Entries Tagged as 'Disciplinary Literacy'

Using Historical Fiction Picture Books Part Two

December 7, 2011 · 1 Comment · Common Core Standards, Disciplinary Literacy, history, learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, Picture, Picture Books, reading, Reading and Writing Enrichment, Reading Comprehension, reflecting, social studies

In the Article “Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picturebooks” by Suzette Youngs and Frank Serafini in The Reading Teacher, October 2011 the authors offer suggestions for moving readers from the literal details to the interpretive assertions.  Yesterdays post focused on the considerations for using historical fiction picture books.

I think consideration must be given to teaching the teacher before teaching students from the transition from literal to interpretive assertions.  To a certain degree the teacher must own the content or have a clear understanding of the content before moving further.  With inquiring minds of all ages (teacher included) we hope the multimodal text will plant a seed in the learners head to inquire further. At the completion of the reading- pre, during, and post- I would hope the book would help the reader form an emotional attachment with the book. The article by Youngs and Serafini offers three strategies:

 

Phase I: Previewing, Noticing, and Naming

As readers approach a picturebook, we encourage them to focus on these elements or thoughts>

  • What visual and design features do you notice?
  • How do the visual, textual, and design modes relate to one another?
  • What did the illustrator, author, and publisher include in the peritext?
  • What type of historical fiction might this be?
  • Focus attention to Historical fiction as a Genre. Are they aware of different examples of historical fiction? I suggest keeping a chart somewhere in your room of different historical fiction books you have read and be able to talk about what they notice in the differences.
    • o   fictionalized memoirs
    • o   fictionalized family histories and stories
    • o   fiction based on research
  •  Essential Questions to Ask When Reading Historical Fiction
    • ·         Is this true? How much is this true?
    • ·         How can we distinguish between fact from fiction?
    • ·         How do the authors know?
    • ·         How much of it happened like this?
    • ·         How can the auto rote help to construct meaning?
    • ·         What type of historic fiction is this?
    • ·         How do the illustration and the text work together?
  • Attention to Visual and Textual Elements
    • ·         What did you notice about the cover, back cover, title page, end pages.
    • ·         What did you notice visual and design elements of the picturebook”
    • ·         By allowing readers to determine what is important by focusing on what they notice, teachers can shift the focus of the discussion to what matters to their readers. (Youngs, 2011)
  • During this first read-aloud, we take note of the balance between narrative and factual elements, how color is used throughout the text to suggest moods and themes, how characters are portrayed in the written text and images, how the story unfolds and how it makes us feel, and other narrative features such as setting, character, plot, and resolution. By focusing readers’ attention on the visual, textual, and design elements of the picturebook, we establish a foundation for readers to move from attending to the visual and verbal features of a picturebook to the interpretation of these elements. (Youngs, 2011)

Phase II: Moving Beyond Noticing to Interpretation

  • Read the book a second time!
  • Invite readers to consider the meaning potential of various visual and textual elements embedded within the picturebook and how these individual elements contribute to the story as a whole.
  • Help the learners pay attention the one telling the story and their perspective.
  • Help the learners pay attention to how the image is framed, the setting of the image or illustration. Framing is a way illustrators invite viewers into an image or distance them from what is being presented.
  • Character-reader relationship- A technique that illustrators use to develop a relationship between the character and viewer is called demand and offer. When a character in an image or illustration makes direct contact with the viewer, this is called demand and when a character looks at other characters or objects within the image, it is called an offer. (Youngs, 2011, p. 120) Demand offers the reader an interactive role and demands the attention of the reader where as an offer does not bring the reader into a direct relationship with the character. Rather these scenes and actions serve as information for the reader to consider. The author and illustrator works together to create a relationship between the reader and the characters and events in the story. (Youngs, 2011, pp. 120-121) This is an important position to consider in the genre of historical fiction.

