Jonah Hurst

September 3, 2020

Disciplinary Literacy Paper

RDG 323- Trombley

drives them into the content, helps them retain the content, and helps them engage with the content.

Without literacy, educators have a tougher time conveying their thoughts and feelings regarding the

material, to their students. However, it’s very hard for students to understand literacy and the

importance of it. Yes, students go to school, but how many of them want to be there? Especially with

today’s day and age. Most students want to be home, on their phones, and talking to their friends.

Instead of being in a bleak, florescent lit classroom learning about content that may or may not resonant

with them. Add in extra hurdles like English language learners, children with IEPs, learning and cognitive

disabilities, and speech literacy, this can be daunting for our students. I understand this because I was

this student. For majority of my K-12 experience, I had to deal with being behind the rest of the class

and working extra hard just to understand the content. Literacy wasn’t second nature to me. It’s

something I still struggle with today. However, I learned several methods and techniques to help propel

myself forward in a positive direction. I want to take these resources I’ve gained in my twenty-seven

years on this planet and share them with every young mind in my classroom.

When it comes to educating students in literacy, I’m thankful that I am Biology teacher. I think if

you can make it more hands-on and engaging, it allows the students to relate to the content faster,

compared to another subject like English or Math. The definition of Literacy, “is the ability to read and

write or the competence or knowledge in a specified area” (Dictionary.com, 2020). One way to help

students with literacy is with classroom texts provided for them. “Text is chronically underused in

science classrooms, despite repeated calls for its inclusion in science teaching and learning” (Fang,

2013). Now I know what you’re thinking, Textbooks? I understand that textbooks have a stigma of being

boring, dull, and tedious to read. However, textbooks can provide several examples, charts, and images

that allow students to see how science can be applied in the real world. I’m not saying let’s go strictly to

textbook learning, but I believe in using more textbooks in class. Having a short reading session each
week, where students can either popcorn read or the teach themselves reads out loud. This allows the

students to see the context of the vocab used and how it can be applied. However, if a teacher doesn’t

want to use textbooks, trade books are great substitute. Per the article, “trade books are better able to

accommodate the needs of students with diverse backgrounds, interests, needs, and reading levels”

(Fang, 2013). From the article, the author provides that trade books provide more context behind the

content, allow the reader to understand the reading easier, and provides an interactive journey for the

student to follow. What’s also great about trade books, is that they are available at most bookstores and

are the number one selling category in education.

Textbooks and Trade Books can only go so far in the classroom. Luckily for Science classes, we

can do experiments, labs, and group work to help engage students with the content and develop their

literacy skills. Labs are an amazing tool and activity for students to learn from. They’re engaging, hands

on, interactive, and most important fun. Labs can also show how we convey the material to more

practical uses. Labs can have a different meaning depending on the individual or teacher. Some believe

Labs are to use to conceptualize a topic or idea. Others think Labs are mainly used to show students that

can’t be easily explained in the classroom. I think Labs are used for both. The purpose of labs is to help

students understand the core concept of a lesson or unit, while providing a hands-on experience that

cannot be shown inside a classroom setting. This ties in with literacy development because this allows

the students to open up to the content more and engage with it on a deeper level. A lab doesn’t

necessarily have to be something that involves chemicals, substances, and dissections. Allowing students

just group up, research a topic, collaborating on it, and then creating a presentation on their findings is

considered a lab. I know it might not sound engaging to some, but this really gets students going on a

topic. Especially if you allow them to pick the topic and run with the idea.
What does it mean to be Literate in the 21 st century? A quote from an online article states, “it is

the ability to communicate, understand, develop, accommodate, and adapt using the many different

types of literacies which are now mostly technology based” (Davenport, 2018). With technology ever

changing, it’s important to also understand and be literate when it comes to using technology. With a

higher emphasis in science, technology plays an important role in a classroom setting. With text being

digital, online resources at the tip of our fingers, and a suite of programs and apps to help streamline

learning, technology is an amazing thing but also scary to use. With COVID-19 locking down our schools

and society, it has shown that we all aren’t as fluent with technology as we thought. My wife currently

teaches high school art and her students struggle every day with learning how to use and adapt to

Microsoft Teams. Teams is an online platform that allows students and teachers to hold classes, take

office hours, and submit work. However, students aren’t as fluent with laptops and desktops compared

to their smartphone. Everyday my wife spends at least an hour helping student debunk and

troubleshoot technology issues that arise. With IT slammed with tickets, its been up to the teacher’s

responsibility to help the students out with the glitches. How can we assist students on being more

adaptive with technology? For starters, providing online workshops for both students and teachers are a

must. This allows students to get a handle on how to use their laptops but allows teachers to also get a

better hands-on look to understand how to better assist students that do have issues in the future. We

need to have better online instructions for students as well. More concise instructions would allow

students to follow easier and faster. The current instructions given to students are similar to what you

would find on the FAQ of the manufacture’s website. Making troubleshooting more streamlined will

allow the process to be quicker and easier for both parties. Lastly, we need to encourage our students

more to do it themselves. Giving positive reinforcement on how to use the piece of technology would

encourage our students and allow them to try to solve the issue themselves.
Lastly, there are hundreds of education apps out on the market. Even though COVID-19 has put

a strain and confusion on education, I believe that we should be taking advantage of this situation and

explore more regarding educational apps and how to incorporate them into our lessons. These apps are

great and can boost a student’s literacy in the content. For example, using Nearpod or Peardeck as a

presentation tool instead of a PowerPoint presentation. These two apps are great to use because they

allow students to follow the content with their laptop or smartphone. The presentation can also be

interactive with these apps. Allowing the teacher to take breaks in between each section. This gives the

teacher the option to open up the floor for questions and allows the teacher to ask open-ended

questions to their class. We can use other apps like Kahoot! And Quizlet, which allows the teacher to do

interactive short quizzes for their students. These apps create a fun and new experience to taking a quiz.

Its fun, interactive, and similar to Jeopardy. The enthusiasm that comes from these apps helps students

retain the content more and engage with it further.

I want to end on emphasizing the importance of literacy. Without a firm grasp on literacy, we as

educators and our fellow students cannot achieve a higher state of knowledge. We would just be

watching our students struggle through our class and the content, not being able to help them. It’s

important to show them new techniques and revised old ones on how to understand our content and

how to be more literate in the classroom. I feel like this is something that we as teachers struggle with

and fail at in some regard. We need to not only do better but be better on how to deliver the content

and assisting our students when they’re confused about the content. There’s nothing wrong with taking

a step back, looking at the lesson from the student’s eyes, and trying to see the disconnect if there is

one. This will allow use to help push our students in the right direction and allow them to become more

fluent in the language of learning.

Fang, Z. (2013). Disciplinary Literacy in Science: Developing Science ... Retrieved September 6,
2020, from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263346448_Disciplinary_Literacy_in_Science_D
eveloping_Science_Literacy_Through_Trade_Books

Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 06, 2020, from