So, it is a near year, a new/old school for me, and therefore a new course outline!  BC is in full swing of implementing our new curriculum. This is a very exciting time for me as I love the competency based curriculum! It is so IBO! It is also a bit daunting as it means that we are all of us starting a bit from scratch! I figure that the best way to move forward in this time of change is to share, share, share! Therefore, I have attached my course outline and will posting assignments and reflections as the year goes along. I am looking forward to sharing with educators and parents, as well as receiving feedback and ideas from everyone!

Do I give enough information without overwhelming students and parents?

Is it written in kid-friendly language?

What do your include in your Outlines?

Social Studies 9

We Can’t All Be Teachers of Reading!

We Can’t All Be Teachers of Reading!

I swear, if one more person tells me that we should all be teachers of reading, I might lose my mind! Now, do not get me wrong! I am all for teaching literacy skills all the way through all the grades. I am a card carrying, flag waving member of the International Literacy Association (2000) and wholeheartedly agree  “adolescents deserve nothing less than a comprehensive effort to support their continued development as readers and writers. ”

I also fully understand that adolescents entering the adult world in the 21^st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history….therefore continued instruction in complex literacy skills MUST continue beyond the early years (ILA Position Statement, 2000). Where I struggle is that I also agree with Einstein that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result (Apparently Einstein did not actually say that but I still really like it!) We have been told time and again that we are all teachers of literacy, yet our attempts to replicate general literacy practice has made little to no headway in senior level content classes.

Perhaps, instead, we need to look at general literacy practice and connect that to the specific discipline in which we are actually experts. Perhaps the tools we need to provide for our students are the discipline specific tools necessary to read and understand the complex and diverse texts required in their academic life. For example, how I want a student to read and comprehend a poem is quite different from how a science teacher wants a student to pull information out of a diagram, or a math teacher wants a student to analyze and synthesize the information pertaining to an equation. This is ALL reading, but the strategies and tools to access the reading are really quite specific.

As a content area teacher, begin by asking yourself “What are the specific literacy tasks I want students to be able to perform?” Long gone are the days that we can “pass and pray” – in essence, pass out text books and pray that students can read them! To ensure that our students will be successful in the knowledge based 21^st century, we must provide them with the skills to access content area literacy tasks, and continued instruction in complex, discipline specific, literacy strategies. We are not all reading teachers.Instead we are experts in a specific discipline and thus have the necessary understanding to provide our students with tools that they need to “read like a scientist, a historian,a mathematician.” These are the complex tools that content area secondary teachers can bring to their classrooms.

References

Allington, RL (2002). You can’t learn much from books you can’t read. Educational Leadership, 60(3), 16-19.

Carnegie Corporation (2010). Reading in the Disciplines: The Challenges of Adolescent Literacy.

International Literacy Association (2000). Position Statement.

Fisher, D & Fry, N. (2013). Text Complexity and Close Readings. IRA E- ssentials. Internation Reading Association.

Shanahan, T. & Shanahan, C. (2013). What is Disciplinary Literacy and   Why Does it Matter? University of Illinois at Chicago.

Literature Circles are a powerful tool in a balanced literacy class. I have had great success with a version of Lit Circles that incorporates Roles and I have also had great success with a version that does not use Roles. Both methods have students engage in text with the final goal being comprehension and enjoyment. Along the way students practice fluency, expand their vocabulary, build their repertoire of reading comprehension strategies, strengthen their oral language skills and, perhaps most importantly, they READ! They actually authentically read…their….book!

Have a look at a short video where an Intermediate teacher and a Secondary English teacher discuss why they like Literature Circles to motivate and engage ALL the diverse learners in their classroom.

Literature Circles – Motivating Adolescent Readers

Notebook Connections

Interactive Writer’s Notebooks are all the rage out here on the West Coast! It is so great to see teachers move away from over skilling students to allow them to experiment with language and style. A few structures that have worked remarkably well for myself and other teachers in my department are key tabs, foldables, and daily writing prompts.

1)  Key tabs

Seems so simple but this tried and true little notebook is the cornerstone of our writing classes. The keytab is so beautiful in its simplicity and practicality. Throw on some duct tape and suddenly you have a way to attach key tab after key tab together. What a great way for student’s to create their own Writer’s Portfolio.

2)  Foldables

Even senior students seem to find value in this differentiated approach to writing practice. Foldables provide structure and support for all students. I do not hear the plaintive refrains of “I don’t know what to write” that I hear when students are confronted with blank pages.

