In Praise of Amateurism: A Friendly Critique of Moje's “Call for Change” in Secondary Literacy

Heller, Rafael

doi:10.1598/jaal.54.4.4

Cited by 55 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In many ways, Caleb explored content in the important ways his teacher intended; however, his view of what was expected differed markedly from his teacher's. He is, after all, a novice in a secondary school (Heller, ) who has a ways to go in developing disciplinary expertise.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' and Teachers' Perceptions: An Inquiry Into Academic Writing

Wolsey¹,

Lapp²,

Fisher³

2012

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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Academic writing is a mainstay of expression in secondary schools. However, many students think of academic writing in terms of local operations that include spelling, punctuation, use of third person, and so on. Teachers may expect mastery of local operations, but often they want students to navigate the terrain of the content area or discipline by integrating sources, taking up academic vocabulary, synthesizing concepts, or creating new understanding. This article describes the expectations that students in one 10th‐grade class hold about their academic writing tasks as compared with that of their teachers. Length of writing tasks, features of academic register in written work, and purpose in writing assignments are explored, and recommendations are provided based on the data.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' and Teachers' Perceptions: An Inquiry Into Academic Writing

Wolsey¹,

Lapp²,

Fisher³

2012

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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“…Moje suggested that the goal of secondary literacy should be “teaching students what the privileged discourses are, when and why such discourses are useful and how these discourses and practices came to be valued” (2008, p. 100). In a response to Moje (), Heller (/11) suggested that secondary schools should focus on general education and aim to have students communicate about civic, political, and personal issues of importance to them in ordinary language. This seems to me a call for teaching generic reading and writing in content area classes – the status quo.…”

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confidence: 99%

Disciplinary Literacy

Gillis¹

2014

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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“…Proponents of content area literacy (e.g., Fagella-Luby, Graner, Deschler, & Drew, 2012;Heller, 2010) have asserted that students should receive instruction on comprehension strategies across academic disciplines. One end goal of this type of instruction is to develop students' ability to learn from texts.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Reading and Engineering: Elementary Students’ Co-Application of Comprehension Strategies and Engineering Design Processes

Wilson‐Lopez¹,

Gregory²,

Larsen³

2017

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

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For decades, researchers have asserted that K-12 teachers should embed reading comprehension instruction within each academic discipline, including ''technical subjects'' such as engineering. Recently, this assertion has become a source of controversy among researchers and practitioners who believe that time spent on teaching reading comprehension strategies may detract from time spent on more authentic activities such as engineering design. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate whether and how elementary students' applications of comprehension strategies overlapped with their application of engineering design processes. The authors provided comprehension strategy instruction to 57 third-and fifth-grade students as they read texts describing problems that could be solved through engineering. The authors used constant comparative methods to analyze students' comments from small-group and whole-class discussions about the texts. A former reading teacher with a PhD in literacy education identified students' application of reading comprehension strategies, while a former engineer with a PhD in engineering education identified their application of engineering design processes. The analysis indicated that 80.5% of comments that were coded as ''comprehension strategy'' were also coded as ''engineering design process.'' Particular comprehension strategies tended to co-occur with particular engineering design processes. This study challenges the assumption that time spent in applying comprehension strategies detracts from time spent in learning engineering design. Elementary students' application of comprehension strategies occurred in conjunction with their application of engineering design processes, suggesting that comprehension strategy instruction and engineering design instruction can be conceptualized as complementary rather than competing. Keywords: engineering education, literacy instruction, engineering designIn 1925, William Gray famously stated that every teacher is a teacher of reading (Moore, Readence, & Rickleman, 1983). He asserted that reading is necessary to learning in every academic discipline, and consequently all K-12 teachers are responsible for providing comprehension instruction on texts. Since that time, scores of books and articles have addressed the topic of content area literacy instruction, culminating in the publication of the national Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), which affirmed that teachers in ''scientific and technical subjects'' should provide comprehension instruction within their respective disciplines. Numerous researchers (Alvermann, Swafford, & Montero, 2003;Shanahan & Shanahan, 2014) have asserted that this type of embedded comprehension instruction should start within each academic discipline while students are still in elementary school. In other words, comprehension instruction should not be reserved for elementary teachers' daily literacy block...

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In Praise of Amateurism: A Friendly Critique of Moje's “Call for Change” in Secondary Literacy

Cited by 55 publications

References 18 publications

Students' and Teachers' Perceptions: An Inquiry Into Academic Writing

Students' and Teachers' Perceptions: An Inquiry Into Academic Writing

Disciplinary Literacy

Reading and Engineering: Elementary Students’ Co-Application of Comprehension Strategies and Engineering Design Processes

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