The Power of Parallel Reading

Teaching

This post is written by Charlene Aldrich. For more about Charlene, please visit the bottom of this page. The webinar recording for this material is embedded at the bottom of post.

How do we get students to read at home? We probably have to require it. We know in lower school, students are asked to read 15-20 minutes every evening. Students have free choice; parents monitor the requirement by initialing a document. But how can that requirement morph into a habit that positively affects the student’s academic future? “Let them choose” becomes the mantra. When given open choices, it’s human nature to struggle.

BUT when we provide themes, topics, or text sets to choose from, we make a choice manageable. It’s then that students fulfill our targeted purpose for outside reading. It’s then that students look at titles as a way of previewing the content of the text. It’s then that they engage in ‘reading to find out.’ It’s a win-win.

“I don’t have time to hunt down reading selections and/or books!” cry many content-area teachers everywhere. And maybe teachers won’t have the extra time during their first or second year of teaching. Or the first or second month of the year. HOWEVER, when teaching and planning become automatic, time becomes available to investigate the themes and text sets curated and available online. Content-area teachers can introduce reading selections of all genres; these support the ELA curriculum and provide background, cultural understanding, or applications of specific content-area curriculum. This is where the idea of parallel reading emerged – collaborating across the content areas in ways that grow overall literacy proficiency AND reinforce content-area learning.

Parallel – side by side, never touching. Reading – the crosstie that connects content areas. Juxtaposed with another discipline, text is a way to connect things that would otherwise run side by side. Through parallel reading, teachers approach their content from a literacy mindset. Take math, for example. One might say that reading is not necessary to do the math. However, knowing ‘pi’ is essential, but where did it come from? WHO first used it for achieving a measurement? WHEN did it come about? WHY was it necessary? A planning question becomes, “Who were the movers and shakers beginning at the onset of mathematical thinking and going forward?”

How do you implement your new mindset?

Review the major topics of your curriculum. OR
Look at the calendar for events or holidays. OR
Look at the school calendar for half-days and identify a theme, especially those that are more social than curriculum related.
Ask students what ideas they would like to explore, then factor their ideas into your curriculum and text set search.
Ask the librarian to identify a wide range of texts and genres that connect to your theme or topic.
Search in the following text set resources for reading selections connected to the theme or topic.
Construct your curated list for your students to choose an interest to read and share.
Most of all, limit the rabbit holes that you might find yourself in as you realize the plethora of choices that you can provide to your students.

Arousing curiosity and satisfying it with reading develops a positive attitude toward reading. It empowers students to read to ‘find out why’. While the answers to those questions are easily found with a Google search, connecting to the culture of the times happens best when biographies or primary sources are available for reading.

Text of all kinds becomes the primary connection between every content area. Students who read first-hand accounts of the Jim Crow era have a deeper understanding of the literature of that time. The struggle of the Indigenous people has a more significant impact when seen through their eyes in diaries, songs, and poetry. Understanding the building process of the pyramids or the Roman aqueducts connects math with sociology or history.

I alluded to curated text sets above and encourage you to investigate some of my favorite resources. NewsELA, ReadWorks, CommonLit are just a few places to find digital text sets created and classified by readability, theme, topic, holiday, and current events. One of my favorite articles is in NewsELA regarding Halloween and how much money is spent: nine billion dollars in 2018! Each of the above resources contains a wide variety of stand-alone reading/writing projects for those short classes on short days where there’s no time for an entire lesson!

Your teaching librarian can also curate book sets that support your curriculum. Other grade-level teachers may welcome the opportunity to collaborate on reading and writing assignments. Making connections across content-areas strengthens learning and increases the likelihood of creating lifelong learners.

Ponder my truisms about lifelong learning:

Learning requires reading from diverse perspectives.
Linking new learning to prior learning lays a foundation for future application.
Social consciousness is developed when empathy is aroused.
Citizenship has a whole new meaning when students discover that the ‘yous’ of this world are more important than the “I”.

