Literacy Inquiry Assignment

Andrew Weber

TE 802

Owosso High School

Demographics

• Owosso Public Schools (from MI School Data)• Economically Disadvantaged: 61.6%

• Students with Disabilities: 13.5%

• Proficiency (MME 11th Grade):• Reading: 54.8%

• 13-14 Target: 64.14%

• Writing: 34%

• 13-14 Target: 48.68%

Observations of Owosso (from my placement)

• Little diversity

• Many students go on to attend 2 year colleges or trade schools

• Tight-knit community

• Infrequent parental involvement

Focus Class Demographics

• 11th Grade World Literature• 50 minute class

• English Language Arts

• 30 students: 17 males, 13 females

• Racial Makeup: 28 students white, 1 student African-American, 1 student Asian

• 5 students have IEPS• Accommodations are needed mainly for testing purposes

Survey

• Transition from literacy in the ELA classroom to real-life applications

• Literacy questions based around interests and hobbies

• Trying to expand literacy beyond “reading/writing”

Survey

• Outside influences

• Providing autonomy in the classroom by asking about their preferences

• Using single words to describe themselves

• Favorite word

Survey Results

• Views on reading and writing mainly from an academic standpoint• When you hear the word “reading”, what do you think of?

• Books

• Boring

• When you hear the word “writing”, what do you think of?

• Essay

• Papers

Outside Influences

• What does your family read at home?• 33% Magazines and Newspapers

• 31% “Nothing”

• What does your family write at home?• 56% “Nothing”

• 17% Communication Purposes (writing letters, emails, social media)

• “Nothing” indicate many students strictly see reading and writing as an assignment

Literacy

• What does the word “literacy” mean to you?• Writing and Reading

• Connecting the idea of literacy to their hobbies and interests• Can you be literate in your hobbies and interests?

• Definition of Literacy (created after survey results):• The ability to understand and explain the world around us through

the use of our skills and interests

Artifact Idea

• Taking the survey results into consideration, I wanted the artifact to be an introduction into the expanded thought of literacy• Also incorporating their own interests into the artifact as well

• Use of Informational texts

• Many students indicated they were familiar with newspapers and magazines

• Introduction to Dialogic Instruction as well

• Feedly.com

• Creating your own personalized newspaper based around your hobbies and interests

Artifact

• Students chose a newspaper/magazine article on Feedly based on their interests

• Summarize it

• It needed to have two sides to the story• Introduction to

Debate/Discussion

• Feedback on Feedly

Curricular Goals

• After survey and introductions of the classroom, my mentor teacher and I decided to base the class around:• Focus on dialogic instruction

• Use of informational texts as a means of expression

• Stepping stone to short stories and novels

• Discussion and debate-oriented classroom

• Real-life applications (exploration and research of different cultures)

• ACT preparation responsibilities (Average Score: 19)

School-wide Standards

• Owosso based around International Baccalaureate (IB) standards

• Students should be able to:• Analyze the content, context, language, structure, technique, and

style of texts and relationships among texts

• Justify opinions and ideas, using examples, explanations and terminology

• Great for debate and discussion

• Common Core Standards line up perfectly with IB

Upcoming Unit

• Social Injustice• Students will be doing research about a social injustice in the

world

• Use of informational texts as research

• Many of the activities will be hands-on

• Students will be using their interests and skills to present a social injustice to the class

• Students will be required to discuss the social injustices to the classroom

• Transition into “Night” by Elie Wiesel

Curricular Goals Moving Forward

• Students will be engaging in ELA through constant use of discussion and interaction with each other

• Students will be reading short stories and plays about social injustice to better understand the cultures/societies that surround them

• Students will be using informational texts in relation to discussion/debate to further development arguments that can lead to a dialogic classroom

• Students will be collaborating in groups to form activities and assessments around structured roles

• Students will be preparing for the ACT by reinforcement of grammar and other necessary components of the test