The article, Moving Writing to the Front Burnerindicated that most writing should inquire clarity, vocabulary, and spelling. With any discipline or career student wish to follow, that path will always have some form of writing therefore its should be emphasize in school to teach students how to preform those three qualities. Jobs search for candidates who can write and communicate clearly so if schools are aiming at making students college ready or prepared for the work life, write is the critical skill at reaching one’s goals. The article had a quote that entails all of this in a better way:
Writing well is not just an option for young people—it is a necessity. Along with reading comprehension, writing skill is a predictor of academic success and a basic requirement for participation in civic life and in the global economy. (Graham and Perin 2007, 3)
The job of teaching these students to write does not rely entirely on the the English teacher, rather, it’s the responsibility of teachers in all discipline. In the article A Social Semiotics Framework for Conceptualizing Content Area Literacies stated that teachers find it difficult to teach students how to read and write because they were never trained properly. Every discipline has its own specific literacy. Math teachers are teaching with different text than a history teacher therefore the responsibility of educating students on reading falls upon the teacher teaching their discipline. A student needs to learn how to read a math text, history text, etc. that learning to read goes beyond the English classroom.
I know for many students, the most complicated text in history could be primary sources. Especially, the older the text is, the more complicated it get. There a different dialogue, vocabulary, tone of voice and events that students may not know about that will confuse them. So as a history teacher, it will be the teacher’s responsibility to guide the students into reading primary sources. Then its another concept to teach the students on how to write a historical paper. In the article A Social Semiotics Framework for Conceptualizing Content Area Literacies states, “other historians view it in terms of a set of historiography skills, including locating and evaluating a variety of primary and secondary sources and using them as evidence to support interpretations (Lévesque, 2008). Unlike science and mathematics, whose goals are often to develop theorems or rules that can hold true across multiple contexts,” skills that need to be taught. Historical writing includes different requirements than mathematical writing.
It is a great idea to allow each of the disciplinary courses to teach their own way of reading, but I found that many teachers have found that difficult. My science teachers in high school offered almost no help when we had trouble reading in their classes. My english teacher was worse, we were having trouble reading Shakespeare, and she pretty much told us to "just read it normally". A lot of students had trouble doing that, and lost points when the test came around. How to read properly in each discipline is an important skill, and needs to be thought.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Some teaching forgot that they are students who need to be taught. Not every student who comes into the classroom will the the skills the teacher expects.
DeleteWriting should be evident in all classrooms. Students should be subject to learning how to read and write science, history, English, and math texts. Although, I do not think it should ever be the only focus in a math and science classroom, it should be taught and examined. Not only does it give a chance for there to be a bridge between STEM and Language Arts, but it gives the students that become disenfranchised by the numbers to succeed with words while also learning what the numbers mean and how they connect to the words, which may be extremely helpful in the way that students learn. Every students needs to be taught to make meaning out of the things that they read. The passages in the ACT do exactly that, but people sometimes don't understand that this is exactly what they're doing. If students had the chance to take practice ACT tests without time factoring in, then they might see that what they are doing is important to their understanding of the subjects.
ReplyDeleteYou made some goo connections with the ACT and students understanding. I do agree that that ACT is very challenging for most students and it requires a certain discourse to be able to understand it.
DeleteThanks for your post,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that teaching discipline-specific reading AND writing practices is important, and not something that falls on solely the English teacher's responsibility. In history, some of these skills involve questioning the biases a source may have, and using multiple sources to come up with a well-supported historical opinion. As a history teacher, it is my responsibility to teach my future students these skills, and for them to develop the ability to use these skills in their own writing. Teaching literacy skills in a discipline will contribute to a greater understanding and, in many cases, appreciation for the subject, as the subject becomes easier to access, and students are able to think like a historian or mathematician. It will also benefit students throughout their academic careers, as they are likely to encounter these subjects again.
Its great that young teachers and soon to be teachers are wanting to take on the responsibility to education their students in reading the discipline. If every teacher does this, students will have a better academic career.
