Some Recommendations For The Educational Community

By Author: Apple
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This is a case study of four teachers in different contexts. Therefore, generalization is not possible. However, looking across the cases is suggestive of some recommendations for the educational community.

With the prevalence of technology as a possible source of information and middle and high school students' facility with technology, the notion of the textbook is rapidly becoming outdated. Recent research indicates that content area teachers are moving from a single textbook focus to using multiple texts to teach content (Walker & Bean, 2005). While many teachers currently use textbooks as reference tools only, many districts are developing pacing Tag Heuer Replica Watches guides based on textbooks. These two notions seem diametrically opposed. Given the ranges of students' reading abilities and language fluency—and our understanding of adolescent literacy—time might be better spent developing multiple text sets. These would provide students with multiple entries to learning and would encourage critical reading and discourse.

None of the participants ...
... were aware of any articulated school wide plan for literacy. And none of the administrators or mentors talked with the first-year teachers about how to deal with multiple reading abilities and, the language fluency of their students. New teachers are often overwhelmed in their first "real" job and quickly adapt to the culture and climate of their new school, often leaving learned practices and the discourse of the preservice program behind. More discussion and modeling by administrators and mentors is needed—not only of actual practice but also the thinking around the practices of informal assessment and embedding reading strategies within content area lessons.

As a teacher educator, I am currently restructuring my course to focus on the essential questions each preservice teacher must ask him or herself, such as: If reading empowers and enfranchises individuals, what is my responsibility as a content area teacher to ensure that my students are empowered and enfranchised? What does content area literacy look like in my discipline? What will be required of me to ensure that a variety of content area texts in multiple genres are accessible and comprehensible to all of my students? How can I take advantage of the new literacies to engage my students in meaning making? I am placing less emphasis on strategies per se and more emphasis on assessment of students' reading abilities and the fit between those abilities and text. I am searching for ways to affect student teachers' mindsets so that reading strategies are implemented as learning tools, not teaching tools (Conley, 2008). Finally, I provide opportunities for student teachers to create multiple text sets for use in constructivist and inquiry-based ways (Walker & Bean, 2005).

On the first day of class, I always ask for a raise of hands of those who plan to teach English, history, math, science, art, and Tag Heuer Replica music. Students eagerly raise their hands as their content area is called out. When I ask who plans to teach reading, not a hand is raised. At the end of the course, when 1 ask the question again, while there are always a few holdouts that believe all students should be able to read when they get to middle and high school, most of the students raise their hands. I want to make sure that if I were able to ask that question a year later, I would see those same hands and maybe even more.