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“Third Space” Inquiry Group Examines Intersections of

Multiple Literacies
By: Kristin Schweitzer
Date: September 17, 2010
Summary: A group of history and science teachers from Writing Project sites across the
nation gathered—in person and online—to read about and reflect on content area literacy and
delve into creative ways to support multiple literacies in content area classrooms.

What different lenses and perspectives do students bring to the classroom that impact how
they interact with disciplinary texts? How can teachers create a "third space" in the classroom
—a context in which home literacy and school literacy overlap to create a new lens through
which to think about content area material?
Five science and five history teachers from Writing Project sites across the nation joined each
other in 2009 to participate in the Third Space Inquiry Group, an online group in the NWP

Content Area Literacy Ning , to collaborate and examine what they do with their students
to help them become readers, writers, and thinkers in their disciplines.
The term "third space" means an alternative space that merges the "first space" of people's
home, community, and peer networks with the "second space" of the discourses in which
they engage in more formalized institutions such as work, school, or church.

I gained a variety of new teaching techniques from my colleagues.

The process began in September 2009, when the inquiry group members participated in a
two-day-long kickoff event in Denver, Colorado. Participants read research, including An
Annotated Bibliography for Elizabeth Birr Moje and Reading in the Disciplines: The Challenges

of Adolescent Literacy (PDF) .

The teachers also examined texts that their own students found challenging and analyzed the
writing students produced in reaction to those texts. The ensuing discussion helped the
teachers identify potential within the student writing and create new ways for their students
to make connections to the texts they encounter in science and social studies.
After the kickoff event, the teachers blogged on the Content Area Literacy Ning about their
own classroom experiences as well as content area literacy research.
As the discussion took shape, each teacher identified a question about literacy connected to
his or her own practice. Through blogging, research, and reflection the teachers examined
their students' strengths in literacy and brainstormed ways to connect these strengths to the
discourses of the science or social studies classroom.
The group of teachers met again at NWP's National Reading Initiative (NRI) Conference
What's Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning in New Orleans in March
2010 to present posters that illustrated issues they had explored and observations and
reflections they had made in working with their students.
Building Bridges with Images
Waylon Yarbrough, a social studies teacher from the Boise State University Writing Project in
Idaho, recognized that his high school students had highly developed visual literacies but
struggled to make sense of traditional classroom text.
At the conference, Yarbrough presented the results of having his students dissect and create
political cartoons as a bridge to help them access his content texts, a subject he also wrote

about in a blog post on the Ning, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Political Cartoons .
He chooses subjects from a variety of political cartoonists. The assignment is a set of seven
questions, ranging from the deconstruction of the elements of a given cartoon—who is
represented in the cartoon, for example, or what symbols are at play—to what Yarborough
views as the important question: "What do you think the cartoonist's message is and why?"
He uses this exercise daily in his U.S. government classes, and often in his U.S. history
classes. Yarbrough found that repeated exposure to political cartoons allowed his students to
more easily connect with the text and gave them a more sophisticated understanding of the
historical themes they were investigating.
"I particularly see value in the government classes, as this exercise gives students an extra
lens from which to view current events, from terrorism to Tiger Woods, Obama to the
economy, health care reform to FOX news," he wrote.

Bringing Informality to Science Writing

Related Articles on NWP.org

• Elizabeth Birr Moje on "Disciplinary Literacy" and Reading Across the Content Areas
• Redefining Content Area Literacy Teacher Education: Finding My Voice through Collaboration

NWP's National Reading Initiative

Find out more about NWP's National Reading Initiative.

Nilofer Momin, a science teacher from the Greater Houston Area Writing Project in Texas,
recognized that her high school students were writing for a variety of purposes outside of
school—they texted each other, blogged, and wrote messages on social networking sites. But
she found that despite the facility with which her students wrote in their home lives, they
struggled to write in her science classroom.
At the conference, Momin reported on her inquiry into using informal writing to support her
students' understanding of science and to develop their critical thinking skills.
Writing about their reading made the students "realize that scientific theories and discoveries
keep changing," Momin wrote in her blog. "I like the idea of making [the students] jot down
some questions which will make them think deeper."

