might answer?

Do you ever ask students to sUmmarize what they have read

Part 5 Pre-observation conversation

Walk me through the next week

What will you try to accomplish

What tasks will students be involved in (reading and
writing)?

Part 6 Post-interview clarifying purposes

How do you think the lesson went?

Why did you choose to use (particular teaching practice)?
Why did you assign (particular task)?

Why did you choose to use (particular text)?

 

185

 

APPENDIX B

 

OBSERVATION PROTOCOL
Time What is teacher What are students Subject Matter How is text
doing/saying? doing/saying? (topic/ideas) represented?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

186

 

APPENDIX C
MASTER CODE LIST

 

 

assessing
assessing - AP
assessing — checking for understanding
assessing - class discussion
assessing — class work
assessing - common assessments
assessing - essay questions
assessing - higher level questions
assessing - homework
assessing - informal
assessing - labs
assessing - multiple guess
assessing - notes
assessing - objective
assessing - open note
assessing - prepare
assessing - projects
assessing - reading
assessing - teach to AP
assessing - test and quizzes
assessing - wrap-up questions
assessing - wrap-up questions and activities
assessing - writing
describe good teacher
describe good teacher - apply to other classes
describe good teacher - compassion
describe good teacher - connected to students
describe good teacher - curiosity
describe good teacher - don't do the same thing every day
describe good teacher - engage students in world
describe good teacher - gets kids invested in Ieaming
describe good teacher - help students Ieam material
describe good teacher - make it interesting
describe good teacher - models
describe good teacher - motivates
describe good teacher - problem solving
describe good teacher - students excited or enthused
describe good teacher - think critically
describing curriculum or content
describing students
describing subjects and grades taught
goals
goals - all mapped out for me
goals - apply to real world
goals - cover content
goals - create passion interest
Joals fladuate

 

187

 

 

 

goals - how events are related

goals - informed citizens

goals — literacy strategies everyday

goals - reading and writing everyday

goals - see the world from a different perspective

goals - state tests

goals - successful Ieamers

goals - to understand and figure things out

goals - to use and build on knowledge

goals - vocabulary across curriculum

helping struggling students

helping struggling students - creating interest

helping struggling students - curriculum needs

helping struggling students - not giving them the answer
helping struggling students - organization

helping struggling students - probing for answers

helping struggling students - process to figure out problem
helping struggling students - providing the correct answers
helping struggling students - reading

helping struggling students - study skills

helping struggling students - take notes at conferences
helping struggling students - writing

initiatives - how to deliver knowledge

initiatives - Ieaming community

initiatives - literacy

initiatives - relationships with students

initiatives or mandates

literate in science

literate in science - apply knowledge somewhere

literate in science - can problem solve

literate in science - informed citizen

literate in science - interpret results

literate in science - real world

literate in science - set up experiments

literate in science - synthesize new knowledge

literate in science - understanding terminology or concepts
literate in science - understanding the process

literate in social studies

literate in social studies - able to communicate

literate in social studies - able to read and write

literate in social studies - be able to read historical document
literate in social studies - core democratic values

literate in social studies - current in what's going on in world today
literate in social studies - have an opinion

literate in social studies - how current events impact people
literate in social studies - interpret document

literate in social studies - knowledge of past

literate in social studies - productive members of society
literate in social studies - real world connections

literate in social studies - summarize historical document
literate in social studies - understanding economic principles

 

188

 

 

 

literate in social studies - understanding human behavior
reading

reading - articles or documents

reading - at home

reading - class demands

reading - difficulties making sense of text
reading - difficulties making sense of text - vocabulary
reading - for inforrnatlon

reading - for themes

reading - helping with words

reading - higher level thinking

reading - in class

reading - involved in assessing

reading - kids don't read

reading - lab sheet

reading - making connections

reading - notes from text

reading - outside of class

reading - popcorn read

reading - practice for state tests

reading — read-alouds

reading - reading guides

reading - small groups or pairs

reading - SSR

reading - supporting what you think
reading - textbook

reading - to answer questions

reading - to assess Ieaming

reading - understanding

reading - use sticky tabs

sources of knowledge

sources of knowledge - CNN

sources of knowledge - college

sources of knowledge - continues to build by figuring things out
sources of knowledge - current events
sources of knowledge - experiences
sources of knowledge - favorite subject in school
sources of knowledge - history channel
sources of knowledge - interest

sources of knowledge - intemet

sources of knowledge - newspaper
sources of knowledge - other teachers
sources of knowledge - PD or workshops
sources of knowledge - reading
struggling students

struggling students - asking questions
struggling students - disruptive behavior
struggling students - don't come for help
struggling students - effort

struggling students - giving up

struggflgg students - grades

 

