Observations 9th Bio / 10th Chem

I conducted my observations at Lake Park High School in Roselle, IL. It is a public high school that services five North-West suburbs of Chicago. The school has historically serviced a predominantly white middle class population but it has experienced a shift in demographics as the neighboring cities have seen an increase in low income housing. The demographics of the student body currently are 63% White, 6% Black, 19% Hispanic, and 9% Asian. 17% of students are labelled as low income, 4% categorized as Emerging bilinguals, and 9% of students have an IEP on file. I was able to observe 9^th grade Honors biology classes, and 10^th grade Chemistry and remedial Chemistry classes. The instructor has ten years teaching experience, a M.A. in Biology and an M.Ed. I was particularly interested to see how literacy and language demands were being confronted in an area that has recently experienced changes in population.

The honors Biology classes that I observed were comprised of mostly white students that were native English speakers. During these classes, students worked in small groups to engage with a Biology curriculum based on storylines. The activities were heavily text dependent, requiring students to read brief passages of scientific discourse and then to discuss and collaborate to problem solve. The instructor’s role in these classes was that of moderator. Disciplinary literacy was not explicitly addressed and I did not observe any modelling of disciplinary reading strategies. Nonetheless, students did not seem to struggle with the literacy demands of the course. I believe that this was due to their linguistic background, the monoculture present among students and embedded in curricular materials, as well as highly developed knowledge in the ways of doing school. Students were successful in responding to known answer, or text based questions but they were not probed for deep conceptual knowledge which I believe may have revealed areas of weakness in their comprehension.

The Chemistry classes utilized a more traditional curriculum and interaction with curricular materials centered around the instructor. During these classes, I did observe modelling of disciplinary literacy practices. The instructor projected a passage using a document camera and then engaged in a modified think-aloud. The activity was framed as collective notes, but essentially the students copied while the instructor highlighted sentences. The instructor would pause to paraphrase or elaborate and the students would write down what the instructor said. Disciplinary literacy practices were engaged in the form of multiple representation of data as well as drawing for deepened comprehension.  Given the linguistic diversity and learner diversity present in these classes, more reading support was incorporated into the curriculum than was in the Biology classes. Unfortunately, all questioning of the text stemmed from the instructor and the questioning pattern in the classroom was predominantly IRE. This could be due to the fact that the instructor is towards the beginning of the gradual release spectrum. Hopefully as the year progresses, the students will be able to inhabit a more active role in questioning the text and driving class discussion.