It Is ... Inspired Teaching Inspiring Students

Improving Reading and Writing in the Content Areas
(Middle/High)

Overview

In order to be successful in content area classes such as social studies, science, and mathematics, students must be able to read a variety of informational texts and produce written documents. This course will give teachers the tools they need to integrate literacy strategies into content learning to help raise student achievement. Participants will use the Literacy Matters web site as an anchor throughout this course for exploring instructional strategies. By the end of the course, participants will be able to locate web-based tools, strategies, and lessons that foster literacy skills in all content areas. They will also have developed a preliminary lesson plan incorporating these tools and strategies.

Goals and Products

This online course will enable participants to

1. Understand the benefits and challenges of teaching literacy skills in the content areas.
2. Learn and apply specific strategies for teaching reading and writing in the content areas.
3. Develop an understanding of different types of text structures and how to teach students to recognize them.
4. Gain experience in developing literacy activities to support curricular goals in different content areas.
5. As a final product, participants will create a lesson plan that incorporates literacy strategies in their content area curricula.

Format and Requirements

This course is divided into six one-week sessions which each include readings, an activity and an online discussion among course participants. The time for completing each session is estimated to be two to four hours.

The outline for the course is as follows:

In the first session, participants will explore a definition and core principles of content literacy. Sessions Two, Three and Five focus on a number of specific strategies for improving students' reading and writing skills in the content areas. Session Four explores text structures, including compare and contrast, cause and effect and sequencing. Finally, in Session Six, participants will create a content area lesson plan in which they incorporate literacy strategies from the course.

Prerequisites

This is an introductory course for middle and high school teachers of all content areas, technology specialists, curriculum specialists, professional development specialists, or other school personnel. Participants are expected to have regular access to computers. In addition, participants should be proficient with using email, browsing the Internet, and navigating to computer files.

Content and Technology Standards

This course, Improving Reading and Writing in the Content Areas, will help participants meet the following ISTE Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for All Teachers, especially Standards II, III, IV and V.

In addition, this course will help teachers to enable their students to meet the following English Language Arts Standards as defined by the NCTE, The National Council of Teachers of English, especially Standards 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9.

Reproduced with permission from Education Development Center, Inc.,
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