 

 

189

 

 

struggling students - hands up

struggling students - heads down

struggling students - kids raise hands

struggling students - not being engaged

struggling students - not much written on paper
struggling students - poor writing skills

struggling students - shut down .

struggling students - task not completed or incorrect
struggling students - tests

student tasks - apply themes

student tasks - demonstrations

student tasks - fill out graphic organizers

student tasks - foldables

student tasks - follow along as teacher reads

student tasks - ice carving

student tasks - persuasive essays

student tasks - powerpoint

student tasks - propaganda poster

student tasks - read article

student tasks - read at home to prepare for next class
student tasks - read essay in science textbook

student tasks - read novel

student tasks - read textbook section

student tasks - reading documents

student tasks - reorganize periodic table cards

student tasks - sticky notes

student tasks - take another position

student tasks - visual discoveries

student tasks - warm-ups

student tasks - work on problems

student tasks - wrap-ups

student tasks - write

student tasks - write essay

students need to know or be able to do

students need to know or be able to do - apply what they Ieam
students need to know or be able to do - ask questions
students need to know or be able to do - bring materials
students need to know or be able to do - have an opinion
students need to know or be able to do - how to organize
students need to know or be able to do - interpret the material
students need to know or be able to do - make an effort
students need to know or be able to do - math or calculus
students need to know or be able to do - pay attention
students need to know or be able to do - read

students need to know or be able to do - read large volumns of info
students need to know or be able to do - wanting to Ieam
students need to know or be able to do - what they would do in other situations
students need to know or be able to do - work habit
students need to know or be able to do - work well in groups
students need to know or be able to do - write

students need to know or be able to do - write lab report

 

190

 

 

 

supplemental text - articles

supplemental text - biographies

supplemental text - find info

supplemental text - intemet articles
supplemental text - literature selections
supplemental text- newspapers
supplemental text- other books

supplemental text- primary source documents
teaching certification

teaching practices

teaching practices - 5 E

teaching practices - activities

teaching practices - analyzing students’ mistakes
teaching practices - block scheduling

teaching practices - clearing up confusions
teaching practices - co-teaching

teaching practices - compare and contrast
teaching practices - concept mapping
teaching practices - concepts or terms
teaching practices - connecting to current events
teaching practices - cooperative group work
teaching practices - comell notetaking
teaching practices - covering curriculum
teaching practices - demonstrations

teaching practices - direct instruction

teaching practices - discussion

teaching practices - drawing pictures

teaching practices - elaborate

teaching practices - engagement

teaching practices - evaluate

teaching practices - evaluating test performance
teaching practices - explain

teaching practices - exploration

teaching practices - fill in the text skeleton
teaching practices - foldables

teaching practices - games

teaching practices - gradual release

teaching practices - graphic organizers
teaching practices - guided reading and discuss
teaching practices - hands on activities
teaching practices - helping students prepare for tests
teaching practices - homework

teaching practices - inquiry

teaching practices - interacting with students
teaching practices - introduce chapter topic
teaching practices - jigsaw

teaching practices - KW L

teaching practices - labs

teaching practices - lecture

teaching practices - linking back

teaching practices - mental models

 

191

 

 

 

teaching practices - modeling thinking

teaching practices - motivation and engagement
teaching practices - no homework

teaching practices - notetaking

teaching practices - novel centered

teaching practices - popcorn read

teaching practices - portfolio

teaching practices - practice and feedback
teaching practices - predicting

teaching practices - prepare for state tests
teaching practices - prior or background knowledge
teaching practices - problem solving

teaching practices - projects

teaching practices - prompting struggling students
teaching practices - questioning

teaching practices - raising expectations
teaching practices — read-alouds

teaching practices - read and answer questions
teaching practices - read and discuss

teaching practices - read section by section
teaching practices - reading and writing skills
teaching practices - reading discussion schedule
teaching practices - reading or writing strategy instruction
teaching practices - reading quizes

