Chapter Contents
In chapter 1, we lay out fundamental aspects of collaborative work to address teaching literacy within the science content area. In chapter 2, we will begin with more in-depth discussions about foundational literacy and many immediate interventions for literacy difficulties that require a fast solution. We call this literacy triage. From there, we will focus on disciplinary literacy collaboration for prereading, during reading, and postreading in chapters 3 through 5, respectively. Within these chapters of the book, we slow down intentionally to support a deeper, focused approach. We offer classroom strategies that are the result of collaborative explorations by literacy leaders and content-area teachers—providing clarity around how varying perspectives inform instruction. For each example, we will discuss the strategy’s purpose, application, and literacy focus. There are also adaptations for each strategy, which include modifications for students who qualify for special education, English learners (ELs), and those who demonstrate high proficiency and can benefit from more demanding work. Note that although these first two subgroups have different needs and different reasons they might face increased challenges with learning material (such as language barriers versus developmental barriers), we group these adaptations together because we find they often serve the learning of both subgroups equally well (just for different reasons). Indeed, even though these adaptations are geared toward these subgroups, they are applicable to any students who would benefit from a variation of a strategy that serves to scaffold learning in the short term to build out long-term proficiency. Chapter 6 offers guidance for teaching writing in science. Finally, chapter 7 covers ideas for formative and summative assessment and feedback.
Throughout this text, there are opportunities for Thinking Breaks (the first of which appeared on page 8). We intend for these to help you reflect on current practices, challenges, and opportunities for growth in working with science literacy. We know that you might do this naturally, but these are the points where we think it is important to slow down and consider ways to apply the strategies we are suggesting for your own students. In addition, there will be other opportunities for Collaborative Considerations for Teams. These are chances for teams to discuss, collaborate on, or implement disciplinary literacy ideas at the end of each chapter. You and your team can use these tasks to build science literacy into your practices in more directed ways as you target your specific grade-level curriculum.
Ultimately, we hope this book is not only a resource for ideas you can implement immediately in the classroom but also a source of inspiration for collaborative opportunities between literacy leaders and content-area instructors to build literacy capacity in your building (or buildings).
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As you are reading and using this book as a resource to support your teaching, what do you want to get out of the content? Note these three considerations for your team: (1) use this book as a book study, (2) break the book down chapter by chapter and focus on specific changes, and (3) prioritize your concerns for student learning and how to best support the literacy development of your science students. |
Wrapping Up
Building collaborative teams focused on literacy development can be challenging. We know you are extremely busy and have enormous amounts of content to cover, so you may be reluctant to add another layer to your already demanding workload. However, given the data that show more than half of U.S. twelfth graders graduate high school without preparation for advanced critical thinking, we must pause and consider what we are all doing as educators to better prepare students for the future. Providing students with important intermediate literacy and science disciplinary literacy skills is an important step toward building literacy proficiency.
Collaborative Considerations for Teams
CHAPTER 1
Collaboration, Learning, and Results
It is no secret that educators are busy, so convincing content-area teachers that literacy is valuable is only one step on the way to improving literacy at a school. Once we were able to convince science teachers like Cami, the teacher we introduced in the preface (see page xvi), that we all need to teach literacy to the benefit of our students, the natural next step was finding time and building collaboration. Cami knew the science, and we understood the literacy. Together, we needed to join our expertise.
For the purposes of developing students to think like scientists—to meet the learning standards of the science curriculum—we wanted to collaborate with Cami to create literacy strategies that were aligned with the outcomes in her science classroom. We knew her planning time was limited, so we wanted to make sure that our support in the area of literacy was thoughtfully integrated with the learning outcomes of her science units.
Collaboration plays a crucial role in the success of any school dedicated to building effective teams in a PLC culture. When experts collaborate, innovative ideas emerge in ways that support student learning and generate positive results. When collaborative time is used wisely—when the action steps of a team are clearly designed, intentional, and focused—it is possible to make great progress in student learning. Across North America, schools are making a commitment to this core principle, they are tackling long-standing concerns in education by bringing together teacher teams to make stronger curricular and instructional choices, and they are getting better and better at making use of assessment practices that support the formative development of all students.
This chapter helps you identify how to initiate collaboration by applying PLC fundamentals and build teacher teams within your school to support meaningful collaboration that leads to student growth and reflective teaching practices. We offer guidance for leaders and examine how to approach meeting logistics before delving into the details of the work teams carry out in collaborative meetings, including analyzing standards and setting goals, identifying students’ existing literacy skills and needs, and finding connections between the content area and literacy skills.
Collaboration Within a PLC
PLCs are a pivotal force for progress in schools, as they are all focused on three big ideas: (1) a focus on learning, (2) a collaborative culture, and (3) a results orientation