Parallel reading projects grow a body of students who will begin thinking outside of their high school, content-area silo. That is certainly how they will live upon graduation. Stereotype book reports don’t have to be the outcome of parallel reading. How would your students like to communicate their reading experience to others? Encourage them to move beyond summaries (which can be found online) to how their perspectives have shifted because of the reading selection.

Try it. Identifying the selections is half of the fun! What’s the other half? Sharing them with your students. Through themes and topics, students can connect with text in ways outside of a required curriculum text. They can take ownership of their reading which just might result independent readers and learners.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Charlene Aldrich is an instructor in the Office of Professional Development at the College of Charleston. While content-area literacy is her specialty, she also teaches Assessments in Reading, Foundations in Reading, and Instructional Practices as required by South Carolina for recertification. She serves as the Treasurer of LiD 6-12.

Complicated, and Worth It: Fashioning Links in Literacy

Teaching

This post is written by Jason D. DeHart, PhD. Read more about Jason at the bottom of this post.

Were I to conduct a thematic analysis of my career in literacy so far, “I don’t like to read” would rise to prominence as an often-stated reality. Even if students feel that they are capable readers, they do not always express connection and engagement with the texts that they encounter in school settings.

This was true in my time as a middle school teacher, it is a theme that has inspired my scholarship, and it is a mantra that continues to resonate in the K-12 setting in which I am working now. When I consider the types of texts that continue to be honored – voices from hundreds of years ago, many of which include problematic language related to ethnic, racial, and gender identities – it is no small wonder that instant buy-in is so rare.

While there are many potential solutions to discuss, the word that also comes to mind in my thematic thinking is linking. This notion of linking speaks directly to the work of Literacy in the Disciplines in terms of thinking about the strands of critical inquiry that can be fashioned between and among content areas and types of texts. As I start a new semester, I am continuing to revisit the ways I can make content rich and relevant for my students through thoughtful connections between and among content areas, types of texts, and voices old and new.

The Rising Voices

Text selection is a key part of this process. When I first began teaching my students, they were reading Steinbeck’s outsider report of migrant farm workers in Of Mice and Men. That same year, in 1937, a book called Their Eyes Were Watching God was published. I was fascinating by this cultural dichotomy and struck by the opportunity to find a voice from the intersections of gender and ethnicity that could broaden my students’ perspectives about the lived experiences of people in the past. Zora Neale Hurston was, famously, an anthropologist, and her attention to ethnographic detail shows up in her writing.

I then worked with students across my courses to trace this literary journey to Alice Walker, who was instrumental in bringing attention once more to Zora Neale Hurston’s work in more recent times. This conversation between authors across time was one that I could discover and share with my students, linking to their current stories as part of American culture(s). It is both a linking of time and a critical inquiry that travels through a chain of inspiration.

In addition to Hurston and Walker, we read Jason Reynolds, Jericho Brown, and additional contemporary voices who have shared about facets of America that are simply not discussed in many canonical works. It is also important to me to choose works not simply because I am drawn to them personally, but as a way of filling in a gap that exists in what students might have discovered in literature so far.

Critical Analysis and Honest Stance

At one time, suggesting that a revered work of literature contains problematic content would have caused me insecurity. I desperately wanted to be a “good English teacher”, and I thought that meant holding the classics up on clouds. At this point in my teaching career, I recognize the value of honestly evaluating the limitations of thought and experience represented by literary canonical figures. In this way, I can be clearly critical about what it means to be an inside or outside voice related to a particular topic or way of being, and I can invite my students to think critically about these questions of authorship, as well.

I feel that this approach honors my students’ intelligence and acumen in noting these inconsistencies in human stories, as well as their awareness of the absence of some stories in what they have discovered in curriculum so far. This critical stance is not only possible in English class, but can lead to inquiry in history and social studies courses, discussions of equity and equal access in science and health care, and questions of ethics in technology courses, to note a few possibilities.