teaching practices - reading time in class
teaching practices - reading to students
teaching practices - reading to students
teaching practices - retaking tests

teaching practices - review

teaching practices - round robin review

teaching practices - scaffolding Ieaming
teaching practices - skit

teaching practices - skit or act it out

teaching practices - SQ3R

teaching practices — SSR

teaching practices - study guides

teaching practices - substitute for textbook activities
teaching practices - summarizing

teaching practices - teacher decisions about what to teach
teaching practices - teaching definitions
teaching practices - technology

teaching practices - textbook activities

teaching practices - thinking activities

teaching practices - unit packet

teaching practices - using a textbook

teaching practices - using primary sources
teaching practices - using visuals

teaching practices - vary

teaching practices - visual discoveries

teaching practices - warm-ups

teaching practices - watching film or video

 

192

 

 

 

teaching practices - words of the week
teaching practices - worksheets

textbook - features

textbook - poorly organized

textbook - supplemental materials

textbook - tests not connected to content
textbook - used as main source

textbook - used as resource

textbook expectations - basic knowledge
textbook expectations - basic principals
textbook expectations - before every activity
textbook expectations - big issues

textbook expectations - chapter questions
textbook expectations - charts and graphs
textbook expectations - chronological order
textbook expectations - covering curriculum
textbook expectations — district adoption
textbook expectations — events tying everything in
textbook expectations - explain in your words
textbook expectations - History Alive

textbook expectations - homework

textbook expectations - most important to understand
textbook expectations - notetaking

textbook expectations - processes and steps
textbook expectations - read questions first
textbook expectations - reading

textbook expectations - reading quiz

textbook expectations - section by section
textbook expectations - to Ieam concepts
textbook expectations - understanding calculus
textbook expectations - understanding concepts
textbook expectations - understanding formulas
textbook expectations - vocabulary or terminology
writing

writing - across curriculum

writing - essay

writing - graphic organizers

writing - hands on activities

writing - help with writing skills

writing - lab reports

writing - news article

writing - persuasive essay

writing - research papers

writing - rough draft

writing - rubrics and examples

writing - short answer or essay

writing - to analyze

writing - to answer questions

writing - to assess Ieaming

writing - to bring closure

writing - to compare and contrast

 

193

 

 

 

writing - to draw conclusions
writing - to explain

writing - to Ieam concepts and terminology
writing - to make sense of text
writing - to practice

writing - to prepare for state tests
writing - to prepare for discussion
writing - to retain information
writing - to solve math problems
writing - to summarize

writing - to support opinion
writing - to take notes

writing - to think

years tatght

 

194

 

APPENDIX D

 

 

MAJOR CODE CATEGORIES
Assessing
Describe good teacher
Goals

Helping struggling students
Initiatives or mandates
Literate in science

Literate in social studies
Reading

Sources of knowledge
Struggling students
Students need to know how to be able to do
Supplemental Text
Teaching practices
Textbook

Textbook expectations
Writing

 

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197

APPENDIX G
CONTENT AREA COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Syllabus
Content Area Literacy

Kathleen Moxley

INTRODUCTION:

In this course we will examine readers and writers, theories of reading,
instructional practices, contexts for teaching literacy, and ourselves as teachers,
readers, and writers. The goal of this course is for us to become practicing,
reflective teachers of content area reading in a multicultural society.

So, we will explore the relation of reading and writing to other language arts
including listening, speaking, visual language, the use of visual representations,
and digital literacies. We will also examine effective assessment of reading for
determining student progress and informing instruction of all Ieamers.

Further, we will examine the broader issues and complexities of literacy
instruction including cognitive reading/writing strategies vs. instructional
practices/strategies, content literacy vs. adolescent literacy, traditional vs.
nontraditional texts, school context differences (urban, suburban, rural), and
subject matter idiosyncrasies.

