Science & Literacy

In her article, Science & Literacy, author Marlene Thier identifies three strategies that help form the structure of support that students need if they are to be successful learners.  She states that "students need a compelling reason to read, write, listen, and speak, and meaningful science content offers that reason."  She points out that students need to be exposed to science-related issues that are relevant to their lives.  I agree with the author but, as a teacher of middle school students, I find that one of my biggest challenges is in convincing my students that authentic issues affect their lives.  This year in the closing reflection of an ecology unit, students were asked which assignment were the least valuable.  The predominant choice was one in which human impacts on the Long Island Sound watershed were discussed.  I did not test my students on this reading.  This is why my students thought that it was not valuable.  They "didn't need it" to be successful in my class.  Perhaps I did not do well to connect the reading to their lives.  Perhaps I did not develop and present clear performance expectations to help them direct the focus of their learning.

On the other hand, perhaps I did not help my students to develop effective strategies for reading the article.  In her article Thier demonstrated a technique that encourages students to develop strong and independent reading skills.  By making notations throughout the reading and by writing questions, notes and summaries, a student becomes personally involved with the reading.  While I did introduce a reading strategy with this assignment I do not feel that it was specific enough to be effective.

The third strategy that Thier describes involves metacognition, or, the ability and tendancy of a student to think about his or her own thinking.  While writing a summary of the Long Island Sound article I wanted my students to question their own understanding of the content and its application to their lives.  My lesson fell short.  My students were unable to target what they did and did not understand.  I like the author's suggestion to include group problem solving methods with direct prompts to direct their thinking.

Teaching literacy to support inquiry-based learning is a bit of an art.  This article was relevant for me because the strategies that were described are similar to techniques I use but they are more detailed and specific.  The school year has just ended but I have made my notations to use these techniques next year as I try to reshape how I help my students to develop their literacy skills.