Developing Literacy in MST

(Authored by Richard Gardner)

Today’s students are growing up in a digital age. YouTube, twitter, facebook, MySpace, and many other social networking sites are now all integral parts of the high school scene. Students of all ages produce and upload countless videos, photos, data, and text documents to share with their friends. The only problem with this is- where does the sharing end? In his June 22, 2009 posting on his blog “The Fischbowl“, Karl Fisch says this:

I talk a lot about how we should be discussing this idea with students and that whatever they publish – whether on a blog or a wiki or Facebook or MySpace or Twitter or. . . [fill in your favorite site here] – that it very likely will be able to be found later by a potential college, employer or spouse. I also talk about how we shouldn’t just be talking to students about not putting potentially compromising stuff out there, but that they should also be building a positive digital footprint, so that when they are Googled – and they will be – that folks will find really good stuff about them, that they should think of this as part of their digital resume/portfolio.

It is easy to imagine how today’s students may have a lifetime’s worth of documentation stored on their MySpace profile by the time that they graduate from high school. All of that information is viable to be copied, changed, and stored on any other computer by almost anyone in the world. This raises an important question: should we be teaching kids to be aware of, and monitor their ‘digital footprints’?

In this class we have talked quite a bit about 21st century skills, getting kids literate not only in reading and writing, but also avid users of the modern tools that surround them. But do these new abilities come at the price of safety and privacy?

I believe that teaching students to control their digital footprints would be a very necessary use of class time. I am a biology teacher at heart, and part of any good lab experiment is safety. Goggles, gloves, and other safety equipment are a usual and integral part of any lab experience. It makes no sense to me that web skills should lack safety lessons.

Where do we start teaching kids about online safety when participating in web 2.0 technologies? I’m sure that there are many answers but one may be the Digital Footprint Calculator. Put out by an internet data management company called EMC2, the Digital Footprint Calculator is a free program that gives you an estimated amount of digital information recorded about you from websites, credit cards, surveillance cameras, and many other sources. How valid this is for use in the classroom, I’m not sure. However, it is a place to start. Getting students to think about this important topic will generate new ideas and promote the safety of their online endeavors for years to come.

In their book, Subjects Matter, authors Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman write,

In short: understanding what we do now, we will teach reading, not just assign it, though that doesn’t mean we are turning into reading teachers.  We are specialists – science, math, history, art, music, foreign language people – to the bone.  The difference is, we’ll break the work up into steps for kids, and provide help along the way.  We’ll be using methods, tools, activities, and procedures that help our students understand and remember our content better – and maybe even, dare we hope, get interested in it.  Which is right back where we started.

So going right back to where you started this class, in what ways will your professional practice be impacted or changed by what you’ve learned in class?

(Authored by Kristina Dye)

If a paper follows all grammar, punctuation, and all writing rules, does it matter that it was written at a certain grade level?  What does it even mean to have a grade level 19 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level?  Does this number really determine the quality of the writing or the book?  What is there in a number if the content and meaning is lost?

I am not stating that it is acceptable to write a paragraph like the following in the eighth grade. ‘The dog ran fast. It ran past me. Wow!  What a fast dog.’  I am questioning whether it is acceptable to write at a grade level lower than the student’s actual grade, as long as the content and meaning, sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar are not that of a small child first learning to write?

I know that we discussed the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and the Flesch Reading Ease, but it was touched on briefly.  We also learned how to start the program running in Microsoft Word.  However, I wanted to know where Flesch-Kincade acquired their formulas to pin point a grade level rating and what it means for writing. I also wanted to inquire how much impact it has on the students and teachers.

Wikipedia points out that the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and the Flesch Reading Ease are two mathematical formulas that are used to assess the level of writing.  The foundation of both formulas is the amount of words in the sentence as well as the length of the words.  Although, word length and sentence length are used by both they are factored in differently allowing the Reading Ease to show you how readable something is, and the Grade level to give you a grade level that the writing/reading associates with.  Wikipedia also explains how to use the results.  But where do they get the numbers for each formula and how do they know what weighs more?  Joe’s Web Tools takes it a bit farther by giving a brief history of the two equations; even there it is not explained as to where the numbers come from.  I was unable to find anymore information about the start of the two formulas.

