Blog #1

I discussed with our instructional coach her views on teaching literacy and she had a lot to say.  To begin she thought that teaching literacy needs to be done cross curricular so that students understand that reading and writing can be used in every class and throughout life, not just in their English class.  Teachers in every class should be teaching literacy to their students and the vocabulary that they use should be consistent across subjects.  For example, students should hear the word genre in every class when teachers are talking about different writing types.  Teacher’s calling it something different can confuse students.  Teachers within the school can talk with each other about the literacy being taught in their classroom so that each class can enhance the learning done in the previous classroom.  If students are learning to write a persuasive text for their Political Science class, they can also be looking at persuasive texts in their English class to learn about strategies to best teach the subject.  Along these lines, I talked with my co-worker, Mrs. S., about her philosophies about teaching literacy.  Since she is a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher, there is little outright instruction on literacy in her classroom.  Mrs. S. does think that something needs to be done about the literacy level of her students.  She regularly assigns written and oral reports for student projects and tries to help the students improve their reading and writing skills.  When I asked her about if she has conferenced with other English teachers in the school about ways to enhance the literacy instruction value of her assignments, she said she had not but that it was a great idea.  We both agreed that teachers across subjects should help each other develop lessons that improve student literacy skills.