Lots of Magic

Last week in class, we were told to make up a starter or bell-ringer for a class that would require students to engage in content literacy. So of course, I just googled a bell ringer of math and this is what I found:

My instructions were to work the problem then write out how you got your answer, then discuss with a partner your process. This would allow students to write out their thinking process and discuss with their partner misconceptions and methods.

For this weeks reading, we read Cris Tovani's text, "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" Chapter 3. Throughout this chapter, I realized how important it is for all the teachers of various content to work together in order for our students to be well rounded in content literacy. For example, the math teachers would teach how to go about doing word problems and dissecting graphs. Science teachers would teach how to read science text and understand data. Literature and English teachers could then go over fiction or non fiction books and poems that help students. If all teachers helped out students become literate in their content, students would benefit so much. Tovani then mentioned some strategies in which we could help our students, first by identifying what your students are struggling with, then modeling with them how you read these difficult texts, and lastly share with them how you overcame these struggles. When reading this, I thought these were three clear and practical steps that were relevant across all content areas. Before starting this class on content literacy, I was similar to the Melanie that Tovani mentioned. She said, "If someone could teach these kids how to read, I could teach them science." I feel that if not educated on content literacy, a lot of us, as teachers, have this mindset, but if we all work together, we can make our students more literate over all contents.

While trying to help out our students become literate on a variety of content, we have to embrace the technology that is constantly becoming more and more advanced. We know that our students are very literate with the technology have today, so why not use it as a tool to help them. I watched Kate McKnight's video on Educational Technology in the 21st century and I absolutely loved how she explained its importance. She explained that is our job to explore different means of technology such as: Edmodo, GoogleDocs, Twitter, or Moodle. She revealed this strategy where a teacher posed a question to her students on google docs. Each of the kids had a laptop and they would respond to the question. The teacher was then able to respond to her students ideas and questions. This strategy allows everyone in the classroom to participate at the same time!! The teacher is also able to watch and participate with her students on a space that they all can go back to in the future. I hope to use this strategy with my future classes. I am really looking forward to trying it.

So I've talked about starting off the class with content literacy, and continuing it throughout the lesson, but what are we supposed to do before we start with a difficult text? I think pre-reading is very important so you can prepare yourself for what you are about to read. I found this blog that talked about the importance of pre-reading (The Reading Corner). Shantell writes:

I love how she worded this and it really shows why it is important! Yay Shantell!

I hope you enjoyed this week's dose of magic:)

~The Teach Fairy