One issue I have with both the Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level and the Flesch Reading Ease is both do not take into account homophones, sentence flow, proper word use, or even if it makes sense.  If you are unable to pull meaning from reading because there is nothing there and not lack of skills, then it was a waste of time.  It does not matter what number it gets.  For example, I fabricated the following to see if it mattered what I wrote to get a high score for writing.

Monotheistic governments tend to have insurmountable amounts of

antidisestablishmentarianisms to contend with this year.  Governments will communicate their assessment of the final judgment decision they comprehend for a measurable means of terminating the matter.  Leading advocates for antidisestablishmentarianism concluded that pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis is underpinning by

Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis.

All of these words are real words, but good luck finding meaning out of what I wrote. On the test provided for Microsoft Word I was able to get a score of 20.5(a great score if you are writing a college level paper right?) on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and a 0 on the Flesch Reading Ease.  When I put this into the website Blue Centauri Consulting-Writing Analyzer , I got the score of 17.5 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level and a -14 on the Flesch Reading Ease.  Both scores indicate if you are in college you should be able to read and understand what I just wrote, but with some difficulty.  Yet the numbers don’t match.  Does this mean that there is a discrepancy in the mathematics, decreasing the validity? Or does this mean that there is not much difference between 17 and 20?

Mary Ann Hogan writes on Knight Foundations Communication Portal states  that Flesch can not distinguish between poems and a bunch of words put together. for example

““These are the times that try men’s souls.” – Thomas Paine

(Flesch Score: 100)

The girl, water man, in a horse set grass.

(Also Flesch: 100)”

http://www.knightcommunications.org/workshop/flesch_and_the_common_man

There is far more meaning, and more to analyze, within the first quote than in the second mess of words.  Can a student read or write all the words that were in both? Yes, but can they draw meaning from both? If being graded in school, would you give the two the same?  Doesn’t one show far more understanding and logic than the other? Yet they got the same score.

Here are a few other opinions from Writers Circle.  In this blog the writers discuss their own writing and where it falls in the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests.  One writer points out that from one chapter to the next the grade range changes.  So where does that place that book on the scale?  Another writer points out what the tests do not factor in.

So my over all question is how can we determine if someone is writing or reading up to level if the only way to measure it is to give it a number based on sentence length and word length and excluding a lot of key elements?

(authored by Pamela Kirby)

When you think of a book, what do you think of?  An old, heavy, dusty hardcover that hasn’t been opened in ages?  The latest best-seller with a flashy colorful cover?  However you imagine books, you probably think of something bound and containing pages.  We have been told that students (and adults) need to read 25 books each year.  But what about the other things that we read: newspapers, magazines, online articles and blogs?  Do these not count because they aren’t published in book form?  What if we printed them out and had them bound into book form, would they then somehow magically become books?

Many experts are saying that everyone should read 25 books a year, without any comment about the presumed length of the book.  Harry Potter is very popular with many children, but those books are obviously much longer than other popular books.  Do the longer books count as two?  The person reading them is obviously reading more than someone reading a shorter book.  The 25 Books Campaign is the only place where I saw any distinction between different grade levels.  It suggests several books a day up until 2^nd grade where they recommend 1 book a day, 30 books a year in 3^rd grade, and down to 25 books a year after  that.  This makes sense to me as the older students have to read longer, and presumably more difficult, books.  While many people feel that this is too much to expect students to read, Mobile Alba Middle School principal James Gill says he believes that many students are achieving that goal already.  The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) has shown that reading 25 books within one school year would take less than 30 minutes each day.  According to the Jim Trelease, quoted by the SREB, reading is so important that it actually affects the length of your life.  Reading more will actually help you to live longer.  On the other hand, the less you read, the more likely you are to end up in jail.  According to HighBeam Research, 25% of adults did not read a single book in 2006.  As teachers, we need to encourage students to read independently and hopefully enjoy the process.  Thus, when they are no longer in school with assigned readings, they will be self-motivated to continue to read on their own so they can live a longer and successful life.