COURSE FOCUS:

Teachers roles in literacy education (Ieaming to read vs. reading to Ieam)

Processes of reading: concepts of vocabulary and comprehension

Formal and informal assessment procedures

Strategic teaching methodologies

Conceptualizing text (textbook selection and evaluation)

Cognitive Ieaming strategies for the content classroom

Engagement and perspectives on connecting reading, writing, listening,

visual language, visual representations, digital literacies, and classroom

talk to Ieam from and about text

. Unit development within a literacy curriculum framework to integrate
literacy instruction, language instruction, and Ieaming in school subjects

- Writing in support of reading (e.g., electronic joumaling, blogging,
reflective essays)

- Reading in support of writing (e.g., inquiry projects, syntheses)

. Supporting classroom talk in whole/small group discussions

198

REQUIRED TEXT

Alverrnann, D., Phelps, 8., & Ridgeway, V. (2007). Content area reading and
literacy: Succeeding in today’s diverse classrooms (5th ed.). Boston:
Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Additional Readings:

In addition to the textbooks, we will regularly read documents, journal articles,
and chapters as part of our small group/whole group discussions. The additional
readings will be provided electronically. Journal articles may include:

Journal Articles:

Afflerbach, P., & VanSledright, B. (2001). Hath! Doth! What? Middle graders
reading innovative history text. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.
44(8), 696-707.

Hinchman, K. A., Alverrnann, D. E., Boyd, F. B., Brozo, W. G., & Vacca, R. T.
(2008). Supporting older students’ in- and out—of-school literacies. Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 47(4), 304-310.

Lapp, 0., Fisher, D., & Grant, M. (2008). “You can read this text — I’ll show you
how”: Interactive comprehension instruction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy. 51(5), 372-383.

Nokes, J. (2008). The observationfrnference chart: Improving students’ abilities to
make inferences while reading nontraditional texts. Journal of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy. 51(5), 538-546.

Documents:

Balfanz, R., & Letgers, N. (2004). Locating the dropout crisis: Which high schools
produce the nations’ dropouts? Where are they located? Who attends them?
Baltimore, MD: CRESPAR/Johns Hopkins University

Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C. (2004). Reading Next: A vision for action and
research in middle and high school literacy. New York: Carnegie Corporation
of New York and Alliance for Excellent Education.

Graham, 8., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve
writing of adolescents in middle and high schools — A report to Carnegie
Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: alliance for Excellent Education.

Heller, R., & Greenleaf, C. (2007). Literacy instruction in the content areas:
Getting to the core of middle school and high school improvement.
Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Kamil, M. L. (2004). Adolescents and literacy: Reading for the 21“ century.
Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Short, D., & Fitzsimmons, S. (2007). Double the work: Challenges and solutions
to acquiring languages and academic literacy for adolescent English

199

language Ieamers - A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent education.

COURSE OUTLINE

Module 1 - What is Content Literacy?
Mixed message — Content vs. Adolescent Literacy

I Knowing ourselves as readers and writers
I Knowing our students as readers and writers
I Describing the strategic reader/writer

Assignment: Think-aloud Protocols

Module 2 — What is the developmental model of Ieaming to read?
Mixed message: Learning to read vs. reading to Ieam

I Content Area Connections
0 Language development and literacy
o Emergent literacy
0 Beginning reading and writing (sound)
0 lnterrnediate and advanced reading and writing to Ieam (meaning)

Module 3 - Planning for Content Area Instruction
Mixed message: What research tells us about developing readers and writers vs.
the type of instruction that students often receive

I Knowing students as people and content area Ieamers
0 Interviews, interest inventories, observations
I Primary goals for students’ content literacy and development toward goals
0 Volume and breadth of reading and writing
0 Fluency
0 Engagement and motivation
0 Strategic reading and writing
I Components of integrated/balanced instruction across curriculum
0 Developing reading fluency
0 Building word knowledge
0 Supporting strategic, silent reading
0 Writing to Ieam
I Opportunities for listening, speaking, viewing, visual representing, digitally
representing
I Assessing the classroom context
I Assessing tradebooks and textbooks

Assignment: Reading/Writing Unit Design

200

Module 5 — What counts as Text?
Mixed message - Traditional text vs. “New Literacies”
Mixed message — Authentic text vs. School-sanctioned text

Learning with text

Using text features and structures to Read/Write
Goals & definitions '
Instructional approaches

Analysis of text structure as models for writing
Assessment & Instructional Issues

Assignment: Text Analysis and Readability Formulas

Module 6 - Comprehension
Mixed message — Flexible instructional models vs. whole class teaching