Asking students to evaluate an author biographically, not to simply suggest that they did not know better than to use language at a certain period in time, but to consider authors’ biases and positionalities is part of deep thinking and ethical work. This need not be a full lecture on the author’s history, but rather a point-by-point glimpse at some major details about them, considered historically alongside literature.

Ways of Reflecting

Finally, all of this critical work requires some kind of outlet. I cannot imagine teaching a class about virtually any topic and not having my students respond in some way each day, either in a paragraph, a sentence, or a few take-away words. I embrace videoed content as students have created zeitgeist poems and adapted key narrative scenes in groups, using their cell phones as one-stop shops for moviemaking. I embrace the visual, not just in thinking about remembering vocabulary words, but in sharing multimodally and symbolically about reading and viewing experiences.

A question stem to encourage this kind of response might be something like: Locate or create three images that represent your thinking about the representation of political unrest in Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez, or Create an infographic to help us understand the setting and context of Elie Wiesel’s Night.

In this way, students can explore links between and among stories that have existed for some time, as well as those that need to be (re)told. Moreover, as I have explored in this post, students can become aware of, critique, and even compose links between historical and contemporary voices, and engage in the process using tools and approaches that build their mathematical, artistic, and technological skills.

Teaching and learning is truly a linking and connected process, from past to present and across multiple literacies. All of this rich complexity requires attention, but I have found the conversation to be worth the time.

Jason D. DeHart is a passionate educator, currently teaching English at Wilkes Central High School in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. He served as a middle grades English teacher for eight years and an assistant professor of reading education at Appalachian State University from 2019 to 2022. DeHart earned his PhD from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash

Teaching Word Roots in the Science Curriculum

Teaching

This post is written by Dr. Timothy Rasinski. Learn more about Dr. Rasinski at the bottom of this post.

Research has demonstrated that the size and depth of students’ vocabularies are associated with proficiency in reading comprehension. Words matter in reading. Words also matter in academic areas. In science, words are labels for key scientific concepts. Although learning science-related words is critical to success, teaching them can be challenging – many scientific ideas are new to students, and most scientific concepts are abstract. Asking students to look up and memorize words and their definitions in dictionaries or textbook glossaries is, at best, a short-term solution and, at worst, can lead students to deep disinterest in studying words.

Another Approach – Word Roots

A word root is an umbrella term for a word part that carries meaning, including prefixes, bases, and suffixes. Importantly, our understanding of a new word’s meaning begins not with the prefix but with the base because the base is the root that provides the word’. Moreover, the ubiquitous nature of word roots means that they appear in many words – learning one word root can help readers understand many words. Since over 90 percent of all academic words (including science) are derived from Greek and Latin word roots, it seems that a comprehensive and efficient approach to teaching science vocabulary is to teach the word roots that underly the scientific concepts and words students will encounter in their science instruction.

Here’s a year’s worth list (one per week) of some of the many science-related word roots (and their meanings) derived from Latin and Greek that students will encounter in their science instruction. Interestingly, many of these roots also find their way into the vocabularies of other academic areas, such as math and social studies.

You can easily see how these word roots are found in many science words and concepts, especially in longer scientific words that combine multiple bases, prefixes, and suffixes (e.g., abrupt, interruption, photosynthesis, illuminate, orthodontist, biodiversity, sediment, subside, etc.).

How to Start with Word Roots

There are many ways to include word roots in science and vocabulary instruction. One of the simplest is to develop in students an awareness of and fascination for word roots. This can be done by starting each week with a new word root and presenting students with the root, its meaning, and a list of words that contain that word’s roots. Perhaps make a classroom visual display of the root, its meaning, and a list of related words (students could keep their own personal word journals with this information). Then throughout the week, make quick references to the root, perhaps adding a new word each day to the display. And, of course, when coming across new words containing the root in your instruction, draw students’ attention to the word, and its root. Here’s an example using the “hydr(o)” word root:

A few minutes each day studying the targeted word root and reading texts containing word roots can go a long way to develop students’ understanding of science (and other academic areas), build their general vocabularies for reading and writing, and develop students’ fascination with words toward becoming a true “lexophile” (“lex” = word; phile = love/lover).