The Value of Inquiry

After the conference ended and the teacher-consultants returned home to their classrooms,
they had the opportunity to reflect on their participation in the Third Space Inquiry Group.
Maggie Brewer, a high school history teacher from the Eastern Kentucky University Writing
Project blogged, "I enjoyed being able to communicate with people across the country.
Working in an online environment allowed us as participants to comment on and respond to
each other's lessons and assignments. Throughout our time together I gained a variety of
new teaching techniques from my colleagues. In addition, their feedback allowed me to
reflect on my teaching using questions we asked at the beginning of our work."
Paula Callender, a science teacher from the Northwestern State University Writing Project in
Louisiana agreed. "It was nice to get to share our work with others and get their feedback.
Science people working with science people is the best form of evaluation. Especially when
we are all of the mind that writing has to be an intricate part of the work."
She continued, "I think each one of us gave something to someone that was both useful and
thought provoking. I am truly thankful!"

Watch the Keynote Speech at the National Reading Initiative Conference

Professor Elizabeth Birr Moje makes the case for a disciplinary literacy that focuses on the
literacy skills required of practitioners in a content field.
About the Author Kristin Schweitzer, a teacher-consultant with the Eastern Virginia Writing Project,
teaches high school and college-level Spanish in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Related Resource Topics

• Teaching Writing - Writing across the Curriculum
• Teaching Reading
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© 2010 National Writing Project

The School Administrator April 2010 Number 4, Vol. 67| Virtual Classes, Real Policy| 16-
21
Feature

Blended Teaching & Learning

Developing courses that combine face-to-face and virtual instruction in pursuit of 21st-
century skills in classrooms by LIZ PAPE
A few months ago, I walked into the computer lab at EBC High School for Public Service in
Brooklyn, N.Y., and watched as students, working in teams, created blogs and wikis to share
information about human rights violations. I was there for an ABC News taping on the use of
technology in classrooms.

The network news report looked at New York City Opportunities for Online Learning, or
NYCOOL, and the reporter interviewed the students and their teacher, Kimberly Cahill. A
social studies teacher, she has been using a blended teaching model with her students for the
past three semesters.
Liz Pape is president and CEO of the Virtual High School Global Consortium in Maynard,
Mass.

Cahill’s students in the Participation in Government and Global History course are using
Web 2.0 tools — wikis, blogs, podcasting, digital storybooks and discussion forums as well
as cell phones and home and school computers — to share information on human rights
violations, where they occur and what is being done to correct them. Students previously
uninterested in the coursework became more engaged once Cahill introduced Web 2.0 tools
into her classroom, giving students the opportunity to create work on the Internet that could
be shared with others.

Online Tool Use

What Kimberly and her students are doing is commonly called blended learning, using online
tools to communicate, collaborate and publish, to extend the school day or year and to
develop the 21st-century skills students need.
With blended learning, teachers can use online tools and resources as part of their daily
classroom instruction. Using many of the online tools and resources students already are
using for social networking, blended teaching helps teachers find an approach that is more
engaging for this generation of students.

The benefits of blended learning include giving students a variety of ways to demonstrate
their knowledge while appealing to diverse learning styles and fostering independent learning
and self-directed learning skills in students, a critical capacity for lifelong learners.

Blended learning incorporates online tools into students’ toolkits, which in the past have
consisted of notebooks, paper assignments and “stand and deliver” classroom presentations.
This expanded toolkit helps students better develop their higher education and workforce
skills. Blended learning extends teaching and learning beyond the classroom walls,
developing critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration and global
awareness.
Continuity of Learning
School leaders have recently focused on the impact of a pandemic on schools and student
learning. How do schools continue student learning over several weeks when a school
building is closed down, either because of high levels of illness within the building, or worse,
because the building needs to be used for another purpose due to a national or regional
emergency?

Blended learning can keep teaching and learning going even when schools are closed because
of pandemics or natural disasters. More important are the opportunities that blended learning
offers to extend teaching beyond classroom walls during more frequent mundane events such
as sick days, student athletic events and snow days.
Riverside’s Connections Between the Real and the Virtual by DAVID E. HAGLUND

Nick loved math. It just came naturally to him. The problem was he didn’t like his 6th-grade
math class. He was able to help others who didn’t understand — something he was frequently
called on to do by teachers — but that was not as much fun as doing difficult problems. He
liked to be challenged and to wrestle with problems until he got them right.
read more
John Wilson Jr., an AP English teacher in Wareham, Mass., uses several online tools,
including blogs, wikis, podcasts and learning management platforms, to reach students not in
class and as a means of offering online options to extend the classroom learning experience.

