Expanding Literacy for Adolescents in Louisiana Through Principled Reform

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Expanding Literacy for Adolescents in Louisiana
Through Principled Reform

• Dr. William G. Brozo
• George Mason University
• Author of
• Content Literacy for Todays Adolescents
• Honoring Diversity and Building Competence
• LaSIP/Gear Up Conference, New Orleans, LA,
  October 3, 2007

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CONTENT LITERACY OPINIONNAIREDirections For
each statement below decide whether you agree or
disagree. Please share your position and
rationales with a neighbor.

• 1. By the time students reach the intermediate
  grades they should already be competent enough
  readers to comprehend textbooks and other content
  reading assignments.
• Agree______ Disagree______
• 2. Being a good reader is not as important as
  being a good listener and test taker.
• Agree______ Disagree______

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CONTENT LITERACY OPINIONNAIREDirections For
each statement below decide whether you agree or
disagree. Please share your position and
rationales with a neighbor.

• 3. Content literacy strategies should only be
  used to help struggling readers.
• Agree______ Disagree______
• 4. The curriculum is already too full to make
  room for content literacy strategies.
• Agree______ Disagree______

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WHY SECONDARY STUDENTS NEED TO BE GOOD READERS

• BETTER READERS ARE BETTER STUDENTS IN ALL SUBJECT
  AREAS (c.f., NAEP, 2003)
• BETTER READERS ARE MORE SUCCESSFUL IN THEIR
  PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES (c.f.,Hofstetter,
  Sticht, Hoffstetter, 1999)
• STANDARDIZED ACHIEVEMENT TESTS AND COLLEGE
  ENTRANCE EXAMS REQUIRE HIGH LEVELS OF TRADITIONAL
  PRINT LITERACY (c.f., Johnston Costello, 2005)

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NAEP Results

• 68 of 8th graders and 64 of 12th graders are
  reading below the proficient level
• 69 of 8th graders and 77 of 12th graders are
  writing below the proficient level
• Less than 6 of students in the 8th and 12th
  grades performed at the advanced level
• 2 of 8th and 12th graders performed at the
  advanced level in writing

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WHY ALL SECONDARY TEACHERS NEED TO DEVELOP
STUDENTS LITERACY ABILITIES

• THE ENGLISH AND READING TEACHERS CANT DO IT
  ALONE (Langer, 2001).
• THE OVERALL SCHOOL CULTURE NEEDS TO BE SUPPORTIVE
  OF ADOLESCENT LITERACY (Brozo Hargis, 2005)
• CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE
  ABOUT THAT KNOWLEDGE ARE INSEPARABLE (Brozo
  Simpson, 2007 Moje, et. al., 2004).

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Content Knowledge and Content Literacy

• Learning the content of the disciplines, such as
  science and math, is as much about learning to
  read, write, and talk about the content as it is
  learning the concepts and facts
• Therefore, teaching reading, writing, and
  thinking skills in the disciplines is teaching
  the disciplines

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Content Literacy Strategies

• What are they?
• Instructional practices that braid reading,
  writing, and thinking with content material from
  the disciplines
• Premised on the belief that students not only
  need to learn the content of the curriculum but
  also ways of reading, writing, and thinking
  about the content.
• Instructional practices that teach students
  independent strategic reading and writing
  processes for content area learning
• Teacher modeled and prompted
• Student initiated

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Content Literacy Strategies

• Why are they advocated and employed?
• To help students use reading and writing in
  the service of learning
• To help students see that content knowledge
  and the ability to communicate that knowledge
  are one in the same
• To provide students opportunities to learn
  and use
• literacy processes throughout the school day
  
• To elevate reading and writing achievement
• To build independent, strategic reading
  skills

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The Basis for Principled Reform Practices

• Many teachers and reformers find it difficult to
  rationalize their approaches and decisions on the
  basis of foundational principles. And yet, we
  know that effective teaching (Smagorinsky, 2001)
  and school reform (Fullan, 2001) are
  principle-based.
• This means that instructional and reform
  practices for supporting literacy and learning
  development for youth are grounded in evidence
  and ever-present in the thinking and planning of
  teachers and reformers (Brozo Simpson, 2007).

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Content Literacy Reform Principles Guiding
Louisiana Initiatives

• 1. Build comprehension by connecting prior
  knowledge and experience with academic literacy
  and learning
• 2. Use assessment as a tool for learning and
  future growth
• 3. Motivate and sustain effort in reading,
  writing, and thinking
• 4. Develop study reading skills to increase
  understanding, promote long-term recall of
  information and ideas, and encourage independent
  learning
• 5. Foster critical interpretations and
  metacognition through written expression
• Sturtevant, E., Boyd, F., Brozo, W.G., Hinchman,
  K., Moore, D., Alvermann, D. (2006). Principled
  practices for adolescent literacy. Mahwah, NJ
  Erlbaum.

