My definition of Literacy...
The term, literacy, is often used to describe a person's ability to read, write, and discuss. However, I think that this definition is too simple. For example, there are many different types of literacy. One can be media literate and know how to search through, analyze, and identify credible sources. One can also be a "digital native" and have digital literacy skills that allow them to navigate through the many different digital platforms used today.
Each type of literacy has a specific set of skills associated with it. For this reason, literacy needs to be taught in every subject area in the K-12 classroom (and not just in English class). I plan to teach my future students how to specifically be "chemistry literate," meaning I want to teach my students how to read chemical equations and visual representations of data, write evidence-based claims, and discuss predictions and observations (just for starters).
In my past practicum experience, I taught 10th and 11th graders in a high school chemistry classroom (about 20 students in each class). This was a general chemistry course, so this was the first time chemistry was introduced to many of my students. Since chemistry was a brand new topic to them, I made sure to plan lessons that would grow their literacy skills in science (and in chemistry specifically). The following list of literacy strategies are strategies I have taught or strategies I would like to teach in my future classroom...
Each type of literacy has a specific set of skills associated with it. For this reason, literacy needs to be taught in every subject area in the K-12 classroom (and not just in English class). I plan to teach my future students how to specifically be "chemistry literate," meaning I want to teach my students how to read chemical equations and visual representations of data, write evidence-based claims, and discuss predictions and observations (just for starters).
In my past practicum experience, I taught 10th and 11th graders in a high school chemistry classroom (about 20 students in each class). This was a general chemistry course, so this was the first time chemistry was introduced to many of my students. Since chemistry was a brand new topic to them, I made sure to plan lessons that would grow their literacy skills in science (and in chemistry specifically). The following list of literacy strategies are strategies I have taught or strategies I would like to teach in my future classroom...