Gardner 1

Kendra Gardner

Dr. Seahorn

EDUC 340

26 April 2016

Case Study

Part I:

Throughout the duration of this class, I have learned more about integrating literacy into the

classroom than I ever thought was possible for math. Every week in recitation we would learn a

teaching strategy that incorporated reading and writing and would look for it the following week

in the content area we were placed in for the day. Being put in different content areas gave us a

sense that those strategies could be used across any curriculum to help engage and interest the

students. Throughout the semester I was able to see the different methods used in English, Math,

Drama, Spanish, History, and an Integrated Services classroom. The way that each teacher

intertwined the literacy strategy into their content area showed me that all teachers are teachers

of reading because they constantly use literacy in their lessons to help accelerate students

learning.

In Mrs. Bauldridges Integrated Services class they created a verbal visual for a

classmates narrative by making a book cover that corresponded to their classmates story. On the

front cover they had to put at least one picture that described the story and on the back they had

to put an intriguing summary that would make readers want to read the narrative. Even though

this wasnt a flip Verbal Visual like we did in class, this strategy still allowed the students to

make a visual connection to the story they had read. By summarizing the other persons story

they had a few examples of close reading, by picking and choosing what elements they were
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going to put in the summary. This is one variation of a verbal visual which switches up the

traditional way of learning, but adds not only a visual aid, but a connection as well. We learned

in recitation that these can also be used with vocab words to help students remember the words

instead of having them rewrite the vocab words from a dictionary definition. The best

remembered information is learned through multiple and varied exposures (Willis 30). This

goes to show that students will learn best when they arent exposed to one learning strategy

repeatedly, its important to keep them on their toes.

When I observed Mr. Shinns eighth grade English class, they were learning about the

Holocaust and personal narratives. To help them understand the horror of concentration camps,

he used the RAFT activity by having the students write a personal narrative in the viewpoint of a

concentration camp member. Prior to the RAFT activity they read a book written by a

concentration camp survivor, which helped give them insight into the situation. This activity

sparked their creativity and allowed them to research more about the camps and work on their

personal narrative writing skills.

The next week I watched Mr. Shinn apply the different levels of questioning to appositives. He

was doing a lesson on what appositives were and gave the students a few examples while asking

questions like why is this an example of an appositive? and why would this sentence not be

an example of an appositive? to bring out their evaluation skills and to show him if they

understood the concepts. To get them to synthesize and apply the information they had learned,

he had them create an appositive and put it into the personal narrative they had previously

written. He then had them analyze and evaluate their own appositive and narrative by having

them fill out a self-evaluation answering the questions of What makes your appositive an

appositive?, What is the best part of your narrative?, and What can you fix and how would
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you fix it?. Dr. Seahorn has also talked to us about the importance of comprehension many

students know how to read, but whether they understand the material or not can be a different

story (Lecture). Applying levels of questioning throughout a lesson plan can make a huge

difference when it comes to students learning- it allows them to understand, evaluate, and

synthesize the important information. Students who are taught comprehension strategies such as

predicting, questioning, and summarizing improve their reading comprehension scores on both

experimenter-constructed tests and standardized tests (Ness).

I was able to observe Cornell notes in Mrs. Berkners eigth grade social studies classroom

while they were learning about the Indian Removal Act and the Sand Creek Massacre. She gave

them a mini lesson over the massacre on PowerPoint and then split them into groups of four.

Those students were then numbered one through four and then split into groups with the other

kids in the class that had the same number as they did. They were given an objective question to

keep in their mind while reading, and after doing research they would return to their original

groups and give their answer to their question to help make the worksheet go faster. I remember

learning this group method from Mrs. Holman, which she referred to as Divide and Conquer,

and is usually done to help make the work go faster, but still allows the students to learn the

information (Recitation). While in their number group they were given an article and were asked

to read it and fill out Cornell notes that corresponded to the article. She gave them guided

Cornell notes, which had the important questions they had to answer outlined. After reading and

filling out the notes, they got back together with their original group and told each other about

their articles. Even though this was a variation of Cornell notes, it was still a way for the students

to have organized notes that answered questions, and allowed them to summarize an answer for

their objective question at the end.

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In Mrs. Kochs sixth grade math class, she was able to incorporate text connections into

math by creating and finding word problems that dealt with slope intercept form and find ways to

relate those questions to her students, other texts, as well as the world. After teaching the lesson

and going through a few examples with them, she had the students break up into groups, and had

each CSU student take a group to work on problems with. The topics for the questions in the

packets were about pizza toppings, gym memberships, and icebergs. While reading the pizza-

topping question, they were given a ratio for the price of every topping. To make the students

more excited about the question, I asked them to tell me what 4 pizza toppings they would put on

their pizza and find the formula that way. The glacier problem, connecting the text to the world

gave some fun facts about glaciers and then asked them to find the rate at which the glacier was

moving every year. In the problem about the rate of a gym membership, she gave them a brain

break and found a way to relate some humor into the problem by showing her students a short

video clip on a comedian talking about the gym. By adding a few small connections to the

students packets, she was able to get them excited about learning slope-intercept form.

