Corben's Blog - Content Area Literacies for Middle Grades

Starting off the semester, I was confused as to how this class would work. How could social studies and especially science be incorporated into literacy. It also does not help that literacy has never been my favorite or best subject. When looking at the syllabus, I did not know how any of the assignments would help to connect these subjects. However, my opinion of the connection changed drastically as the semester went on.   I think the most important thing we learned in class were the reading strategies. The reading strategies were explained in the book we read throughout the semester, Subjects Matter . When we first were introduced to them, I thought that they were insignificant. I thought this because a lot fo them for me were automatic. I automatically assumed what happened before I ever read a text. I always underlined or highlighted. I have always made automatic connections while reading any sort of text. After reading, without making myself, I always summarized th...

Teaching History is a great resource for teachers. The website has teaching materials, history content, and many practices. The website offers material for elementary, middle and high school. When you click on teaching materials, it gives you many different links to lesson plan reviews and many teaching guides. Teaching History gives many different topics to choose from. When you click on history content, it brings you to a link that shows a link for website reviews, a link that is for multiple types of other texts, a list of history quizzes and national resources. The website reviews section helps you to find quality websites as well as primary sources. Beyond the text gives a different point of view than a traditional textbook. The history quiz section gives a list of pre-made quizzes of many topics. The national resources gives a list of different federal teaching resources like the Smithsonian. The last tab, best practices, also gives lots of helpful tools. For example, th...

This week’s reading and recently in class we have been discussing book clubs. Before this I have never considered a book club for a non-literature class. In my prior years of school I had never experienced this idea either. After reading this section, I have come to favor the idea. I think that the small groups allow for students to better pitch their ideas. This also allows for more creativity. Since there are not as many people in the group as opposed to the whole class, each student is then forced to think harder and more outside of the box. However, book clubs can also not be a great idea. As I have experienced in past group projects, some students to not do their part. It is obvious when they do not read. Therefore the student is then piggybacking off of other student’s suggestions. With small groups this could be a major set back. If a group consists of 3 people, this would mean that a third of the group did not do their part. And even though the teacher could make thi...

Being a teacher comes with a limited budget. Having to find, print and learn lessons can be expensive. Finding free resources is a great tool to have as well as letting other people use it.  Teaching Tolerance is a great resource for teachers. It is a social studies resource. Teaching Tolerance gives updates on current news as well as also having classroom resources for teachers. When you drop down under the classroom resources section tab, lessons, learning plans, student text, student tasks, teaching strategies and many more come up. The lesson can be searched by specific lesson topics. Another option is a more specific search. You can search by grade level, subject, social justice domain or by topic. This would be a great resource for teachers because it is a free and detailed resource. If you click on a topic it will give you related resources, like texts and worksheets. Being a social studies teacher, I could see myself using this resource in my classroom because of the e...

SUMMARIZE: Science and English go together well. Though they do not cross, there are many ways to interconnect the two subjects. The text gave many literary examples that prove connection between Science and literature. One teacher talked about a book and tried to determine what was “real science” and what was “fake science”. This allowed the students to make connections and have better understanding of the material that was being taught or discussed. MAKE CONNECTIONS: There were many parts of the text I connected to. For example, the first connection I made was Albert Einstein. Einstein is introduced to many students at a young age, just for being smart. Another connection was Steven Hawking, a very smart yet disabled man. Carl Sagan was a man that I have heard about a few times in science classes, yet cannot define exactly who he is. A movie reference I noticed was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . The words following this was easy for me to connect with, as I have seen the mov...

iCivics is a website that offers many resources for teachers. It organizes specific topics by units. I think this would be a good website for teachers to use because it is kid friendly. It is kid friendly in the aspect of the design. The characters and features of the videos and games are cartoons. This might allow for the students to not think of the information as school information, but rather a TV show or movie. This aspect also allows for the teacher to keep the students engaged. The teacher can search under a specific content or by standards. The best part is it is all free! The website is ran on donations and this is what keeps the information public.  All of the files are accessible once the teacher makes an account. Once you click on the link. It will take you to a google drive filled with multiple activities, charts, mini quizzes and readings for the students and teachers. This resource also has resources that satisfy learning objectives for high school classr...