Recommended Resources

Rasinski, T., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2014). Getting to the Roots of Science Vocabulary: 6-8. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education. (find at www.tcmpub.com)

Rasinski, T., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2014). Building Vocabulary from Word Roots: Kits for Grades 3 through 11. Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Materials. (find at www.tcmpub.com )

Dr. Tim Rasinski is a Professor of Literacy Education at Kent State University where he holds the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W. Gorman Chair in Educational Leadership. A former classroom and reading intervention teacher, Tim is a member of the International Reading Hall of Fame and was recently identified to be among the top 2% of scientists in the world.

Tim’s Email is trasinsk@kent.edu You can follow Tim at @timrasinski1

Cover Photo by Arun Geetha Viswanathan on Unsplash

Using graphic organizers to help break down content into manageable chunks

Teaching

This post is written by Schyler Anderson. Read more about Schyler at the bottom of this post.

While teaching science one day, I gave my students what I thought would be a simple task – read an article and answer questions afterward. In my lesson plans, I wrote this as a “warm-up” activity which was only supposed to last about ten minutes. Ten minutes passed and to my dismay, the majority of my students weren’t even attempting the assignment. I walked around the room to check in with students and see what the issue was. The students who weren’t attempting the assignment asked me to read it to them. Once I did, we went through the questions and they were able to answer them with no problem.

The situation listed above occurred frequently in my classroom. In the beginning, I played the blame game and felt that teaching middle schoolers how to read was out of my control and not my job. After seeing my students continue to struggle, I realized this was an area of my teaching that I needed to revisit. I believed that literacy was at the core of science and integral to the success of my students. When researching, I came across the strategy of using graphic organizers. I found that one of the reasons middle school students struggle so much with science literacy is because they have had little exposure to expository writing. Expository writing is filled with complex vocabulary, structured by topics, and has no clear beginning, middle, and end, unlike the narrative writing they were more used to. Graphic organizers help students break down the content into manageable chunks and ensure they grasp what’s most important.

Once I decided this strategy was worth implementing, I approached implementation with a science brain where I created a control group and an experimental group. Both groups took the same pre- and post-assessments. The experimental group learned using graphic organizers and the control group relied on traditional reading comprehension strategies such as skimming and scanning the text, looking at bold words or phrases and reading the questions before reading the text. The groups switched to the next unit so that each group had experience learning content with and without graphic organizers. I was ultimately comparing the growth between each group to see if this strategy really helped improve students’ reading comprehension skills. I created my own graphic organizers based on each topic like the one sampled in the image below. I decided to follow the basic templates of hierarchical, cyclical, conceptual, and sequential graphic organizers where I added titles and phrases to help students understand the organization better.

When looking at the data, I found that this strategy was helpful to my students, particularly those who categorize themselves as poor readers and/or those who were low achievers in science (D or F grade range). Survey data showed me that 67% of my students from Class A and Class B felt that using graphic organizers helped them understand content from the textbook better. They also provided written explanations stating that when using graphic organizers:

“It helped me because it breaks down everything.”
“It helped me because it is more organized.”
“The content is simplified.”
“It is easier to find the answer.”