DeleteThank you for sharing. I definitely agree that there should be a big emphasis on writing. Writing, along with reading fosters student growth. Through all aspects of school, these topics are critically important. For example, it is equally as important in math, as students progress in their math education, writing proofs will become evident in the classroom. Even with superior math skills, if their reading/writing is not up to par, then they will not be able to solve such problems. I think the issue is that educators continually use the same methods to teaching reading comprehension skills across multiple disciplines. This is wrong because the strategies used should be discipline specific. If students are only learning how to read/write in English classrooms, they are being limited to a certain vocabulary. English teachers do have the math/science/history jargon/vocabulary to equip students for those type of readings. The Math/Science/History teachers need to step up and teaching their own strategies (different vocabulary, different tone, etc.).
ReplyDeleteYes, at least for me, math and science were always the subjects that I struggled most in. I couldn't understand problems proposed in my science class and I couldn't explain my math reasoning if the question required it. This are skills that the english teacher cannot teacher and only the specific discipline teacher can.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I totally agree with you that writing is a skill, which emphasizes clarity, vocabulary, and spelling. Like reading, writing also needs to be embedded in every disciplinary. Indeed, with the development of society, academic skills become an important criterion in the increasingly competitive job market, especially in China. Thus, as educators, it is vitally important for us to figure out the particular reading and writing strategy aim at our own disciplinary and this may help the students stand out from their competitors. However, I would say writing is a skill that needs to be accumulated rather than something that can be achieved in the short term and this probably can be a big challenge for teachers and students.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that it is the teachers' responsibility to teach students' writing skills in their disciplines. And it is the most efficient way that students could learn better and faster because different disciplines have different writing requirements. For example, the math curriculum is more abstract in middle and high school. It is not only requiring students know how the do calculations but more likely ask students to do logic works, for example, it will ask students to justify and explain about why 1+1=2 instead of asking how much of 1+1 equals to. So, students need to use mathematical strategies such as data and statistics to prove the predictions or break down the large abstract concepts into smaller concrete blocks justify the problems. All above these require students are able to write clearly and logically in the mathematical discipline to show how they work it out. And obviously, these analysis and writing skills should be modeled by the discipline teachers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you've said in the blog post. Writing is obviously very important, but we seem to think it's something that is taught in English class. That can't be further from the truth. In whatever other subjects we are taking, we should be trained to write as an expert in that subject. The way I write in my history classes is very different than the way I would write an English paper. And the part of your post about history really stood out to me because I'm also a teaching of history major. I think one of the best strategy for teachers to use when having examining historical documents is to provide a lot of historical context. This may help the students to get a better understanding of the text and lead them to have their own interpretations. It can be difficult to teach students how to interpret historical texts and to write about them. But it's something that you have to do to be a successful teacher. I look back at what my history teachers in high school utilized to convey this. One teacher went through the texts with us step by step and really helped us understand it. He also allowed us multiple attempts at papers and laid out what he wanted us to write about in the rubric. If we do that, then we can help our students. (Also, I like the photos you chose.)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. I agree that it is not only English teachers' responsibility to teach students how to read and write, for teachers in all disciplines. I think teachers cannot just focus on knowledge teaching no matter in which discipline. Of course it is necessary to convey knowledge to their students, however, they also need to realize that the ultimate purpose of education should be helping students develop the ability of lifelong learning. Thus, the ability of reading and comprehending texts in different disciplines, and the ability of expressing opinions through writing are both necessary for students. Then it might be all teachers' responsibility to help students develop these abilities in their specific discipline.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this week's post. I agree that reading and writing are not just an English teacher's responsibility. Even now in college I see this kind of mentality take place. I am a teaching of history major, most of my friends are not, and I very often hear how I have so much reading and writing to do from my friends. Why is reading a text about a historical event considered a lot of reading but reading a lab report on mitosis not? This speaks to the idea that teachers are now required to teach literacy in their own forms of literacy. All of these kinds of literacy are important and if we want our students to prosper in either the working world, college, or any other paths they follow we must encourage and bolster their literacy skills across the board.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I was thinking a lot about the quote that you used in the beginning regarding the essential aspect of the ability to write in today's job market. However, in my own observations, I do not see this to be as as important as our text portrayed. While each job has its own text set that one must have a literacy in to be able to perform well. The basic skills of writing are not as universally demanded, I think, as the text portrays. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThe previous response was from Kyle Trosien, Not sure why it came as Unknown
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