Improving Adolescent Literacy

1. Improving Adolescent Literacy Andrea Farmer, NBCT CCR Summit 2010 Marksville, LA

2. What is Literacy & Why is it Crucial for Adolescents? • Literacy is a complex activity that involves deep understanding through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and critical thinking within contexts. • Literacy is a lifelong enterprise. Individuals do not learn to read and write, once and for all, but again and again, in contexts of meaningful use.  • We expect adolescents to read and write for multiple purposes and audiences and in a variety of situations. Excerpt from: http://www.ncte.org/governance/AdolescentLiteracy

3. What Does this Mean for Educators? • Building comprehension and making and articulating meaning, literacy of adolescents is integrally linked to academic excellence. • Learning the content of the disciplines, such as science or math, is as much about learning to read, write, and talk about the content as it is learning the concepts and facts. • All educators need to assist students in mastering literacy skills to be utilized in all subjects. • The embedding of literacy strategy instruction within the context of subject-specific content and concepts is the most effective method for improving adolescent literacy.

4. Content Literacy Strategies Instructional practices that braid reading, writing, and thinking with content material from the disciplines Strategies that are research based that focus our attention on instructional strategies that work Instructional practices that are useful and teach students independent strategic reading and writing processes for content area learning Content area appropriate to be transported by student throughout his or her day that can be used in every content area There are 18 literacy strategies embedded in the revised comprehensive curriculum.

5. Today’s Focus There are three main factors that hinder adolescents’ mastery of the content in every class: • Vocabulary • Comprehension and • ???

6. Why Direct Vocabulary Instruction? • Past Practice: Students look up the definitions of vocabulary words in the dictionary. • Many students don’t understand the definitions. • Students don’t make connections between the definitions and the application of the words.

7. Define Hurricane Hurricanes are ...

8. Define Hurricane Hurricanes are almost perfect Carnot heat engines, operating off the thermodynamic disequilibrium between the tropical ocean and atmosphere, made possible by the greenhouse effect.

9. Hurricane Unit Vocabulary Card Definition: a tropical cyclone with winds of 74 miles per hour or more Characteristics: high winds; usually occurs over warm water; usually accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightning Hurricane Example: Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav Illustration:

10. Vocabulary Cards:Mnemonic Device Definition Illustration Characteristics Examples

11. Vocabulary Card • Identify a list of key vocabulary terms from the lesson and have students write them in the center of a 3x5 index card. As material is covered and content is read, guide students as they fill out their cards with the required information. • Once cards are completed, allow time for students to review their words individually and with a partner. • Note: You may require students to learn other information or demonstrate other applications with the terms, which would necessitate a modification of the card features described here.

12. GISTing Activity Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with the lengths of the sides and size of the angles of triangles. Trigonometry has found wide use in the physical sciences and engineering. In a nutshell, it is a small branch of mathematics with a large domain of application. Trigonometry is a useful science by itself for its direct applications to such jobs as surveyor or architect, where triangles are explicitly used. However, many other jobs require trigonometry, because the trigonometric functions can be rewritten in different forms.

13. The GIST of Trigonometry __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

14. GISTing Activity Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with the lengths of the sides and size of the angles of triangles. Trigonometry has found wide use in the physical sciences and engineering. In a nutshell, it is a small branch of mathematics with a large domain of application. Trigonometry is a useful science by itself for its direct applications to such jobs as surveyor or architect, where triangles are explicitly used. However, many other jobs require trigonometry, because the trigonometric functions can be rewritten in different forms.

15. The GIST of Trigonometry Mathematics Sides Angles Triangles Useful Applications Manyjobs

16. The GIST of Trigonometry Trigonometry: useful mathematics of triangles with many applications for jobs.

17. GISTing • Select a relatively short paragraph. • Establish a limited number of words, represented by spaces that will be used to summarize the paragraph. • Students read the first sentence and write a statement in the spaces capturing the essential information of the sentence. • As students read each sentence, rework the statement to include the new information.

18. Today’s Focus There are three main factors that hinder adolescents’ mastery of the content in every class: • Vocabulary • Comprehension and • ???

19. What About that Third Factor? There are three main factors that hinder adolescents’ mastery of the content in every class: • Vocabulary • Comprehension and • Motivation

20. How Do We Motivate Adolescents? • Make connections to their world. • “In this play, Julius Caesar was betrayed by his friends. Write about a time one of your friends did something that hurt you.” • Give them a purpose for what they are doing. • “By learning to find the area (length times width) we can do many things such as determine how much tile to buy to redo the floor in our classroom.” • Tap into their interests. • “Military strategies used in war are very similar to plays we set up in sports. Who can describe for me how you would set up your offensive and defensive lines if you were a military general?” • Set them up to experience genuine success. • Even a small success can make a huge difference!

21. Improvement…We must become the change we want to see. -Mahatma Gandhi

22. Thank you for your time and attention! Contact Information: Andrea Farmer, NBCT Andrea.farmer@la.gov 225-342-3599