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Michael Faust

Dr. Brooks

ED228- Content Literacy

7 February 2016

Content Area Literacy Analysis

Literacy may be one of the most crucial parts to a developed curriculum. If a

student is left behind in the abyss of the unknown, he or she is going to lose interest

not only in the subject, but also the learning process as a whole. The job of the

teacher, administration, and even governmental organizations and institutions,

therefore, is to then shape a curriculum into one which students can be supported in

their endeavors to learn and succeed. With various language components and other

barriers standing in the way of a students enlightenment, it is important to outline

and understand what educators mean by literacy, academic language, and other

fundamental strategies of ensuring an effective education for all students in the

content area.

In this specific content area, social studies, one of the most prominent

organizations in regards to standards, curriculum, and educational research is the

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). When it revised its National

Standards in 2002, it said that Social studies content invariably involves the

examination and understanding of valuesones own and those of othersas

values are expressed in points of view, beliefs, policies, actions, or inactions

(National Council for the Social Studies, 2002, p. 13). This is, and should be, the

standard for Social Studies literacy. Students need to be able to express themselves,
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their opinions, and how what they learn directly applies to their everyday lives.

Without it, the subject matter can become irrelevant, and the obstacles to students

educations can only grow.

To keep the subjects relevant to learners, educators must aid them in

attaining historical thinking skills, a critical part to the overall literacy in the social

studies curriculum. The NCSS included the idea in their Standards, saying Historical

thinking skills enable learners to evaluate evidence, develop comparative and causal

analyses, interpret the historical record, and construct sound historical arguments

and perspectives on which informed decisions in contemporary life can be based

(National Council for the Social Studies, 2002, p. 37). In fact, the NCSS was not the

only organization to include this in its standards; the Indiana Department of

Education, while outlining the standards for middle/secondary social studies

courses, devoted an entire standard to the concept of historical thinking. It takes the

NCSS standards, specifies a couple, while also expanding on some; it reads:

Students conduct historical research that incorporates information literacy

skills such as forming appropriate research questions; evaluating

information by determining its accuracy, relevance and comprehensiveness;

interpreting a variety of primary and secondary sources; and presenting

their findings with documentation (Indiana Department of Education, 2014,

p. 11).

The most important part of the content literacy, therefore, revolves around the

concept of historical thinking skills, no matter how they are defined. They prove to
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be cross- curricular, as the evaluation, discovery of relevancy, and the interpretation

of readings and texts can be utilized in literature, language acquisition, and even

scientific studies. Thus, an all-encompassing definition of social studies content

literacy can be thought of as the constant integration of curricular materials and

historical thinking skills into the everyday life of the student; to be fully literate, one

must evaluate documents, maps, pictures, etc. to find meaning and draw

conclusions, thus giving him or her a platform to compare and contrast the material

to what has happened in history, what is happening now, and what could happen in

the future.

Another large part that must be included when analyzing content literacy is

Academic language. According to Bailey and Butler, there are two parts to its

definition: content-specific language (e.g., technical terms such as latitude and

longitude, and phrases such as The evidence points to . . .) and general, or common

core, academic language (e.g., persuasive terms, comparative phrases) that is useful

across curricular areas (in Short, Vogt, & Echevarria, 2011, p. 5). In regards

specifically to social studies, the content-specific language most often revolves

around the textual terms of history (terror, regime, conflict), economics (free-

market, microeconomic, budget), government (branch of government, judiciary

system, rights and laws), and many other social-scientific fields. Therefore,

academic language in the social studies content can be thought of as the unfamiliar

terms social scientists use, as well as the language included in documents in

generations before the student; since language was written differently and words

had different meanings, context needs to be provided to students when sought out
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to aid in their understanding. Thus, if a goal of the social studies curriculum at all

levels is to help students to become responsible citizens in the future, all educators

integration of the academic language is extremely important and relevant in the

lives of the students, whether they know it or not, and it must be treated as such in

classroom instruction and assessment.