I also noticed that my low-achieving students experienced the most growth between the pre-and post-assessment while in the experimental group. For example, the two low-achieving students I focused on experienced a growth of 60 and 40 points when using the graphic organizers. This group of students also responded the most enthusiastically to the strategy. Before graphic organizers, the two focus students loathed completing written work. They both rated themselves as poor readers who are insecure about their reading ability. When comparing this behavior with their behavior during the use of the strategy, it was a 180-degree difference. These two students were writing down and completing the assignments. They were complaining that class was ending too quickly. They became more confident in the short time that I tried this strategy out. You can see for yourself the comparison between the work of my focus student, Ava, below:

When looking at the notes above, you can see that Ava did not complete the note sheet entirely. The answer to the question, “Why are particles necessary for cloud formation?” is answered incorrectly showing a lack of understanding. The final question is not answered so the notes lack some details. Now compare this with the graphic organizer completed below. Notice that the graphic organizer is entirely complete. Ava took the time to draw out each symbol and color it in. The definitions provided give enough details that Ava could use these notes to help her study or complete an assignment.

While my foray into the world of graphic organizers was short, I find this strategy to be a promising one. This strategy is first and foremost easy to implement. There are numerous templates online or you can create your own using Google Slides or Google Drawings as I did. Simply print them out, explain what goes where, and see how your students do. The second plus to this strategy is that it teaches students how to pull out the important information within a wordy article and how to actually use this information when needed. Finally, this strategy was most effective with my struggling readers and I don’t know about you but If I can find a strategy that helps my struggling students become more successful I will. In conclusion, give graphic organizers a try today or tomorrow and see how they will help your students become better readers of science – and other expository – texts.

My name is Schyler Anderson. I am an educator located in Sumter, SC. This will be my 4th year teaching 6th-grade science. I am a proud USC alumna. I got my bachelor’s degree in middle-level education with a concentration in math and science and my master’s degree in teaching with a focus on PBL.

Cover Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

Webinar: Using Curiosity to Write in Science

Teaching

Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.

Using Curiosity to Write in Science

This webinar features two science teachers sharing ways literacy can be used to support science content learning. The purpose of this webinar is to communicate learning in science through the CER framework and provide examples of how writing can be a tool to enhance science knowledge. Our goal is to give other science teachers tools to incorporate writing in their classrooms and more students towards specialized science writing practices.

When: This webinar was held on Thursday, January 19, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.

The video recording of this session is available below.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session featured Anna Stuart and Wanda Littlejohn.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

Ms. Anna Stuart is an 8th grade science teacher in Lexington, SC. Anna earned her bachelor’s degree in middle level sciences and her master’s degree in Language and Literacy from the University of South Carolina. As the lead science teacher at her school, she is passionate about creating curiosity in her classroom and helping students see themselves as scientists. She serves on the Board of LiD 6-12.

Ms. Wanda Littlejohn is a native of North Augusta, SC, and has 22 years’ experience in the field of education with a background in science. Currently, she is an Instructional Specialist at Carolina High School where she provides professional development for teachers. Her passion is working with educators to provide engaging and equitable learning experiences for students. Additionally, she enjoys spending time with her 15-year old son and shopping. She serves on the Board of LiD 6-12.

Please share this professional learning opportunity with your colleagues.

Follow and like Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 on Twitter.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Planting the Seed of Comprehension in Agriculture and Science Classrooms

Teaching

This post is written by Stephanie M. Lemley. You can find out more about Stephanie at the bottom of this post.

For the past two years, I have had the privilege of working primarily with grades 6-12 Mississippi agriculture and science teachers through a grant entitled Agricultural Sciences Professional Development (ACRE). This professional development for agricultural literacy grant is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In this grant, teachers participate in an intensive, two-week summer institute where they learn animal science, plant science, and meat science content as well as literacy strategies, pedagogy, and teacher leadership. The teachers also participate in two follow-up days—one in the fall semester and one in the spring semester. As a content-area literacy and disciplinary literacy teacher/educator, I work with the teachers on infusing comprehension, writing, and vocabulary strategies into their classroom practice. During the summer institute, the teachers keep an interactive notebook (either hard copy with a spiral notebook or a digital version on a site such as Canva.com) to record their lab data, literacy strategies, and notes from presentations. Previous research on interactive notebooks in science classrooms has shown that such tools can support students’ communication of science understandings (Wilmes & Siry, 2019).