Phase III: Moving Beyond Interpretation to Critical Analysis

What happens in the phase depends on the background knowledge readers bring to the text and the intention of the books use in the content area. Let me point out whether one is using historical fiction or another type of fiction the three phases need to be taught along the continuum of early and intermediate literacy stages. The more background knowledge learners have prior to reading the picture book, will help them assume a critical stance.  This path must be modeled and taught.  The path is a forward movement from early literacy to intermediate literacy and the higher level would be disciplinary literacy.  Important considerations include:

  • Many historical fiction picture book illustrators draw on cultural, political, and social symbols to make inter-textual connections within the illustrations and to other visual images. (Youngs, 2011)
  • Here are some open ended questions that will promote this type of thinking”
    • o   Whose view of history is being presented in the book?
    • o    How are historical characters portrayed?
    • o   What systems of power and social issues are being challenged?
    • o   Whose view is privileged in the telling of the story?
    • o   What has been left out of the story?
    • o   How do the images presented affect the readers’ interpretations?
  • Visual Symbol Analysis: “Illustrators of historical fiction picturebooks often embed historical images within their illustrations. Analysis of these images requires readers to construct an image as a historical symbol, to place the image within its original historical context, and to make intertextual connections between the book being read and the embedded image. Anstey and Bull (2006) referred to the use of intertextuality and described it as “the ways one text might draw on or resemble the characteristics of another causing the consumer of the text to make links between them” (p. 30).” (Youngs, 2011, pp. 121-122)
  • Placement of Characters within an Illustration- How the character is placed in the illustration carries additional meaning to the whole text. It tells us lots about the characters social standing and power structures with other characters. Characters placed at the top of the image are given higher social status or power compared to those place near the bottom of the pictures. Characters placed side by side might be entering into an adventure  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123). Other questions to consider:
    • o   What might the spatial relationship suggest?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) How might we interpret the placement of characters or objects on the page and throughout the book?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) Who or what is privileged in the various images?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123)
    • o   What systems of power are represented? (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) (We must teach learners to take a critical stance of various images and symbols represented in historical fiction picture books) (Youngs, 2011, p. 122)

These strategies presented by Youngs and Serefini need to be considered as we prepare our learners for the real world. This framework can better prepare teachers for using historical fiction or any fictional picture book in the content curriculum.  It serves as a guide, but should help to focus on the teacher how picture book could be possibly used. I think it is important the teacher understand the framework so that parts as necessary can be modeled and taught to all learners.

Bibliography

Piercy, T. a. (2011). Disciplinary Literacyq. Englewood, Colorada: Lead and Learn Press.

Youngs, S. a. (2011). Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picture Book. The Reading Teacher , 115-124.

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Moving toward a literacy action model- social studies

December 4, 2011 · 4 Comments · 21st Century Literacies, Disciplinary Literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, social studies

Literacy in Action: 

In my November 3 post I wrote about the continuous raw data that flows through Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, forums, and other social media tools. When we look at the data, we have to put in place filters to understand the information that is being presented.  As we look at the data being presented, we have to think a different way in order to understand the message that is being communicated.

Teaching social studies today is a literacy act that expands greater than a lecture and watching a PowerPoint Presentation.  We can’t just capture the imagination of the learners in the classroom by just telling stories and saying we taught a social studies or history lesson.  The lessons from social studies go beyond collecting names, dates, and summaries of important historical events. Today this information in history is a click away.  Those born in this century and those who have embraced digital and social media are leaving specific footprints that can be studies by professional and amateur historian for decades and centuries to come.  We will leave behind a legacy of detailed life events of thoughts, opinions, and timelines of life’s events.

As we teach kids about social media we have to embrace the idea that we are all capable of being amateur journalist. Since we have that capacity, we must rethink the purpose of social studies instruction. Social Studies must transcend itself to an action model- literacy in action model of learning social studies. The focus of instruction should be to teach kids how to think critically about the past and the present events that unfold very quickly through social media, television, and/or other media. We live in a world that we each have the ability to write and contribute raw data that will make be used to assess events.  Today’s youth learn about world and local events through social media unlike the people from the past century who depended on television, newspaper, and radio.

