Critical Literacy In My Content

Is critical literacy great or what?? Since taking language, literacy and learning in content area at USU I learned how important literacy is in the classroom.  I never really considered literacy to be a huge part in family and consumer science courses but boy was I wrong! My content area requires a lot of reading (recipes, patterns, nutrition labels) and critical thinking but the tricky part is, how do I incorporate literacy into my lesson plans on a daily basis??  Through this course I have learned how to incorporate various forms of literacy into my lesson plans.  Incorporating literacy into lesson plans accommodates for multiple intelligence's and introduces many different forms of literacy that are new and exciting!  Comprehension instruction is one of the biggest things in FCSE.  It is my job as an educator not only to teach content that adheres to the standards and objectives but my the ultimate goal has to be to teach in a way that students can comprehend what is being taught and know how to apply that knowledge.  Before and after reading activities, and metacognition are great ways to incorporate specific comprehension strategies to best help students understand content. There is vocabulary in every subject area that is required by the state for students to be able to define.  I plan on using a word wall in my classroom where I can display unit vocabulary so students can visually see the words to help them remember how to spell the vocabulary words and provide the correct definition to each one.  I also think playing “Riddle Me This” at the beginning of each unit would be a fun way to introduce new vocabulary.  Teaching my students the importance of formal and informal writing is going to be a challenge.  In order to show my students that writing can be fun I will incorporate a lot of informal writing into my classes.  This will include writing assignments such as personal journal entries, free writes and classroom blogs.  I feel that informal writing is the first step in learning how to write because it helps students get their thoughts down on paper and they are not graded nor corrected on their grammar, thoughts and feelings.  These assignments are also a great way to help the teacher stay aware of student’s progress.  Formal writing will be a must in my classroom.  It helps students learn professionalism, how to critically think and prepares them for what to expect on a college level.  I have learned that using multiple representations to produce text helps engage students more in writing activities.  I plan to use social media such as twitter, Facebook and blogs to get my students publishing their own texts.   Social media is now becoming the biggest interest for teens therefore, I feel it is only appropriate to incorporate my students interests into my lesson plans.  I am really excited to introduce http://www.glogster.com/ to my students! I love how interactive glogs can be and it puts a new spin on posters.  I will be using this in all of my content areas when introducing a new unit.  I plan on using the text set I created as well as the ones that my classmates created as well.  This will provide my students with hundreds of text options that support academically, linguistically and diverse learners.  Providing a classroom library that has free access at all times will give students the opportunity to continue learning even on their free time. All of the concepts that I learned in this course most definitely addressed my content area providing an endless amount of possibilities on ways to incorporate language, literacy and learning into my classroom. I feel that incorporating the 6 traits of writing into my lesson plans is one of the best ways to see positive results in my student’s journey through learning.