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Content Literacy
Initiatives

• Establishment of Pilot Schools
• --professional development for literacy coaches
  and lead teachers in content literacy
• --building literacy leadership capacity
• Comprehensive Curriculum Revision
• --professional development in content literacy
• --guiding writers incorporation of content
  literacy strategies into unit activities
• --at least 30 of activities entail
  content
• literacy strategies

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Goals of the Louisiana Content Literacy
Initiatives

• Effect systemic change in teacher attitudes and
  practices
• Build capacity for sustaining initiatives by
  promoting literacy leadership among coaches and
  lead teachers
• Increase student achievement of GLEs and on state
  reading and writing assessments

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PRINCIPLE 1

• Build comprehension by connecting prior
  knowledge and experience with academic literacy
  and learning

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Evidence-Base for Principle 1

• Concern for relevance in school teaching and
  learning has been renewed in recent years (Gates,
  2005)
• This is because many cite the disjuncture between
  the experiences and goals youth bring to
  educational contexts and how theyre expected to
  perform in those contexts (Chen, Stevenson,
  Hayward, Burgess, 1999)
• This lack of fit is seen as the primary reason
  why many students seem to be disinterested in
  school-based learning and, for far too many, find
  themselves failing and even dropping out
  (Ruiz-de-Velasco, Fix, Clewell, 2001 Valdés,
  1998)

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Evidence-Base for Principle 1

• From a cognitive perspective, we have known for
  some time that what learners take from a text,
  discussion, or other classroom discourse depends
  on how much they bring to it (Bransford
  Johnson, 1972 Pressley, 2000 Wilson Anderson,
  1986)
• Students in content classrooms make meaning of
  and create written and spoken texts based on the
  various discourse communities they inhabit, such
  as homes, peer groups, sports teams, and even the
  neighborhood hair salon (Kelly Green, 1998
  Hull Schultz, 2002)
• Space should be made in content classrooms for
  students to explore how their many different
  funds of knowledge and literate practices might
  inform, connect to and be integrated with the
  knowledge of the academic disciplines (Alvermann,
  Young, Green, Wisenbaker, 1999 Thernstrom
  Thernstrom, 2003)

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Practices consistent
with Principle 1

• Pilot Schools
• Literacy coaches and lead teachers have
  received training in teaching and supporting
  their colleagues in teaching strategies for
  helping students find and make connections in
  the content classroom and bridge competencies
  with familiar texts to academic literacy
• Comprehensive Curriculum
• Writers have received training in strategies
  such as
• SQPL, DR-TA, anticipation
  guide/opinionnaire and
• have incorporated these into unit
  activities

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Support for Principle 1 from National Standards

• IRA/NCTE
• Students should participate as knowledgeable,
  reflective, creative, and critical members of a
  variety of literacy communities.
• NCTM
• Embraces classrooms as mathematical communities
• for the purpose of empowering the student.

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PRINCIPLE 2

• Use Assessment as a Tool for Learning and Future
  Growth

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Evidence-Base for Principle 2

• Students need to be authors of their own
  understanding and assessors of their own learning
  (Cook-Sather, 2002)
• Assessment is a tool for promoting critical
  thinking, metacognitive awareness, and
  self-efficacy (Dweck, 1999)
• The goal of assessment is to help students and
  teachers reflect upon new understandings and
  become empowered by rather than victimized by the
  assessment process (Tierney, 2000)

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Evidence Base for Principle 2

• Assessment practices in the content areas should
• Offer students ongoing reflections of their
  literacy processes (Clark, Chow-Hoy, Herter,
  Moss, 2001)
• Be appropriate to their needs (Bauer, 1999)
• Be embedded within meaningful and engaging
  learning experiences (Shavelson, Baxter,
  Pine, 1992)
• Help youth become more knowledgeable about
  what they know, how they learn best, and what
  they need to reach their academic and personal
  goals (Pajares, 1996)

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Practices consistent
with Principle 2

• Pilot Schools
• Literacy coaches and lead teachers have
  received training in teaching and supporting
  their colleagues in teaching
• strategies for assessing students content
  learning and for
• helping students assess and monitor their own
  literacy
• and learning the content areas
• Comprehensive Curriculum
• Writers have received training in strategies
  such as
• vocabulary self-assessment, professor
  know-it-all,
• and RAFT writing and have incorporated
  these into
• unit activities

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Support for Principle 2 from National Standards

• The National Standards in Science
• Assessment tasks must be set in a variety of
  contexts,
• be engaging to students with different
  interests and
• experiences
• NCTM
• Teachers (should) cultivate in their students
  the capacity to engage in self-assessment and
  reflection on their own work and the ideas put
  forth by others. Such a focus has been found to
  have a positive impact on student learning.