For example, we have a free encyclopedia that is researched, written, cited, revised, and edited by the people of the world. Wikipedia has transformed how information is shared and transformed how a crowd of people who care contribute to an accurate history of the world. Everyone can contribute. Everyone can add an article as long as it meets a certain criteria.  And if doesn’t meet the criteria and is found not to be accurate, the people will come along and fix or they delete. Wikipedia is no fly by night encyclopedia. It must be taken serious by academia. It works because the people feel compelled to participate for the common good of society.  The people who offer their service to Wikipedia know how to apply filters to make sure what is being shared is most accurate. There job is not to convince other that an event, person, or place really happened but report the work accurately without biased. This means we all can be amateur historians and contribute to the common good to help with the betterment of society.

We must think in terms of transforming our instruction to meet the changes in our economy, global society which we live, the participatory society which we live, and the change roles of jobs and the work place in our world. The teaching of social studies must resemble a literacy in action model. History and social studies is a discipline of inquiry and analysis. “Doing History” is an active process of asking good question about the past and the present, finding and analyzing sources, and drawing conclusions supported by the evidence. And “doing history/social studies” is a literacy process.

 

“Doing history/social studies” requires literacy skills beyond the basic and the intermediate literacy stage.  Social Student by the sixth grade should begin applying disciplinary literacy skills in order to apply disciplinary literacy. Doing history requires learner to apply filters to people, events, and places in history to draw inferences. “The familiar past entices us with the promise that we can locate our own place in the stream of time and solidify our identity in the present. By tying our own stories to those who have come before us, the past becomes a useful resource in our everyday life, an endless storehouse of raw materials to be shaped or bent to our present needs.” (Piercy, 2011, p. 77) We have been told that history is a large body of indisputable facts about people, places, laws, wars, events, and dates (Mandell, 2007)

“Doing history/social studies” requires a literacy action. We must question what historians look for in a text, the information they seek to filter, and how they use what they infer/discover to share with an audience.  They use this to build an historical interpretation. Piercy and Piercy offers a Four-Stage Model of Text Investigation as medium of filtering. The model includes these four levels: context, text, and two subtexts: impersonal and personal.

First, historian view acts of writing as acts of speaking. In this writing (this blog post), contains my voice and it is my “speech act” in terms of text in this digital space.  My speech act is my communication- my voice and my thoughts and experiences and everything else that has affected my thinking. What I say here affects how you view the text. The context of my writing affects how you view the text. My voice in my writing may help you ignore how horribly I write and ignore the grammatical errors I seem to frequently make.

In other words, the context in this writing is based on me as an individual that includes what I know, think, and believe, what I am learning, how I view things, my personal biases, persuasive language and my experiences in life. The text is the speech act, the word on the page. Therefore, whatever you know about me affects how you view the text on the page and you will adapt your response accordingly.

Subtext- Impersonal and Personal: This writing was produced by me to fulfill a certain purpose or plan (impersonal subtext). Whether I accomplished that or not depends on what you think my personal motives and intentions include (personal subtext) and the personal subtext will have an effect on what you take away from reading this post.

We must take another look at the importance of social studies and how the understanding of literacy fits not only in pedagogical practices but a part of the teaching content. History/Social Studies is an action model of learning.

 

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Literacy in Action – Fear (Social Studies- Part 2)

November 25, 2011 · 1 Comment · Disciplinary Literacy, Literacy in Social Studies

In any period of rapid change (real or perceived) fear drives our emotions that add to our reluctance of change. I see this over and over as schools and school districts think about or don’t think at all about the role of social media for students, teachers and school administrators.  Page 10 Exhibit 1.3 in Piercy and Piercy’s book Disciplinary Literacy is a list of new items over the last few years that drove fear in this country. Below I have added to that list:

New Items

  • Economy in Greece
  • Swings of Wall Street (DOW Jones)
  • 2012 Presidential Campaign
  • US Legislature on dealing with the economy and budge issue
  • Occupy Wall Street Movement
  • Issues of Public Education- too much focus on negative

The school environment faces their own fears that shake people up.