But what about all of the non-book reading that we and our students do every day?  Should it count toward the 25 book goal?  The SREB stated that students should read the equivalent of 25 books a year, while every other group seems to simply suggest 25 books.  Are books really that much better (or important) than magazine articles, newspapers, research papers, and websites?  Is there a reason that these should not be included?  According to Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading, some people argue that there is no evidence that reading things on the Web improves achievement in reading, but is in fact causing a decline in the ability of people to focus for longer periods of time on reading.  Some scientists are even speculating that reading online is somehow rewiring the brain, making it even more difficult for already struggling students to focus on longer readings.

One study shows that “reading novels is the only kind of reading that related to higher academic performance” and “predicted better grades in English class and higher overall grade point averages” (Literacy Debate).  Does this have to do with the value of the reading, or the way classes are taught and students are graded?  Some scientists argue that “reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage in the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode” (Literacy Debate).  However, it seems that this statement deals more with the engagement of the reader than it does the paper versus digital presentation of the information.  Yes, there are some very bad websites out there that would not necessarily be beneficial to a reader, but there are also some very poorly-written books.  Would it not be better to read a well-written website than a poorly-written or outdated book?  Internet reading often provides a way to dialogue with other readers and, so it would seem, could spark even more in-depth analysis of the reading.  Some argue that, since one easily can read many types of websites and many points of view on a topic on the internet, it might actually be more beneficial to the reader than reading a single, yet longer, book on the subject.  Another study was done using low-income families and demonstrated that providing access to the internet for these students helped to increase their ability to perform well on standardized tests.  Perhaps good reading, no matter what the medium, is really the key to success.

(Post authorized by Andrea Nikolaou)

This class has taught me so much about literacy.  As a student, I viewed reading as a chore that had to be done.  It was difficult for me to get through any reading assignment.  Now, as a graduate student, I see where my problem was with reading, I was not receiving support prior, during, or after a reading assignment.  If only I had a teacher who could have seen me struggling, I could have learned how to “read” much earlier.  As an adult, I learned that reading quick did not mean as much as absorbing what you read.  Angela Maiers expands on this in her blog, Mini-Lesson: Turning Good Readers into GREAT Readers!

Another important concept I have gained is that literacy is important in every course a student takes.  Reading in English is much different than reading a word problem in math.  It takes experience to recognize key words in a word problem and it should be our responsibility to teach our students how to do that on their own.  Reading should not only be based on word problems but also on articles or Internet based websites.  Incorporating technology is another important concept I have taken from this course.  One great award winning software that every school should have is Geometer’s Sketchpad.  This software allows students to explore ideas and move images that would have only been seen illustrated in a textbook.

This brings me to my next concern.  So many teachers are not willing to change with the times.  Students today are referred to as our 21st Century Students.  With this label come certain requirements.  Students today need to be challenged “with real world data, tools, and experts they will encounter in college, on the job, and in life (21st Century Standards).”  Angela Maiers extends on this in her blog Chalk Talk: Breakout the “Cs” Edition.

(Post authored by Jane Lungershausen)

In regards to strategies, methods, and lessons revolving around content area reading, we’ve learned quite a bit in this class. I had no idea there were so many creative ways to introduce students to reading, help them during reading, and ask them to recall what they’ve already read, all to help them better understand the big picture and key topics. Many of these strategies I foresee myself using in my own classroom. We have also looked at a sampling of different texts (namely books) that we might be interested in reading with our classes. Our text, Subjects Matter, also offers an extensive list of books that have been successfully used in other classrooms. It is almost overwhelming, the variety of choices there are out there. How are we, as content area teachers, to pick out the best texts to use in our classrooms? While a book may have worked for one teacher, it may not work as well for the next. How do we know the book we choose is the best one for our class at that time?

I do not have an answer for this, but Angela Maiers’ blog post on New Relationships with Content shows us how our students react to content area reading. After asking a group of students what they thought was involved in content readings, many responded, “”facts to be memorized,” “vocabulary to be defined,” and strategies to “remember EVERYTHING to pass the test!”” We don’t want our students to think like this every time they are asked to read something. So, we have to better prepare ourselves. Take a look at the list Angela provides in her blog, which she borrowed from Rajesh Setty. This list compiles many different methods people (and students) use when reading content. When choosing a text for our classes, we can use this list to consider whether one is suitable or not. We can ask ourselves: Will my students view this as spam, or will they stop, shift, or maybe even subscribe to it?

