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Module One Reflection/Summary

Kyle Krestan

Arizona State University

Defining Literacy

An essential responsibility of the teacher is to ensure they have a strong understanding of

the concepts they are trying to instill in their students. This understanding relates to literacy as

well because how could an educator assist a student in developing the skills of understanding a

subject without knowing all the skills that need to be taught. Therefore, at least for this text the

definition of literacy will be as follows, the development of reading, writing, speaking, and

listening skills to students (​Disciplinary Literacy in High School Science​, 2016). This definition

is amble because it outlines the fact that literacy involves speaking and listening, which is often

overlooked when it comes to student development of literacy. An additional aspect to learning

literacy successfully is the learning environment established by the teacher, “Teachers cultivate

these learning environments through providing opportunities for students to engage in learning”

(International Literacy Association, 2019). Having opportunities for students to practice their

skills often and in a safe environment is something that is extremely connected to the base

definition of literacy that it is justified to be included in this section.

Importance of Content Specific Literacy

Although there is a general concept of literacy, each content area is completely unique

when it comes to the implementation of literacy. The first reason that developing content specific

literacy is paramount in a secondary education classroom is because all factors of literacy;

speaking, listening, reading, and writing, have varying degrees of intellectual rigor or weight. An

example of this is that a scientist will use differing language to describe a problem compared to a

writer or mathematician (​Disciplinary Literacy: Helping Students Develop Insider Knowledge,

2019​). This makes it very clear that if we only allow a general concept of literacy to be taught to

students in an English class they will be missing out on the different languages they will see in
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content specific academic writings. Furthermore, this idea of content specificity is supported in

another text stating ​the importance to, “learn specialized vocabulary” (​Disciplinary Literacy in

High School Science​, 2016). Although vocabulary is a glaring divider between content areas, it

can also be argued that the amount of each component of literacy is different. For example, the

use of public speaking on subject knowledge is commonplace in the scientific community, so

having the skills of consuming the knowledge then boiling it down into digestible verbal bits of

information is fairly specific to the sciences.

Roadblocks of Education

There are many roadblocks when it comes to education but almost all can be overcome

by going through a simple checklist. This list is to identify that there is a current problem, next

determine where the outcome is going to be, finally create a plan of action to get there. For

example, students with Dyslexia struggle with the phonology of a language. Phonology being the

ability to take a written word and connect it to the sounds that are associated to them, or even

easily mixing up similar letters visually (Johnson, 2019). Using the steps it is easy to determine

the problem that the student is struggling with the current length content articles provided, the

endstate is that we want the student to be able to read the article, and the solution may be to use

the dyslexia font to help the student read the materials. Stopping to address this student’s

struggle shows the need to create an environment that pushes for equality and equity to the

students. This problem does not only address students with disabilities, but students that come

from a far different cultural background than their teacher. This creates a large barrier because,

“the identities that youth bring to and enact in school are central to their reading and writing

practices” (Maje & Luke, 2009). Therefore, if a teacher tries to create an entirely new persona

that a student is to embody in school then they will only be “learning” while they are at school,
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instead of everywhere. Overall, both of these types of students are able to learn the content but

it's like they are hearing it from someone yelling across the hallway instead of right next to them,

making it a little more difficult to hear the information.

References

Disciplinary Literacy: Helping Students Develop Insider Knowledge. (2019, September 30).

Retrieved September 05, 2020, from https://www.discoveryeducation.com/details/disc

iplinary-literacy-helping-students-develop-insider-knowledge/

Disciplinary Literacy in High School Science. (2016). Retrieved September 06, 2020, from

https://cms.azed.gov/home/GetDocumentFile?id=5a0476ae3217e104b0543f32

International Literacy Association. (2019). Engagement and adolescent literacy [Position

statement and research brief]. Newark, DE: Author

Johnson, V. (2019). Dyslexia what teachers need to know (Links to an external site.) 0(0), p. 1-8.

International Literacy Association.

Moje, B., Giroux, C., & Muehling, N. (2017). Navigating cultures and identities to learn

literacies for life: Rethinking adolescent literacy teaching in a post-core world.

(Links to an external site.) In K. Hinchman & D. Appleman (ed) Adolescent

literacies: A handbook of practice-based research.