One strategy that has been impactful for both cohorts of teachers is the carousel (Adams & Leininger, 2017). This strategy promotes productive talk in the classroom. On the first day of ACRE, I post chart paper labeled with the different livestock species—dairy cattle, beef cattle, small ruminants (goats/sheep), equine (horses), and swine around the room. I divide the teachers into small groups and have them circle the room, two minutes at each station, recording as much background knowledge about each livestock species as they can. As they rotate around the room, they read what others wrote, correct any misconceptions, and record their own information in a different color marker. At the end of the summer institute, we revisit the carousel to record new knowledge from ACRE.

Image: ACRE teachers completing the carousel about different livestock species.

Another strategy that I teach and we practice in our summer institute is magnet summaries (Buehl, 2014). A magnet summary is a strategy where students construct meaningful summaries, in their own words, about a topic or concept. As a piece of text is read, magnet words—key terms or concepts—are identified from the reading and are organized into a summary.

At our summer institute, I modeled, and we completed together a magnet summary on the term ‘animal scientist’. We introduced this topic to the teachers because the majority of the presenters throughout our two weeks together were practicing animal scientists from the university. We utilized two texts– American Society of Animal Science’s (ASAS) entry on “What is Animal Science?” and the Occupational Outlook Handbook’s entry on Agricultural and Food Scientists.

Image: *A magnet summary on the term ‘animal scientist’.*

Once we completed the first magnet summary together, the teachers completed another one on a Mississippi commodity (e.g., broilers, cattle, catfish, corn, cotton, horticulture crops, peanuts, rice, sweet potatoes, etc.) utilizing three sources—the Mississippi Farm Bureau Commodity Facts, the Mississippi Agriculture Commodity Directory from the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, and the Mississippi State University MS Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) Mississippi Commodities list.

Images: Magnet summary on the Mississippi commodity ‘soybeans’.

Both of these strategies translated well into classroom practice for our teachers. In our fall follow up, one teacher noted, “The carousel strategy worked well because students enjoyed going back after lessons to see how much they learned.” Another teacher noted that the compilation of strategies in the interactive notebook the students are keeping “allows them make connections with content throughout the term.”

References

Adams, S., & Leininger, G. (2017). But I’m NOT a reading teacher! Literacy strategies for career and technical educators. Coppell: Sandy +Gwen Always Learning.

Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4^th ed.). Newark: International Reading Association.

Wilmes, S.E.D., & Siry, C. (2019). Science notebooks as interactional spaces in a multilingual classroom: Not just ideas on paper. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 999-1027. doi: 10.1002/tea.21615

*This work is supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy priority area, grant no. 2021-67037-34210, project accession no. 1025666, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Stephanie M. Lemley is an Associate Professor at Mississippi State University where she works with pre-service and in-service teachers on incorporating literacy strategies into their agricultural teaching practices.

Cover Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Nurturing Key Critical Literacies Through Visual Arts Pedagogy

Teaching

This post is written by Linda Cato. You can find out more about Linda at the bottom of this post.

The classroom is charged with an energy of quiet focus: ten students patiently mixing rainbows of watercolor on paint trays and carefully painting in rows of squares on pieces of large, gridded paper. The students work around one large “studio table” created by pushing together several desks, which allows for ease as they assist and encourage each other through what was initially seen as a painstaking task, but is now met with curiosity and reflection.

“I never knew I could mix so many colors with just three! And I never knew that I could see my feelings!” says one student.

“To be honest, I thought I was gonna hate this, but I feel so calm right now,” says another.

