Blog 2: Inquiry Project

Alright...this is a little rough because I'm not exactly set on my inquiry project, but I'm trying to incorporate it into my teaching unit. Because I will be using group work throughout my teaching, I want to use various grouping strategies to see if it promotes reading comprehension. Also because my content requires so much reading-most of it extremely unappealing to adolescents- I want to also use read alouds with my students. I read that read alouds are becoming more popular in secondary classrooms. I would like to see if using activites such as the read alouds, think-pair-share, and reciprocal teaching increase students understanding of the text and also students motivation.

As far as my contribution to the inquiry project, I'm not really sure since I haven't really discussed with anyone else who might be interested in the same ideas...

As far as reading in my content, I still believe that it is absolutely necessary. My opinion has not really changed much. I still wish that more history/poli sci/ econ teachers would attempt to make reading in the content more accessible for students as well as more appealing, instead of just assigning the regular textbook to read. I also hope that I can figure out ways to make government/economics come alive for my students and find ways to relate readings that are interesting to them and enhance their desires to discover more about a topic. It is still my belief that students benefit from reading in every content area.

Through doing my research, I hope to learn more about reading in my content and seeing how to better incorporate effective literacy strategies in my own classroom.

Content Literacy and the adolescent reader

Fortunately and unfortunately I will be teaching a subject that involves tons of reading! History, Government/Civics, and Economics just have so much reading involved. Most, however is embedded within the textbooks, and through my experience in High School and the teachers that I had, they never took the time to bring in other resources for us to look at or try and explore to gain our attention on the particular subject. Most students are incredibly bored with my content because of the fact that no other 'interesting' texts have been introduced. Maybe I'm a little bias because I absolutely LOVE to read any chance I get, but I have faith that there has to be interesting Government books out there that can be brought into the classroom.

In my opinion I don't think that adolescents are given enough exposure to content literacy, as with my own experience which then leads them to either dislike or just scim the surface of a topic or content area. It is my hope that I can introduce interesting and engaging material to my students that helps them further enjoy my class but also allows them to become more well-rounded individuals.

In working at Early College last semester, I wasn't necessarily in my content (not that any of us were) but I was exposed to adolescents and their reading capabilities or for some, reading incapability. We had one student who would read non-stop and we could barely get him to do his regular work. Then the majority of the class we had to force them to read anything, even a small paragraph! I just wish that adolescents were more exposed to reading in every subject, and not just boring textbook reading so that it would just become a part of their every day routines...

well, that's all I got for right now!