After we successfully choose, read, and reflect on our text, why not have the kids write about it, using this same set of principles? Aside from the RAFTS assignment, we haven’t talked much about writing activities in this class, but literacy is actually defined as the ability to read and write. Will Richardson cites a powerful quote from Deborah Brandt in his recent blog post about writing on the internet:

Some of the resistance to a more writing-centered curriculum, she  says, is based on the view that writing without reading can be  dangerous because students will be untethered to previous thought,  and reading levels will decline. But that view, she says, is “being  challenged by the literacy of young people, which is being developed  primarily by their writing. They’re going to be reading, but they’re  going to be reading to write, and not to be shaped by what they read.

Reading and writing are co-pilots that work together in literacy. Why, then, don’t we promote more extensive writing activities rather than just focus on reading strategies?

(Post written by Cynthia Mosher)

Literacy is the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. Students are expected to be literate by the time they reach a secondary science classroom. Teachers expect them to understand, and communicate, both in oral and written form, enough of the native language that they can concentrate on the subject content matter at hand. This seems to be too insurmountable a task however, as “approximately two thirds of eight and twelfth grade students read at less than the proficient level,” according to the National Institute for Literacy.

The new solution to this problem is that we, as content area teachers, must now implement literacy strategies in our classrooms, that should have, and may have unsuccessfully (remember two thirds of our students are still not proficient) been implemented in previous years. The neural pathways for language skills are laid down early in life, and the most effective time for a child to learn “literacy” is during this window. If the child is raised in an illiterate household, are we as content “specialists,” in middle or secondary school, really going to be able to accomplish any more than what the early childhood teachers could?  If the student has any sort of reading deficiencies by the time they reach secondary school, are we instead adding to the feelings of helplessness by throwing more reading, even with scaffolding, at them?

We are also combating the loss of interest in math and science that is occurring as students progress through their schooling. Many researchers support the school of thought that science must be more hands on, and “inquiry based,” as a way to make the curriculum more relevant to today’s student. They feel that to engage these students, we must design experiments and activities in a community of learning, allowing students to collaborate and build on their prior knowledge. Much of the learning should be through discussion and group work, not independent reading. Let’s be honest here, if we assign a group of students a reading assignment, the struggling reader will let the proficient students carry them in that area, and contribute where their strengths lie.

And what about that one third of students that is reading proficient? What do we do with these students while we teach literacy skills? Force them to practice skills they normally do with minimal thought? Let them work on other class work, so the struggling students must again play catch up? Or do we let them free read? Talk amongst themselves? Design extra lessons, or assign the horrible “busy work?” Will we begin to have classroom management issues? By having these literacy lessons, are we reviving the behavior management issues that we thought we could resolve by teaching inquiry based lessons? And for what? So that we can brag that the number of students in our school that are literacy proficient increased this year by one or two students? I say we save the extra money that would be spent on these high school literacy programs and put it where it will really work, better daycare subsidies for the welfare and working poor; free,easily accessible local preschool centers; and mandatory screening and attendance for toddlers not meeting verbal growth milestones.

(Post by Brad Bovenzi)

We have been talking a lot in this class about how textbooks are falling further into disfavor.  An article posted today (6/7/2009) on Boston.com, entitled “Call It Gutenberg 2.0” advances the argument even further.  The article recaps the recent Book Expo in NYC.  Perhaps it’s not just the textbooks.  Perhaps the entire “species” is heading toward extinction.

The article discusses how book sales are down.  At the same time, sales for digital books are steadily climbing.  Amazon.com, with its Kindle has become a major player in the digital market.  Book publishers, worried that they’ll end up like the music industry, have taken proactive measures to avoid downloading and piracy.  And so a Book Expo includes numerous digital media as well as print media.

This leaves me wondering.  The Kindle is advertised as being able to hold thousands of books in memory.  When was the last time you needed to carry thousands of books with you?  Usually, I would not have more than the one that I’m reading at that moment.  That one book might have cost me at most $25 if I splurged for a hardcover copy.  A Kindle costs $359.  One of my students had a Kindle.  I looked at it.  I don’t see the point.  What am I missing here?  Is my life really better served by being able to access page 75 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at a moment’s notice?

A more philosophical point, though, is this.  What would a world without print books resemble?  I’m already dreading the day that the CD disappears entirely.  What about the day that the last book comes off a print line?  Will we ever have to see that?