Visual arts pedagogy holds the inherent potential to foster literacy across disciplines, while also nurturing key critical literacies such as hope. Art making (and all creative work) is, in its greatest sense, an act of hope, a powerful pathway by which we bring forward what lies beyond words, engage in bold envisioning, and exercise the right to dream. Educator and scholar Jeff Duncan-Andrade defines critical hope as the ability to assess one’s environment through a lens of equity and justice while also envisioning the possibility of a better future (Dugan, 2017; Duncan- Andrade, 2009 as cited in Bishundat, Philip, and Gore, 2018). Following my curiosity regarding the classroom as an incubator of personal and community well-being, creativity, and literacy, I have been striving to design projects which nurture both critical literacy and critical hope, with a nod to SEL and visual art standards. My goal is to walk a path of discovery alongside my students, whereby we build the capacity and language to craft essential and provoking questions and invite expansive answers through our creative journeying, while laying the foundations for personal and collective transformation and growth.

The unit, based on watercolor technique and color theory, set us on a path of self-reflection and connection. Introduced towards the end of the term, it bridges what we have seen and heard from the artists explored in this course (Kusama, Wiley, Butler, Glinsky, Gee’s Bend Quilters, among others), linking their experiences to the students themselves, with a focus on the storytelling power of color. Color, along with other forms of creative expression, is a powerful tool that can be used to express personal narrative, work with challenging emotions, and foster positive states of mind. (The Foundation for Art and Healing, 2022).

We began by looking at and responding to art that emphasizes the color red. Students offered insights as to what the red felt like to them, and what stories the red was telling in each painting. For some students, red felt like agitation or anger, for others, celebration and love. From their discussions, it was clear that they understood the personal nature of color as well as its potential to evoke emotion.

After our initial discussion, I passed out large sheets of watercolor paper and asked each student to create a grid on the paper, using rulers and pencils. I then began a demonstration of how color families can be mixed from three root primary colors – red, yellow, and blue – modeling the creation of a watercolor rainbow of colors of varying brightness, intensity, and opacity. I used the demonstration as a think-aloud, reflecting out loud as I worked, using vocabulary specific to the visual arts discipline and this lesson (“I see that mixing complementary colors has a specific effect on the value of color”) and taking time to pause and look at my work in order to offer reflective questions,”I wonder how the story of this orange will change if I add two drops of green?” and “Ohhhh that looks a little more like a shadow color, gives me a low-energy feel”…. I also note that “As I fill in this grid with all these colors, I am reminded of how many emotions arise throughout my day, one after the other….. “, connecting the activity to wider learning and laying important groundwork for the individual reflections and class discussions to come.

After completing about a quarter of my grid, I invited students into the process, continuing to work alongside them for several minutes. Pausing my work, I circulated around the room, engaging students in reflection and inviting questions. Once students had filled in the grids, we paused for a mindful reflection on the process and on the myriad of colors that covered the table. Referring to the Feeling Wheel (Wilcox, 1982) they named their colors with the corresponding feeling, writing the emotion on each square. We closed the session with students sharing their completed grids along with insights into their experiences and learning, acknowledging not only how different the grids are from each other, but also how beautiful and satisfying it is to see them all together.

*Example of completed color grid: all colors are mixed from a root primary triad, and each color named based on the connection of color/emotion, specific to the student artist.*

The next step in our exploration was to create a self-portrait using the color mixing techniques. We began with a group share, with students identifying and sharing the dominant moods they have experienced over the past week. Most students reported feeling tired, sad, bored, and stressed. I invited the students to consider how we might use color to connect to states of joy, peace, calm, and ease while demonstrating some techniques they might use to sketch out the silhouette of a head and neck, which I then divided in half by drawing a line down the middle of the face from top to bottom. Once all students had completed their drawings, we referred back to the Feelings Wheel. I invited the students to choose one emotion they had felt in the past days, and then identify a contrasting emotion and to write them on their drawings, on either side of the face. Next, students were guided to mix two different palettes, each representing one of the emotions they chose to express. Using their mixed colors, they painted in the portrait, one half at a time.

