Kimberly Northrup
18 October 2011
ED 228 midterm reflection
Loving Literacy in your Content Area
Literacy is indeed an important aspect to be sure is included in every class’s curriculum regardless of content. While some educators feel that literacy has no place within their subject area, it is important to know that literacy is not only relevant in all areas, but with the proper technique, can be a great success with students. One way to engage students is to appeal to their interests. In Chapter 8 of Vatterott, it is mentioned that using some form of a hook when introducing a new topic is helpful. Another thing a teacher should aim for is staying relevant with students’ lives and current events in the news; students won’t be as interested in something that doesn’t pertain to their lives. In order to maintain an enthusiastic environment, it should be noted that creating a comfortable environment for students to discuss literature is key, as mentioned in Vatterott. A significant quote from Vatterott sums up the positive outcome that could come from all of this positive attitude towards literacy and learning: “The primary action of the classroom therefore becomes…the interaction of the student with the content” (Vatterott 207).
At the beginning of the fall semester, I didn’t foresee a lot of benefit coming from taking this literacy course, but after readings and class discussions, I can gratefully admit that I was wrong. I first saw literacy as something that was most important for a literature class, but after being forced to read and do different activities, I can see that literacy has its place in every subject, including math. Something else I misunderstood was that it would be difficult to incorporate literacy in my future classroom, but class activities and our course textbook, 50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy, has really helped me see how easy it is to work with literature in any class. Speaking specifically of my content area, Spanish, I only saw content literacy as something that would aid in building vocabulary and understanding the overall grammatical structure of the language, yet reading different articles has proven that reading in Spanish can also help students better define the Spanish culture and give background to this language.
Looking ahead to my future classroom, I feel that I have gained a lot of insight and instructional practices that will greatly help my students and me. Something that I think could really help reach a fuller understanding of novels or difficult articles would be class discussion; this give students a place to feed off of each other and share their own views. Looking at what I can do to keep my students interested, I think it would be extremely beneficial if I chose different readings that are relevant to my students’ lives. In order to do this effectively, I not only need to know my students individually, but decipher their likes, dislikes, current news, and pop culture and use these materials to assist in delivering the lesson. Finally, referring back to the earlier Vatterott quote, I will strive to help my students build relationships, not only with me, but with the content and the lesson at hand. It is crucial to understand that students aren’t going to invest quality time and effort into something that they don’t feel connected to.
Bibliography
Vatterott, C. (2010). Education – Butler University. (D. S. Furuness, Ed.) McGraw-Hill Create.