Overview
This course is designed to help prospective secondary teachers in all content areas:
- develop competency in the utilization of reading and writing strategies, assessments, vocabulary building, comprehension, and special needs adaptations, and
- increase and enhance students’ learning, especially from printed materials.
Major approaches to teaching reading to students in grades 6 to 12 will be explored. An emphasis will be on practical application of the course content to the classroom setting. The secondary certification candidates should be able to demonstrate competency in their knowledge of contemporary theory, research, wisdom of practice, modeling and analysis, and protected practice.
Objectives
MSDE Course Content Guidelines
1. Participants will implement a coherent literacy program that supports content area learning.
2. Participants will use a variety of strategies to promote students independence in content area reading.
3. Participants will use a variety of texts and approaches, including technology, to assist students who are having difficulty in reading.
4. Participants will incorporate methods in the content areas to address the diverse backgrounds of their students including culture, language (dialect and ESOL), disabilities, and giftedness.
5. Participants will teach lessons in the content areas focused on text-based concept development.
6. Participants will facilitate appropriate learning experiences for students with various reading abilities.
7. Participants will use formal and informal writing strategies to facilitate student learning in the content areas.
Logistics
This course typically is offered in the Fall and you must be accepted into Phase I.
Assignments generally include but are not limited to
1. Text Complexity Evaluation: You will choose three texts, either ones used in your placement or something new, and evaluate them according to text complexity and map out a strategic plan for helping students at different levels approach and engage with these texts.
2. Close Reading Lesson and Reflection: You will choose an appropriate length reading to help students engage in reading with a text where students read the passage at least three times.
3. Text Dependent Questions: You will choose four different texts and write a text dependent question for each text.
4. Vocabulary Lesson: Every content area teacher must ensure that students know the vocabulary for their content area. You will write and demonstrate a lesson that demonstrates the latest research in content area vocabulary.
5. Series of Writing Lessons: Engaging students in a complex and in depth writing assignment means that they must engage in a writing process where you teach writing and just not assign it. You will write a series of lessons that help students compose, revise, and edit and include a rubric for grading the assignment. This will look different according to your content area and your writing assignment but will consist of more than two days of lessons.
6. Technology Lesson**: You will create a WebQuest or SMART Board lesson that allows students to engage in meaningful interdisciplinary, collaborative learning and higher order thinking through the use of text and technology.
7. Inquiry Circle: You will investigate a topic of your choosing with a group interested in the same topic. Your group will present your findings and recommendations. You will also write an annotated bibliography and reflection on the process. EDUC 659 students: You will be required to read one additional theoretical text.
8. Literacy in the Classroom Investigation: You will conduct an investigation of how literacy is actually being addressed at your placement. You will observe students and interview teachers and support personnel at your placement about the literacy needs of your students and the realities of incorporating literacy instruction in your content area. Your investigation should emphasize the unique and specific needs of the diverse populations in your context. You will identify best practices as well as barriers to literacy instruction and draw conclusions about what can be done to realistically meet the literacy development needs of the students.
9. Unit Plan Literacy Integration and Text Web: You will submit 1-3 lessons for your Methods course Unit Plan to demonstrate how you will include literacy instruction as a means of developing content knowledge and content literacy. You will turn in formal lesson plans with rationales as well as a Text Web or List describing the multiple modes of text that can be used in relation to your unit and an overview of literacy and its importance in your content area.
**Key Assessment