“I use the blogs as a way of helping my AP students to develop a unique writing voice that
should help them do better on the AP test. I use wikis for some of the group projects I assign
so that students can continue to work on the projects after our computer lab time has
expired,” Wilson says. “I am trying to give my students some experience with online learning
practices so that when they get to college, where online course offerings are becoming more
commonplace, they won’t feel so out of touch. I began using these tools because I kept
hearing from students how they were out the day I gave quiz notes or were out the day I gave
the quiz and were not able to stay after school to make it up.”

For students with extended absences, from long-term illness or participation in national or
international extracurricular commitments, he has created alternative online quizzes so he can
continue to assess them outside of his classroom.

Personalized Connections
Jefferson County, Ky., Public Schools is connecting with its community through a blended
learning model. Using JCPS Online the district’s learning management system, practicing
engineers from the local General Electric plant serve as virtual mentors with pre-engineering
students at the high schools through discussion boards and blogs.

Blended learning is not just for high school or middle school students. At the elementary
school level in Jefferson County, social studies students create blog journals assuming the
role of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. One homework assignment
requires students to react to the convening of the Constitutional Congress by contributing to a
wiki in character. Students no longer study historical events; they have become participants in
the unfolding of history.

In the Millis, Mass., Public Schools, Grace Magley, the technology director, uses blended
learning to make online resources available in a one-to-one learning environment. She says it
is a more effective means of delivering instruction and managing the learning environment.

The 1,400-student Millis district, which is located 19 miles southwest of Boston, experienced
early success through a pilot project offering course electives in art, technology and video
production in grades 5-12. This led to the adoption by all high school teachers of a project-
based, blended learning model. Over the last three years, Millis teachers have used blended
learning to cover more content with students and at a higher level than in a traditional
classroom. They are better able to differentiate their lessons for different kinds of learners
with Web 2.0 tools, freeing up class time for more applied learning through projects.

This year, freshmen and sophomores are working on theme-based projects in all core
subjects. As part of their project, students will use Web 2.0 tools and will participate in online
discussion forums. They will complete an individual electronic portfolio that reflects on what
they have learned through their projects.

“The plan is to expand these projects to all four years of high school and to have them be
more significant each year so that by senior year, their senior project will be a major
contribution to their local or extended community,” Magley says.

In New York City, the school district is partnering with the Virtual High School Global
Consortium to bring blended learning to high school students in Brooklyn. New York City
Opportunities for Online Learning teaches students how to use Web 2.0 tools in project-based
learning through the VHS-designed online course Digital Literacy for a Digital Age.

In this six-week online course, classroom teachers assign a project to the students, to be
completed by course’s end. Students research their content-specific assignment while
learning how and why to use various online tools. The result is a Web 2.0-based student
project in which students share what they have learned about the classroom assignment, such
as the human rights project in social studies.

In other projects, students used Del.icio.us to bookmark resources in a world religions class
and for math topics, including prime numbers and the Babylonian number system. Other
students created blogs on the effects of global trade and the connection between the Mongol
Empire and modern acts of terrorism. Others created a math wiki, which became a shared
resource of key vocabulary words and concepts in algebra.
Student Engagement
Through blended learning, students are given the power to choose the means of
communication most suitable to them — storybook, PowerPoint, drawing, web pages,
podcasts, etc. This plays to students’ different learning and communication styles, ultimately
engaging them more in their learning.

Initially, not all students may feel comfortable working in this new environment or with their
newfound power to make decisions about their learning. Students may push back against their
teachers, asking for face-to-face assistance on learning resources available in their online
environment. They may be hesitant to take a more active role in their learning, preferring the
teacher hand-feed them what they need to learn, rather than using their information literacy
skills to find the information for themselves.
Superintendent Nancy Gustafson of Millis, Mass., observes high school students in a class
called 21st Century Learning, Web 2.0

However, as students realize that using online resources helps build deeper content
knowledge through the ability to review materials online, have more frequent peer reviews
through online discussions or blogs, and participate in online self-assessments designed to
help them measure their mastery of the content, their expectations about the teacher-student
relationship change. Once students realize they no longer are passively waiting for the teacher
to provide them with their learning objectives and resources, they take a more active role and
become impatient when the teacher has not posted what they need to begin their learning.