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PRINCIPLE 3

• Motivate and sustain effort in reading, writing,
  and thinking

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Evidence-Based Support for Principle 3

• Youth, like the adults in their worlds, are
  motivated by and enjoy activities and pastimes of
  their own choosing (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990 Ryan
  Deci, 2000)
• Motivation for learning while linked to
  individual identities and interest also appears
  to trend downward as students progress through
  the grades (Guthrie Wigfield, 2000
  Organization for Economic Cooperation and
  Development, 2001)
• Engagement must remain connected to academic
  literacy and learning processes in order to give
  energy and direction to them (Eccles, Wigfield,
  Schiefele, 1998 Guthrie Humenick, 2004)
• Tapping interest to motivate youth greatly
  increases the likelihood they will develop active
  learning strategies and acquire concepts and
  information in academic contexts (Ainley, Hidi,
  Berndorff, 2002 Deci, Koestner, Ryan, 2001
  Watkins Coffey, 2004 )

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Practices consistent
with Principle 3

• Pilot Schools
• Literacy coaches and lead teachers received
  training in teaching and supporting their
  colleagues in teaching strategies to motivate
  students to read and learn content material
• Comprehensive Curriculum
• Writers have received training in strategies
  such as process guides, QtA, reciprocal teaching
  and have incorporated these into unit activities

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Support for Principle 3 from National Standards

• National Council for the Social Studies
• Teachers should participate as a partner in
  learning with students, modeling the joy of both
  discovering new knowledge and increasing
  understanding of familiar topics.

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PRINCIPLE 4

• Develop study reading skills to increase
  understanding, promote long-term recall of
  information and ideas, and encourage independent
  learning

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Evidence-Base for Principle 4

• Too often students are in passive roles in
  content classrooms, responding only to the
  teacher's or the text's prompts (c.f.,
  Dweck,1999).
• Students learn best when they are actively
  engaged in meaning construction processes (c.f.,
  Bean, 2000).
• Students learn best when they are taught how to
  create or generate their own learning prompts and
  demonstrations (c.f., Pressley Hilden, 2004
  Wittrock, 1990).

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Practices consistent
with Principle 4

• Pilot Schools
• Literacy coaches and lead teachers have been
  trained in ways of teaching and supporting their
  colleagues in teaching students to develop study
  reading strategies in order to become independent
  learners
• Comprehensive Curriculum
• Writers have received training in strategies
  such as split-page notetaking, vocabulary cards,
  word grids, and GISTing and have incorporated
  these into unit activities

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Support for Principle 4 from National Standards

• National Council of the Social Studies
• Teachers should help students use appropriate
  learning strategies to construct and apply
  academic knowledge.
• International Reading Association
• Students deserve expert teachers who model and
  provide explicit instruction in comprehension and
  study strategies across the curriculum

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PRINCIPLE 5

• Foster critical interpretations and metacognition
  through written expression

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Evidence Base for Principle 5

• Writing is an essential process for constructing
  meaning (Shanahan, 1997)
• When students write, they learn to
• Paraphrase, summarize, organize, and link new
  understandings with familiar ones (Casazza, 2003
  Friend, 2000)
• Monitor their comprehension, making it easier
  for them to identify what they know and what is
  confusing to them (Bangert-Downs, et.al., 2004
  El-Hindi, 2004)
• Think at higher levels and express critical
  perspectives and interpretations (Graham, 2005
  Shellard Protheroe, 2004)

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Louisiana Literacy Plan Practices consistent
with Principle 5

• Pilot Schools
• Literacy coaches and lead teachers have been
  trained in ways of teaching and supporting their
  colleagues in teaching their students
  content-focused writing strategies
• Comprehensive Curriculum
• Writers have received training in strategies
  such as SPAWN, story chains, learning logs and
  have incorporated these into unit activities

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Support for Principle 5 from National Standards

• National Science Education Standards
• Students need the opportunity to present their
  abilities and understanding and to use language
  of science to communicate scientific explanations
  and ideas. Writing, should be a part of science
  education.

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Reflective Questions

• With a partner discuss the following two
  questions and be prepared to share your responses
  and ideas with the whole group
• Which principles among the 5 presented have
  guided or could guide your work as a professional
  developer, teacher, administrator, policy maker?
• What actual and potential barriers to content
  literacy reform exist in Louisiana (or your
  state) and how might they be surmounted?

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Remember

• Youth are our hope for the future,
• And we are their hope today!
• THANK YOU