  This week’s reading was about textbooks. As a social studies and science teacher, textbooks are a really good resource. They are a way to go over the text and information that is needed for the lesson. But, I also know that textbooks can be boring for most students, including myself. So for me as a future teacher, it is important to make sure the students are involved and engaged with the text.   I always found popcorn reading a way to keep me involved with the text. This is one method that supports what the author suggests as a good tool for classroom reading. They suggested to have the students “work in pairs, groups and teams at all stages of reading.” Working in groups would allow the students to have discussions after the reading to make sure that each of the students understood the reading or if not, the students are able to build off of other student’s prior knowledge or new knowledge of the text. I also think that using textbooks that have websites that assis...

This is a website that I found. It’s a PBS website. I think this would be useful for many math teachers. It provides many different lesson plans for math. The grade level is not specific so I think this would be useful for many teachers, not just middle school levels. The website has K-8 all the way up to high school different levels. There are many different types, some videos, interactive lessons, lesson plans, audio, and many different others.  As I was scrolling through the different activities I realized that the different activities could make math fun or possibly even a little easier. Since math is not one of my areas of interests, I think this could be useful for me if I was to one day be a math teacher. This could not only help me as a teacher by having the resources easily available, but also helping me understand the materials.   I went through one of the lessons for 5th grade interactive and one of the lessons was about recipes. This could allow the stud...

When I was younger I was a good reader. It was not until junior year of high school when I would read and be completely side tracked and not realize until I’m 30 pages in and stop and think about how I’m lost. Who is this character or what does this word even mean?  Going through this has taught me how I want to effectively read with the class. I think that doing readings in class is really helpful to the student. This allows for breaks when students do not understand. Me, the teacher, could give my own explanation. But one way that I think is very effective and also involving, is by allowing the other students to explain it. This would allow for them to learn from each other. This also tells me what they are getting from the passing and making sure the reading is understood by all. This could be done at the end of a section or chapter. The students could also raise their hands during the reading to allow me to know when they become confused. By doing this it would let t...

One useful website I found, NSTA: National Science Teaching Association, offers a variety of links. Some of the links are interactive links. They are videos or CD’s that allow the students to watch, which in my opinion is more interesting to students. Watching allows the students to hear and see processes, for example, any kind of cycle, life, cell, reproductive. The students are allowed to see what physically happens during each of the cycles with the videos. With this link, you can narrow down the search to make the video more specific to the lesson. For example, I searched “cell reproduction” and selected “videos”. When I clicked search, multiple resources came up. This website is a good way to filter through the many other websites. Other links in the website are deeper articles that allows the students to have a better understanding of different topics. If a student learns better by reading articles, you could pull a link up and everyone in class could recite it aloud and in unis...

So, when did students forget how to read?  While reading this chapter I realized students never “forgot” how to read, some students just do not have the comprehension of others. Each student goes through life very differently. Some students explore the entire world, while others are not as privileged. The reading helped me to understand that even though a piece might be hard to read, with hints or clues it might be easier for the student to understand. Another helpful way to help students is to read along with them and help break down the topic. This would allow the students to learn the topic in detail, rather than be thrown in to a topic that is above their head. It would also help the students understanding if they asked questions about the reading. I also learned from the text that if the students were given their “Columbus Key”, it allows the student to have a full understanding to the whole idea of the text. The “Columbus Key” is a word or phrase that gives the idea be...

Hey Aria, I hope you enjoy watching this video. I did it outside, because being outside is very peaceful to me. I like to breathe the fresh air. I tried to turn the book at an angle so we could both see the pictures! I hope you enjoy. Sorry for the few stutters. Word Count: 53