Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 3

Text Support Team

Program Goals Chart

Laura Nowak, Chris Zbasnik, Jordan Wankoff, & Osiris Alday

The four areas that our


Text Support Team

literacy program will focus on are


Vocabulary, Reading, Writing, and Technology. The goals of our program, and rationale
driving each goal, for each category are presented below. The
Text Support Team

approach to literacy instruction aims to prepare all readers for college access and success,
as well as to navigate the literacy demands and advancements of the 21st century that are
inherent of todays workplace and society.

Vocabulary
: To be successful at comprehension, readers need to know 95% percent of the
words they encounter on the page. Because of this, vocabulary building and strategies for
uncovering the meanings of unknown words must be an integral part of any successful
literacy program.

Our team can assist you in creating a classroom where vocabulary instruction supports
comprehension and Common Core achievement. We will help you: implement a word rich
environment, develop pre-teaching strategies for new words, begin a Latin and Greek roots
program (the basis of most multisyllabic words), and creating a choice reading program
(wide reading is sure source of vocabulary building). In addition, we can be a source for
vocabulary games, websites, and assistance in assessing if your program is working.
Reading
: When entering high school, reading texts should pull from information and
fictional/non-fictional literature. This texts should be classical pieces of work (e.g.,
Shakespeare), however, they should also include dramas, poems, myths, legends, graphical
novels, and young adult novels. Reading should incorporate skills on analyzing an authors
purpose, identifying character perspectives, identifying themes, and comparing the syntax
of different genres. These align to the 9-10 grade Common Core State Standards( CCSS).
Along with the skill from the CCSS, students entering high school will be exposed to texts
that address the cultural, interests, and social issues in society. By bringing these type of
texts into our curriculum we will give our students access to making connections and
meaning to texts that may have impact on their lives. Forming connections with text fosters
a love of reading, which we hope to have our students develop and continue in their adult
lives.

As stated by Haruki Murakami, If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you
can only think what everyone else is thinking.
Writing
: The technological advances of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries have
increased the need for a literate society. Like all elements of literacy, writing is not a skill
that can be developed in isolation. Writing is a cognitive process that involves planning,
organization, critical thinking, word knowledge, grammatical and punctuation skills, and
attention to details that provide the writer with the insights to revise and edit. Depending
on the genre, writing also may require deep problem solving and / or analytical skills.
Additionally, writing involves the physical aspects of hand-eye coordination whether typing
or writing. Therefore, the Text Support Team has incorporated writing into our literacy
framework.
The goals of our writing framework are incorporated from the Common Core State
Standards for English. Just as we will read a variety of texts, we must communicate in
writing a variety of texts. At the ninth grade level, students will begin by writing narratives
in which they will organize their own experiences often drafted in their journals into
well structured sequences that build on one another. Students will expand on their word
knowledge by adding sensory details and dialogue. As students develop their
organizational skills, they will progress towards expository and persuasive writing, genres
that will further the students ability to solve problems and demonstrate analytical thinking.
For example, in forming their claims and counterclaims, they will look at the evidence and
make conclusions justifying their opinions through analysis and logic.
Throughout the writing process, the framework synthesizes other literacy skills. Students
will their verbal skills to discuss their writing and listen to the viewpoints of others.
Students will rely on other texts -- written and visual -- not only as models, but as
resources for textual evidence. Students also will use their vocabulary and grammatical
skills during the revision and editing process. However, since research finds a heavy
emphasis on mechanics and usage results in significant losses in overall quality (Hillocks,
1987), the framework does not include teaching grammar and punctuation in isolation.
Eventually, students will synthesize their writing with technology, whether for research or
publication.
The strategies in which students will achieve goals are research-based methods that imbed
authentic engagement with immersion and demonstration (Cambourne, 1988). Writing
research supports that students best learn writing through expectations and models,
mistakes and feedback, and guided practice.
Writing is intrinsically tied to the other domains of language: reading, speaking, and
listening. The writing process begins with the models of mentor texts to set expectations.
Indeed, writing can also be used as a means to demonstrate understanding of texts,
exemplified by writing to learn strategies. Journaling in response to prompts is an authentic
activity for students to form ideas for writing. Graphic organizers have been shown to be
useful in organizing. These strategies are used throughout the scaffolding process.

Technology
: In the current age of high-speed information access and exchange, students
must be literate and fluent in both print and digital media. While the difference between
print and digital media may only seem superficial, affecting only the medium by which print
material is presented, research on the importance of student development in new literacies
informs us that the transition from solely print-based texts to more highly-interactive
digital texts and media requires proficiency in a unique skill set necessary for the types of
interactions with text that digital media affords. The term "new literacies" refers to a
technology-driven paradigm shift in how we perceive literacy and approach literacy
instruction. According to Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz (2014),
"Being a literate person in today's society involves more than being able to construct meaning from a
printed text. A literate person needs to be able to read and write and learn with texts that have
multimodal
elements such as print, graphic design, audio, video, gesture, and nonstop interaction."

This reality has never been more true than it is for our digital native students, whose
everyday literacy experiences revolve around "texts" rich in multimodal elements. As
society becomes more reliant on technology for everyday tasks, our exposure to new forms
of text-based, audio, and visual communications will necessitate re-educating ourselves
and educating our students to engage, interact with, and exchange these new forms of
communication. Just as the switch from the card catalog (a centuries old technology) to the
search engine (a technology that, itself, has evolved significantly in the last decade)
represented a shift in how we access information, our students will inhabit an
ever-evolving world of information access and exchange. How will the technological
advancements of the next 50 years change the mediums through which we communicate?
One thing is certain: given current trends, whatever changes do come about will make how
we communicate and access information more interactive, not less.

Вам также может понравиться