Art: Henri Rousseau and Lexical Density

This art text offers another opportunity to use Reciprocal Teaching Strategies. Again the lexical density will be a problem for many of our Year 11 students. Not only are students required to process sophisticated noun groups such as 'unconventional renderings,' 'outrageous imagery' and 'hybrid influences' there is the whole history of European art rolled up in the text. There is a reference to many famous artists. A Google search should help students develop an understanding of various art movements such as Realism and Cubism but it is less likely to explain the controversy and vitriol which raged during this period of art history. Loaded terms such as 'high and low sources' carry immense cultural baggage along with such art history terms as Orientalism and Surrealism.

Karen Fergeson hunted around for a suitable text for her Year 11 students, she then added a vocabulary grid and a prereading activity. I added to the prediction exercise, I added a map, a keyword list and an art movement matching exercise. We taught the lesson together adding discussions on the various art movements and trends related to the period.

The scaffolding of this two-paragraph text still seems inadequate but there is a time factor to consider when delivering the Curriculum. Non-fiction texts have a lexical density and cultural underpinnings that far outweigh fiction texts. The structure of a non-fiction text also creates problems for many of our students.

Science: The Binomial System of Naming Species and Classification of Life

I'm more than happy to work on texts for or with subject teachers. The two texts 'The Binomial System of Naming Species and Classification of Life' offer a chance to include tasks to help students improve their comprehension skills. Reciprocal Teaching strategies are a must when presenting content to our students. The lexical density found in the Binomial System of Naming species is mind-numbing. Not only are there the scientific terms which the teacher wants the students to master genus and species there is also a huge amount of background knowledge, both historical and cultural, needed to comprehend this text.
The mention of an 18th-century Swedish scientist at the start of the text implies the reader has some knowledge of the development of modern modern science and scientific methodology. Also buried in the text is an understanding of European culture and its development out of Greek and Roman academic institutions. The use of Greek and more importantly Latin by the church as a universal language is also implied. Throw in some understanding of the West's colonial enterprises and the occupation of the gentleman explorer is echoed in the text.
If a student is a fan of the hero genre, knowing who Hercules was might help in the reading of this text, but for many of our students, these ancient references will be alien concepts. By contrast, when I was a primary school student, I had extra lessons from a retired English woman, who was fluent in ancient Greek. (Later she complained, that it was totally useless when she spent a year living in post-war Greece.) It opened up a whole new world to me and in my early years going to church on a Sunday meant listening to the service in Latin. Unfortunately, there are few ancient Greek speakers about and even Latin teachers are now rare. For many of our students bridging this gap will be difficult and scaffolding the document can only help up to a point.
These two pieces of text offer an excellent opportunity to teach comprehension skills such as scanning, predicting, summarising and sorting information. If our students are to succeed in the Co-requisite Assessments they need to be exposed to a wide variety of texts but this needs to be delivered in a structured way.

Science and Technoloy -back to the future

Sometimes it is necessary to revisit devices used in the past. The Effective Literacy Strategies handbook is an excellent place to start when attempting to teach comprehension skills in a subject area. I've asked teachers to use the handbook to explore basic comprehension skills and to teach them in their classes.

Reading Fitness Programme

One way to motivate teachers into teaching comprehension skills in their subject is to shown teachers how much reading happens in their classroom and how much reading students do over the period of a day or a week. This is based on Secondary Literacy, A Teacher Handbook by Jennifer Gleen and Irene Anderson which in tern was based on the work of Heemi McDonald. I hope to use this for a limited period in the comming weeks.

Science Department Teacher Meetings -Term II Overview and Reflection

Margaret Aull Year 11 Reading Task with Comprehension Strategies

Occasionally I’m presented with a text which seems to be too difficult for anyone to read let alone Year 11 art students. I wondered about a language features approach to the text but this seemed to be overkill for such a short text where the degree of lexical dentistry is more normal at a University level. It seemed the best approach was to reinforce the reading strategies needed to read such a difficult. Through teacher talk, students must be encouraged to read and reread the text until they have gained some understanding of the academic and philosophical concepts contained within the passage. There are some weighty and sometimes personal issues mentioned in the text. Teacher talk may wish to explain that topics explored in Aull art such as spiritual essence, metaphorical references and metaphysical representation may not be fully clarified just by reading the text. These concepts will require some intensive investigation if clarification is desired. ie the writer is somewhat ‘none the wiser’ having read the text and having investigated the topics in terms of the vocabulary definitions.

A Maternal Lens Curated by Ema Tavola Margaret Aull

Mrs Gren, Reading in the Science Classroom

In the 1990s YouTube became available as a teaching tool. The US Military was quick to seize upon this new facility when giving instruction in the use of sophisticated weaponry such as missile launchers. Military instructors resorted to this method because, it was argued, many enlisted me lacked the literacy skills needed to read instruction manuals. US football coaches abandoned the whiteboard in favour of using videos when discussing field tactics claiming young players turned off the minute a coach picked up a whiteboard marker or piece of chalk. It’s impossible to accurately assess if, during the 1990s, there was a real decline in literacy skills or attention spans. Either way, videos now play a large part in academic instruction. I’ve witnessed its use in after-lunch classes, where students put on their headphones, sit quietly for twenty minutes and watch the screen. This silent disco of a lesson provides a way to get students on task but it avoids the very real need to put written texts in front of students. Texts which they must process as they strengthen their comprehension skills. In addition to the video, teachers reported using this task to ensure the detailed concepts of MRS GREN are being learned.