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Language Potential challenges for students Quote/example from text

component

Vocabulary and - Old ways of speaking and writing - there are general academic

symbols in various historical documents tasks that one needs to know

- Economic terminology how to do in order to be

- Geographic terminology academically proficient (e.g.,

- Deep meanings of/behind create a timeline, take notes)

artwork and more specific tasks (e.g.,

- Foreign/Federal policy debate the pros and cons of

terminology seeking independence from

- Metaphors/symbols in England) (Short, Vogt, &

speeches/writings Echevarria, 2011, p. 5).

- Cause-and-effect scenarios in

history

Language function - Knowing how to apply the Learners should be able to engage

(Blooms studied terms in everyday life independently in in-depth

Taxonomy) - Creating a set of ideals necessary analysis [and] comparison of any

for governments when analyzing two or more [groups of cultures,

various groups in history economies, etc.]. They should be

- Comparing attributes of two able to connect their

economies, governments, social comprehension of cultural groups

groups, etc. and analyzing the to the realities of cultural diversity

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differences of those groups within multicultural societies and

consider how culturally different

groups can cooperate to enhance

the public good (National Council

for the Social Studies, 2002, p. 21).

Discourse (Special - Showing competency through the Each discipline should be studied

ways that debating of contrary points in a as a community with unique

professionals in social studies classroom (with the discourse forms for

your field topic of the economy, conceptualizing and discussing

communicate with government, historical analysis, knowledge and making knowledge

each other) etc.) available within and outside of the

- Acquiring the ability to community (Gee, 1990) (found in

adequately discuss what the OBrien, Stewart, and Moje, 1995, p.

student has learned with his or 457).

her peers, evaluating it, and then

applying it to everyday life

Grammar and - Writing a paper from various The writing of a scientific lab

syntax historical and sociological report is not the same as the

perspectives writing of a persuasive speech or

- Being able to properly evaluate the writing of an essay comparing

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historical texts for deeper the Allied and Axis countries goals

meaning and understanding, and actions during World War II.

rather than simply assessing Students need semantic and

names, dates, events, etc. syntactic knowledge and facility

with language functions (Short,

Vogt, & Echevarria, 2011, p. 8).

The most important insight I gained through researching, reading, and

writing about content literacy and academic language in social studies is that there

are many more skills than I previously assumed to be present in the field of social

studies. While I knew about various historical thinking skills, I never sat back to

truly analyze what they were, how I use them in my everyday life, and how I plan to

teach them in my future classroom. It has become extremely apparent in this

process that my thinking needs to shift away from assumptions of what is most

important in a history classroom. For example, it is good to analyze history to find

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mistakes, patterns, and insight into current events, but I cannot continue to assume

this is the only thing that is necessary to teach history. In fact, there are many terms

that I, myself, need to further understand and comprehend so that I can become an

even more informed citizen. If I do this, then I set an example for my students,

allowing them to potentially have a role model who uses what he learns in the

classroom out in his everyday life.

Furthermore, through my research in this topic, various questions, some of

which do and do not have answers, stemmed from my thoughts. The first was how

can lessons be differentiated if standards need to remain the same for all students?

The second question, specifically regarding standards themselves, was what

standards are the most important in a classroom? Should we strive to teach by

federal, state, district, or other organizations standards? The final question that I

came up with was a little more abstract, but still important: how do we create

innovative and creative lesson plans that keep students engaged and on-track for

success, in testing, assessments, and life? While I believe these questions have been

partially answered, I know that I have a lot more to learn. I feel more confident that I

am in the right field than ever before, but there still are steps in taking the

information I have learned and transforming it into viable teaching strategies that I,

as well as other teachers, can utilize in the future.

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Resource List

Indiana Department of Education. (2014). Indiana Academic Standards and

Resource Guide- United States History. Retrieved February 01, 2016.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2002). National Standards for Social Studies

Teachers. Retrieved February 01, 2016.

O'Brien, D. G., Stewart, R. A., & Moje, E. B. (1995). Why Content Literacy Is Difficult to

Infuse into the Secondary School: Complexities of Curriculum, Pedagogy, and

School Culture. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(3), 442-463. Retrieved

February 1, 2016.

Short, D., Vogt, M., & Echevarria, J. (2011). The SIOP model for teaching history-social

studies to English learners. Boston: Pearson.