Prereading

Goals & definitions

0 Instructional approaches for assessing/building student prior
knowledge

0 Connections with the writing process

0 Collecting information and determining a focus

0 Brainstorming, quick-writes, graphic analysis of a form of writing

Materials

0 Graphic forms for recording content information

0 Literature as models for content writing

Assessment & Instructional Issues

During reading

Goals & definitions

Instructional approaches for responding to text

Connections with the writing process

0 Clarifying the focus, ordering information, and developing writing
Materials

Assessment & Instructional Issues

Assignment: Expository Profundity

Post reading

Goals & definitions

Instructional Approaches

0 Discussions

0 Writing as reflection

Connections with the writing process
Materials

Assessment and instructional issues

201

Module 7 — Vocabulary
I Goals & definitions
I Instructional Approaches
I Materials
I Assessment and instructional issues

Assignment: Designing Subject Matter Vocabulary Instruction

Module 8 - Engagement, Motivation, 8. Differentiating Instruction to

Individual Students

Mixed message - What engages students in literacy instruction vs. what teachers
are required to teach?

I Goals & definitions

I Literacy engagement in subject areas (evaluation of materials)

I Social, cultural, environmental, and intellectual factors on Ieaming and
literacy

I Intervention models and content area Ieaming

Instructional approaches for addressing literacy strengths and needs of

Ieamers

Classroom organization/grouping for different types of instruction

Materials

Evaluating content area publications for struggling readers

Second language acquisition and differentiation for English language

Ieamers

Grouping for instruction

I Record keeping, portfolios, and self-evaluation

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS

Think-aloud Protocols

We will think-aloud while reading content texts. We will analyze our experiences
as readers and discuss this awareness in relation to our role as teachers of
content area reading.

Professional Journal Article Reviews

We will read two journal articles that explore content area reading and/or writing
theory and practice, cognitive strategies, and diversity related to a content area.
Students will keep a running joumal/reading log for reflecting on the content of
the journal articles describing how they might apply the literacy theory and
strategies in their own classrooms. Students will participate in small group
discussions. Learning will be incorporated into whole class discussion to analyze
classroom implications. Students may present their Ieaming from small group
discussion to the class.

202

JoumalIReading Logs

We will journal our thinking by reflecting on prompts, connecting to other
readings, our own experiences as Ieamers, and to our teaching in preparation for
small group and whole group discussion. Think “new literacies” and broader
concepts of text as you determine how you create your journal. You will have the
opportunity to use Google Notebook for your journals.

Book Club/Leaming Community

Successful teaching depends on experience. Students will experience first-hand
the integration of reading, writing, listening, visual language and talk while
participating in a Teacher Book Club. Students will use blogger.com to post a
response to a prompt. Students will address the prompt by contributing their own
authentic comments and questions and connecting course readings with their
own current thinking. Students will read all of their Book Club blog mates’
postings and respond to every member in their group at least once.

Text Analysis and Readability Formulas

Students will evaluate content area text using the Friendly Text Evaluation Scale
and readability formula. Students will determine the readability levels of various
content area texts by applying a readability formula. Students will also discuss
how they will use these scales to make accommodations for special needs
students such as special education and English language Ieamers

Readinngriting Integrated Unit

Students will design and integrate pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading
lessons within a content area inquiry unit that illustrates the reading and writing
process in which adolescents engage when they read content area texts.
Students will design and implement lessons that incorporate writing to Ieam
activities for content area instruction. These lessons will include specific
strategies for content area instruction, grouping and discussion procedures,
specific differentiation and accommodations for students with special needs such
as special education and English language Ieamers, and an assessment plan
using rubrics and tests that foster regular, effective, and appropriate
communication with parents. The plan should clearly connect to subject area
state standards.

Designing Subject Matter Vocabulary Instruction

Student will select appropriate vocabulary words from subject matter text and
design instruction for fostering growth and development of vocabulary. How will
you teach subject matter concepts or academic vocabulary to promote better
understanding of content?

Expository Profundity

Students will employ critical reading strategies to create lessons for three
informational texts. In subject area/grade level groups they will use critical
discourse to write out the expository profundity heuristics for these texts.

203

Evaluation:

Think-aloud Protocols 10%

Small group discussions 10%

Journal articles/entries/responses 10%
Text analysis and readability formulas 10%
Integrated Unit design 40%

Vocabulary 10%

Expository profundity 20%

204

REFERENCES

205

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