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Building and Enhancing Literacies

The document summarizes a content area literacy methods course for preservice secondary teachers. The course introduces a multiliteracy approach and uses digital tools like wikis, Skype, and blogs to engage students in constructing meaning through multiple modes of representation. Students create a digital literacy narrative and maintain a reflective blog. They also participate in an online discussion with authors and other students to expand voices in the classroom community. The goal is to prepare teachers to effectively teach a wide range of students using relevant reading material and participatory instruction.

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Angelica Alican Cerbito
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42 views

Building and Enhancing Literacies

The document summarizes a content area literacy methods course for preservice secondary teachers. The course introduces a multiliteracy approach and uses digital tools like wikis, Skype, and blogs to engage students in constructing meaning through multiple modes of representation. Students create a digital literacy narrative and maintain a reflective blog. They also participate in an online discussion with authors and other students to expand voices in the classroom community. The goal is to prepare teachers to effectively teach a wide range of students using relevant reading material and participatory instruction.

Uploaded by

Angelica Alican Cerbito
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bringing New Literacies into

the Content Area Literacy


Methods Course
The Content Area Reading and
Writing Course
Content Area Reading and Writing course designed
for secondary preservice teachers who are in a
range of disciplines: secondary English, science,
mathematics, foreign language, social studies, art,
music, and physical education
Though students are all provided with
multiple opportunities to define what
literacy will mean in their own
practice, the course begins by
presenting the claim that “the
changes of a new world in new times
require that we not only teach
reading and writing of print, but that
we teach youth how to use reading
and writing in conjunction with many
other forms of representation to
construct a socially just and
democratic society”
We use media, produce media,
and engage in literate practices
as a way of engaging in the
world . ew digital tools require
and make possible new ways of
constructing and communicating
meaning, leading multiple forms
of media (not just print text) to
have authority for
representation.
Teaching through a multiliteracy or
multimodal approach is a very different kind
of teaching, one in which language and other
modes of meaning are dynamic, opening up
what counts as valued communication within
the classroom and inviting new voices into the
classroom interpretive community.
Technology is modeled through instructor use
during class (as with the use of tools like wikis or
Skype, which are used to amplify instruction
around class discussion) and through the
expectations embedded in assignments
conducted within and outside of class. The
technology is woven transparently into the
curriculum, as the point of the class is to focus
around multiple strategies and learning
experiences that will allow them to be more
effective in teaching their particular content to a
wide range of student readers and writers
Digital Storytelling Through the
Construction of a Literacy Narrative
At the beginning of the course, students create
a digital story in which they offer either a
personal literacy narrative or address those
key ideas they find intriguing about using
literacy to support the learning of content
material and what deep and real concerns
students have about doing so. From some
extensive prewriting, students script,
storyboard, and develop a 3-5 minute digital
story bringing together narration, image, print
text, motion, and color in a richly layered
multimodal composition
This work is as much about dialogue as it is
expanding who has voice and ownership in the
classroom. Teachers who invite students to take an
active role in content area reading and learning base
their instruction on students’ needs and interests as
much as possible. This is done through choosing
relevant reading material, making students aware of
their progress toward short and long term goals, or
simply providing an open forum for discussion. In
effect, these are the elements of participatory
classroom instruction
Over the course of the semester
students are required to maintain a
reflective weblog (or “blog”), which
brings together both their own
learning and thinking about course
content (and their eventual teaching)
and their responses to the thoughts
and questions posed by peers within
the class interpretive community.
During the class, students participate in an
online discussion with some of the authors
they have read throughout the term and other
classes of students (both preservice and
practicing teachers, as well as content area
majors) studying the same or similar texts.
Students facilitate the discussion and are
responsible for making contact with
participants outside of the class in order to
provide any needed technical assistance in
working with Skype or iChat.

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