Part II:

On the first day of class I remember Dr. Seahorn repeatedly telling our class how

important incorporating literacy in every content area was. I also remember coming from a math

aspect, I didnt understand why that was so important. Throughout the semester after reading

about, learning about, and seeing different literacy strategies being put into action, my opinion

has changed. One of the most important aspects that Dr. Seahorn constantly reminded us

throughout the semester is the importance of reading. Without reading, one cannot learn or

express their thoughts and opinions through writing (Lecture). When teachers integrate writing

and reading, they help students use writing to think about what they will read and to understand
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what they have readWriting is also one of the most effective ways for students to understand

something (R. Vacca, J. Vacca, and Mraz 192). By using both in math, my students can read and

understand the material and then evaluate and synthesize by writing in math to show me their

thoughts and if they understand the concepts.

Math is usually one of the harder content areas to intertwine literacy strategies with

because it has its own language and the way we express it is not through words, but usually

characters and numbers. I was able to see text connections the day I was in Mrs. Kochs class,

which for math can be one of the harder literacy strategies to use. By watching what Mrs. Koch

had put together, followed the criteria to connect the word problems to her students, other texts,

and the world. By seeing this, it sparked some ideas for when I become a math teacher. Text

connections are a great strategy to use when doing word problems, especially slope intercept or

when teaching a lesson on law of cosine or using SOHCAHTOA. As a teacher, I would have the

freedom to make up my own word problems that could relate to the students, other texts they

have seen, as well as give fun facts about the world while having them find the missing side of a

triangle.

Prior to this class, I had never heard of Cornell notes. For math though they would be

perfect, because they keep everything very organized. In my content area, I would have the

students take notes while I teach the lecture, and then as part of their homework every night

before their assignment I would have them go back and write the questions to the right handed

column in the cue column to help them organize their notes even more. I also remember Mrs.

Holman showing us some examples, some of which had a box in the upper corner that they could

put formulas for a quick guide (Recitation). As a prior student I know that would have been

extremely helpful, so I would incorporate that as well.

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One of my favorite strategies we learned was the RAFT activity. In math it can be

difficult to come up with creative ideas for students to show their knowledge without giving

them a packet of problems. RAFT is an easy strategy to use when testing students knowledge on

rules for functions, formulas or shapes. In recitation we read some cute examples, one being a

break up letter from area to perimeter because of their differences- this showed the students

understanding of the material, and you could tell they really enjoyed it and got excited about the

assignment. If I were teaching the differences between functions I would use the RAFT strategy

to have the students take on the role of the function, to write to an audience who doesnt

understand the function, and their format could be a letter, poem, or even newspaper article to

show what their function can or cannot do and who (what functions) it can associate with.

A great way to get ones thoughts down in a visual way is through semantic mapping. In

math they can be very helpful for students to see the similarities and differences of functions or

formulas. They are also a great way to write down procedures so students know why they do

what and when theyre suppose to do it. Another way I have even used semantic mapping in my

math classes is before tests, you write down everything youve learned in that chapter in a web

and use the web to show how topics to relate to each other. As a teacher, I would use this strategy

the most in notes, especially when differentiating between the different types of special right

triangles, or what the areas of each shape are. I would also have my students get into groups

before tests or quizzes and have them make a semantic map of all of the topics we have covered

and show how each lesson relates to the other.

For all subjects, weve all been in the situation when handed a list of 30 plus vocabulary

words and been asked to memorize the definition by finding it in the dictionary and copying it

down without thinking what it really means. The verbal visual method that we learned this
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semester is a great way for students to have a little more fun as well as visually connect to the

word. A great way to have students understand the definitions is to have students make little

verbal visuals for each word. They dont take to long and also help the student remember what

they learned. Before a test too, an activity I would like to incorporate would be to assign each

student a vocab word, in which they create a little verbal visual and then do a hand up, stand up,

pair up with their classmates to help them remember the words. During the hand up, stand up,

pair up, the students could show each other the definition and their visual and have their peer

guess the word.

After this class, I have seen how intertwining literacy into math is more important than

most would think. Mathematics is represented by numbers and symbols, however those numbers

and symbols are learned through literacy and understanding the material before applying them.
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Work Cited

Holman, Debbie and Orswell, Nicole. Wellington Middle School. Wellington, CO. n.d.

Recitation.

Ness, Molly. Reading Comprehension Strategies in Secondary Content-Area Classrooms.

ProQuest. 89.3 (2007). 229-231. Web.

Seahorn, Janet. Colorado State University. Education Building, Fort Collins, CO. n.d. Lecture.

Willis, Judy. Ignite Student Learning. Alexandria: The Association for Supervision and

Curriculum Development. 2006. Print.

Vacca, Richard T., Vacca, Jo Anne L., and Mraz, Maryanne E. Person Custom Education.

Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011. Print.