“We have had students go to teachers and ask why they have never posted a podcast or video
to explain a certain concept. The students begin to become vocal about what they need to
become successful learners,” Magley says.

Teacher Development
Teachers need time, resources and professional development to use blended teaching well.
The problem is that most teachers have not been prepared during pre-service training to use
these tools nor have they learned to instruct students in how and why to use such tools in their
learning.

Little research exists on effective models of professional development for blended learning.
However, research on effective models of K-12 online course design, online teacher
preparation and online teaching standards can offer guidance for developing an effective
blended teaching and learning model for all schools.

The Washington, D.C.-based International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or

iNACOL, has published standards for online courses, online teaching and online programs
based on the available research. In a study of high school online teachers who also teach in
face-to-face classrooms, Susan Lowes, director of research and evaluation at the Institute for
Learning Technologies at Teachers College, Columbia University, identified higher-level
learning activities that teachers were incorporating into their face-to-face classroom
instruction as a result of their online teaching experience.

Online courses in which cohorts of students are required to engage in online discussions,
online group activities and online presentations can serve as a model for blended learning,
whose goal is to develop similar online skills during classroom instruction.
However, classroom teachers need not become online teachers to develop their blended
teaching skills. What is important is that teachers become familiar with Web 2.0 tools and
learn and practice their application in their classes. That knowledge and experience can be
gained in various ways, including combining online professional development with
collaborative face-to-face workshops, combining online training with an online teaching
apprenticeship and creating a series of courses as scaffolding for the levels of Web 2.0 skills
training needed for the final course product.

During the pilot project in Millis, teachers took a three-credit online course to learn about
blended learning and how to apply it to their classes. However, teachers reported this was not
enough to prepare them for making changes to their face-to-face courses. Face-to-face study
groups began meeting regularly to get things off the ground during the curriculum
development phase.

The support of the study group in learning to make the most of the blended learning
environment and to share the results of what they were discovering about blended learning in
their classes was a critical factor in the successful implementation of blended teaching at
Millis. Based on that success, Millis developed a teacher professional development model
that incorporated both online training courses and face-to-face workshops as part of its
professional learning community. The face-to-face workshops were important for helping
teachers with the specific how-tos they needed for building a blended course as blended
learning was expanded throughout the high school.
NYCOOL’s Brooklyn classroom teachers developed their Web 2.0 skills by taking an online
course and then apprenticing with master online teachers. The professional development
course, Using Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning, was developed by VHS based on
experience in developing and delivering online courses. Because the grant duration was not
sufficient to give the NYCOOL teachers enough time to build their blended courses, an
apprenticeship program was developed to supplement the online professional development.
Going Hybrid: Where’s a Newbie to Start? by TRACY SHEEHAN
The Internet has evolved from a curriculum resource to a learning tool composed of Web 2.0
technologies that can be employed for blended learning. Web 2.0 technologies place learners
at the center of online activities and facilitate new forms of creation, information sharing and
collaboration.read more
VHS created Digital Literacy for a Digital Age, an online course for students that was taught
by VHS teachers and required 1-2 hours of student course work per week. The NYCOOL
teachers worked with the VHS master teachers in the online course as students learned how
to use Web 2.0 tools to create their classroom projects. The course provided students with the
instructions on how to use online tools and resources, and the VHS online teachers provided
guidance to students as they created their classroom projects.

Participatory Training
VHS has taken a third approach to developing blended-teaching skills in classroom teachers
by developing a series of online courses that address blended teaching skills and require that
teachers create end-of-course projects they will use in their own blended classrooms. The
21st Century Teaching Best Practices model blends teaching and learning for classroom
teachers by having teachers participate in online activities they can then put into practice in
their blended classrooms. For teachers to learn how to use blogs, teachers are blogging about
the hows and whys of blogs and creating lesson plans for their students within their blogs.

Each course focuses on why teachers would want to use blended learning and then provides
the how-tos for incorporating these tools into instruction. The courses include opportunities
for teachers to build a lesson for their specific classroom use, ensuring a model of
professional development that includes training, time and resources for a successful
transition.

Liz Pape is president and CEO of the Virtual High School Global Consortium in
Maynard, Mass. E-mail: lpape@govhs.org

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Similar Reading: Riverside’s Connections Between the Real and the Virtual and Going
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