3)  Daily Writing Prompts

At the beginning of each class we write. Students file into my classroom and know that their prompt will be somewhere in the class. It may be a picture, it may be a video, a piece of music, a weird object, a quote…. anything that sparks the imagination. They sit down, pull out their keytabs and begin writing. They have been trained to know that this type of writing is just like the sketches they do in art class or the warm up in gym class. Once they are done, they move to independent reading so the class remains quiet and focused on literacy until it looks like the majority of students are wrapped up. Only then do we ask for anyone who wants to share or who wants help with something tricky in their writing.

Final Assignment ED6106

I have been working closely with the Aboriginal Department in our school district, looking for ways to tie our knowledge of Balanced Literacy with Aboriginal Principles of Learning and Aboriginal Literature.

There is some fantastic literature being written today that incorporates both Aboriginal and Adolescent voice. I have been mesmerized by some of the beautiful stories and even non-fiction that people have recommended to me.  Now it is easier than ever to incorporate indigenous voice into our classrooms.

I have borrowed heavily from Faye Brownlie and Dr.Douglas Fisher while putting together a workshop for middle school teachers around the ideas of blending the G.R.R. with Aboriginal literature. The literature circle format and book suggestions come from Faye Brownlie and the work around Close Reading and Annotation comes from Dr.Fisher.  We are so lucky to be able to piggy back our classroom instruction on the back of these teaching giants!

Aboriginal POL & Literature SaveLastWordforMe Close Reading

Another teacher recommended these beautiful Graphic Novels to me to use in my upcoming Literacy series for Middle School Teachers and I am so grateful. They are absolutely stunning books that delve into stories of some the great Indigenous figures from Canadian history. They are published by Highwater Press, a Canadian Publishing company and can be ordered from Portage and Main Press at:  http://www.portageandmainpress.com

I love these books!

The author is David Alexander Robertson, a Cree writer. The illustrator is Scott B. Henderson. These two have also collaborated on the 7 Generations series and Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story.

Check out the illustrator’s blog:

http://scotthendersonart.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/my-newest-graphic-novels-tales-from-big-spirit/

And here is an exciting Inquiry Based Learning activity that you could use in your class:

http://www.portageandmainpress.com/blog/tag/tales-from-big-spirit/

More and more teachers are finding Graphic Novels to be an excellent way to engage and  motivate adolescent readers! Just google graphic novels in the classroom and you will come across tonnes of awesome and exciting ideas to incorporate this visual text style into your literacy instruction. Graphic Novels truly are Literacy Superheroes! You can use them to  teach inferring, characterization, synthesizing, analyzing, and on and on! I have attached one Inferring activity that I have used with my class. I have also attached the PowerPoint that I use to teach my students about the structure and elements of a Graphic Novel. Like all reading activities, it is important to do some pre-reading activities as not all of your students will be familiar with the format of Graphic Novels.

Inferring from a panel  

Graphic Novels – PowerPoint that I use to introduce Graphic Novels

Balanced Literacy for Adolescents needs to include some small group time so that we can differentiate our instruction to target the reading skills that each student needs to be successful with academically rigorous coursework. I have attached two different Strategy Group Lesson Templates that I have used successfully in grades 7, 8, and 9.

Small group strategy instruction works with non-fiction articles, short stories and with novels. You can expect to spend about 25 minutes with each small group. I often have the rest of my class working on their Interactive Reader’s Notebook or independently reading while I meet with one group. I keep my groups dynamic and switch them up often so I do not get students stuck in the “Buzzard and Bluebird” mentality. Students love having the time to interact with me in a small group. I teach “as we go”, looking for teachable moments and trying to build confidence and excitement about reading.

Small group strategy instruction looks different with each group but the attached lesson plan templates are good starting points.Strategy Group Lesson Template Strategy Group Lesson Template-Novel

One way to really get to know your students as readers, writers and as people is to use learner profile activities within your Reader’s and Writer’s Notebooks. Activities that are geared around ‘getting to know you’ are a great fit for this part of your Interactive Notebooks

As you focus on building Learner Profiles, match your Read Alouds around the theme of “self”. I like to use William E. Henley’s poem “Invictus” as a Read Aloud. Such a powerful poem and great for getting students talking about who they are and what they believe in with passion. Apparently, Nelson Mandela had this poem written on a scrap of paper during his 27 year imprisonment.

I also like to have my students complete the following READING SURVEY . This is a fantastic way to get to know my students as readers and helps me to select books for their small group reading instruction, as well to know which books to recommend to them during their independent reading.