  • Standardized testing
  • Political chatter from state and federal levels
  • Micro-management by school leaders
  • Common Core Standards
  • Technology
  • Incentive pay

 

“Fear can befriend change when it is not understood.” (Piercy, 2011, p. 10)

Social media plays role in compounding these fears as more and more viewpoints, raw data, opinions, news feeds, are share through so many different networks.  As an educator it is difficult for even I to grasp everything that is happening.

Fear is compounded.

What literacy actions must be in place to help learners of all ages think critically about what is happening?

Works Cited

Piercy, T. P. (2011). Disciplinary Literacy. Englewood, Colarado: Lead and Learn Press.

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Literacy in Action: Malcolm Gladwell

November 19, 2011 · No Comments · Disciplinary Literacy, Education Reform, learning, literacy

When can we begin to be honest about where we are at the moment! The four walls need to be broken down!  Read on….

“ Malcolm Gladwell explained during a presentation at the American Association of School Administrators’ 2010 superintendents’’ conference  that educators have worked within  the safety of four walls that education has erected around itself.  We visualized these walls as the educational research, philosophies, leaders selected from within districts, and specific college degrees that keep the field of education pure from outside influence. Global changes outside the four walls are having a major impact on education and learning. It is time to consider learning as something that is connected with world events. Global changes are now our houseguests.” (Piercy, 2011, p. 16)

Works Cited

Piercy, T. P. (2011). Disciplinary Literacy. Englewood, Colarado: Lead and Learn Press.

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Disciplinary Literacy Part 2

November 15, 2011 · No Comments · 21st Century Literacies, Common Core Standards, connective writing, Content-Area Writing, Disciplinary Literacy

There are different literacy connections within specific content areas that are different from the reading instruction a student may receive in an English or English Language Arts classroom. In content reading our goal is to get students to read primary and secondary sources like an expert would read those materials. We can never assume students at any grade level or even in College would have that skill.  When students read a primary source document such as a letter written by Thomas Edison, we would want that learner to read with the skills of a historian.

We can no longer expect the literacy skills needed to read in math, science, social studies, or literature to be only taught in English or English Language Arts. We have to recognize how different those skills are. “Text in these content areas have different structures, language conventions, vocabularies, and criteria for comprehension.” (Piercy, 2011, p. 64) No longer can teachers in other content area tell us that are not responsible for literacy instruction. Many teachers in these areas will struggle if they are not willing to take responsibility for literacy instruction in their content area. However, many of those teachers who struggle have not made the mind shift of the 21st century. Those teachers tend to rest on the laurels of time past and have not paid attention to changes that have happened outside the walls of education. How many educators have taken an honest look at the world our students live in and what motivates them? Take a moment and review this blog post: A Dropout Factory!!!! Read and Listen for Change. In both interview each youth stated that school was boring and had little to interest them.

In a previous blog post Literacy in Action, I conclude the post with these questions that would act as filters for reading in the content area.

Questioning the Context of the Information and its Source:

  1. Who is providing the information and how is that source connected to the topic?
  2. Can the source be trusted?
  3. What does this source have to gain by providing this view of information?
  4. In what way does this information, provided by the people accurately inform me?

Questioning Unfiltered Information:

  1. What claims or ideas in the information must be fact checked for accuracy?
  2. Is this a primary document or has it been recycled by others?
  3. Does the information create dilemma for me or others?
  4. How is the new information connect with me and my prior information?

Distributing Information to Others?

  1. What is my responsibility in reporting this information?
  2. Will my voice be perceived as reliable?
  3. How will my reporting contribute to interdependent- or other peoples’ understanding?
  4. What medium will best communicate this information with clarity to the public?
  5. What will be the possible impact or results of my reporting?

(Piercy, 2011)

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Elizabeth Birr Moje Talking about Disciplinary Literacy

November 13, 2011 · 6 Comments · Disciplinary Literacy, Podcast

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“Literacy thus becomes an essential aspect of disciplinary practice, rather than a set of strategies or tools brought into the disciplines to improve reading and writing of subject-matter texts,” Elizabeth Birr Moje wrote in Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change , which appeared in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.

Found this here at http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3041

And many thanks to the National Writing Project for leading me here.
Elizabeth Birr Moje Talking about Disciplinary Literacy on Huffduffer

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