Eric's post inspired me to write about the topic of our VT meeting this week: rigor in reading 6-12. We will be looking at how much each grade level expects students to read and what the rigor of those texts are. I like that at VT we will be doing more vertical alignment because often it is overlooked as we try to accomplish our many PLC goals. Making sure our students are challenged appropriately and increasingly at each grade level is one of the most important ways I can think of spending our VT time. Having taught four different grade levels in the district, it is so interesting to see how our students who go from reading 20 + books a year in 6th grade struggle to read 4 books in 10th grade. It will be interesting to see what each grade does to promote reading. Hopefully we will be able to better shape our curriculum based on our discussion on Wednesday.
My question is, do other VTs talk about these topics? Do you assure alignment with any sort of tools other than the standards? Do you have questions about what other grades are teaching? Do you feel the thinking and quantity of work is well scaffolded between grades in your discipline?
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ReplyDeleteIt does seem like the jump from elementary to high school in terms of reading is a big chasm. I think what the 7th grade VT and the middle/junior high has done to promote reading is great. However, I think the engagement level is different. We now have a theater department, and students can have a different relationship with a reading text by acting it out. There are all kinds of creative ways that students react with texts--films, television shows, video games, Websites, as well as books.
ReplyDeleteI think we are doing a good BEGINNING job of looking at all kinds of alternative media to teach that can intereact with books and reading in creative and fun ways--and increase learning.
THIS is not to decrease rigor in content--just opening up to different ways to reach content.
EL teachers have to think like this all the time because reading the language is a barrier for many of our students--so we have to always incorporate visuals, dance, drama, video, interactive role modeling, etc to teach content. Students don't have to be EL to learn from alternative media.
In the FACS classroom, I really notice reading struggles. This is something our VT talks about continually, teaching reading strategies in our classroom. Our foods books, obviously, increase in reading difficulty as the students get older. I find that the harder the book, the more and more students are turned off by the reading. I understand, there are less pictures, etc. but that shouldn't be the only thing that help students understand.
ReplyDeleteLast year, I took several PGO's on incorporating literacy in the classroom and have found success in some of them. I think that reading in the classroom and literacy strategies needs to be something that is taught in every classroom. The more students see different strategies and how to use them, reading will become easier for them to understand and maybe will increase interest in reading.
We had had a similar conversation in our VT meetings. Our last VT was devoted just to grading practices. We analyzed each course's grade requirements and discussed trying to have more uniformity in the future. I think that consistency between grade levels in the grading will help to align rigor as students move through the sequence. The more conversations that we have about alignment, the more we will have the same expectations of our students.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the math department at my building does a good job of scaffolding the quality of work. We have gotten to know each other's teaching styles well and have good communication, so the difference between grade levels is not very extreme. We also have many conversations about what students need to know for the next course or grade level, so we can make sure we are preparing our students well to move on in math.