As the class worked with care and focus, I circulated around the room, responding to questions and comments. When all the portraits were finished, we shared the art and some words about the overall experience. Some expressed surprise at how their mood lifted as they worked on this project, and overall the class agreed that they experienced feelings of hope after representing themselves in colors connected with positive emotions. The group share was definitely a moment of connection for the entire group: we had touched a moment of collective critical hope. Through the shared creative experience and dialogue, students understood multiple perspectives while still connecting to self.

Given the concerning statistics regarding adolescent mental health, it is imperative that we are supporting our students in their awareness and understanding of their emotions, helping them develop the skills and tools they can use throughout their lives. In this particular instance, creative work is the vehicle of exploration. Creative expression supports the development of emotional literacy by inviting curiosity and reflection. Emotional literacy is directly tied to critical literacy in that it empowers individuals to deepen their own self-awareness while equipping them with tools of self-advocacy. Critical literacy in turn lays the foundation for critical hope as students find courage to envision, engage in new ways of experiencing, and exercise their self-efficacy.

References

Bishundat, D., Phillip, D. V., & Gore, W. (2018). Cultivating critical hope: The too often forgotten dimension of critical leadership development. New directions for student leadership, 2018(159), 91-102.

The Foundation for Art and Healing, artandhealing.org 2022

Willcox, G. (1982). The Feeling Wheel: A Tool for Expanding Awareness of Emotions and Increasing Spontaneity and Intimacy. Transactional Analysis Journal, 12(4), 274-276.

This post is written by Linda Cato. You can follow Linda on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lindacatoarts/.

Linda currently serves as a high school visual arts instructor with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School District, after relocating to NC from the desert Southwest. Following a strong interest in schools as spaces of wellness and healing, Linda recently completed certification in Social Emotional Arts through the UCLArts and Healing program. Linda’s wish for all students who pass through the classroom is that they touch joy and possibility, and experience the power of inquiry and bold imagining. Linda is also also a mixed-media visual artist with an active studio practice. The created art is grounded in observation and experimentation, and considers the interconnectedness of human experience, spirit, and the natural world.

Cover image credits.

Blending Practices, Skills, and Content in Teaching and Learning

Research

In our educational spaces, we often break our areas of expertise down into specific subject matters. We educate, train, and certify classroom teachers in terms of grade bands and content or disciplines. Students in schools spend time blocked off in different subjects where they receive instruction in a content area and earn grades that signify their level of expertise and competence in that area.

We separate our time in the educational pathway into grade levels and content areas to make it a bit easier to certify and support educators as they work with youth. But, these artificially designed pieces end up creating silos where educators and students set up camp and develop expectations about what, why, and how we learn. This raises the question about whether we need to erase the boundaries between disciplines, or do we need to—in a sense—harden them so that students learn where they start and end and are therefore better prepared for their futures?

A transdisciplinary lens challenges educators and researchers to consider the spaces in which learning occurs and overcome established paradigms and competition within and between disciplines. ¹ This post will examine the ways that education tries to carve out a space for collaboration and ambiguity between the disciplines and suggests there is a need to deconstruct assumptions made about educational structures and systems to de/re-territorialize teaching, learning, and assessment. ²

Interdisciplinarity

Some theories of education shift the focus from understanding of formal concepts to meaning-making to encourage students and educators to cross disciplinary connections. ³ As instruction moves away from traditional understandings of content areas and disciplines to craft new blended content areas (e.g. Humanities, STEM, STEAM), there is an opportunity to find content area literacies in context in other disciplines. ⁴ A desire to study across “individual attributes, at the nexus of institutional and material practices and textual cultures, instrumentality, and the production of agency and identity.” ⁵ Educators seek not for disciplinary purity and isolation, but to explore knowledge, discourse, and literacy practices around mutual areas of inquiry. ⁶ Instruction may also focus on teaching strategies that integrate multiple domains of knowledge into a single unit of study, such as authentic learning ⁷ or project-based learning. ⁸

In the graphic above, you can see two disciplines with their own sets of practices, skills, content, and dispositions. In an interdisciplinary perspective, educators and the content work together synergistically to understand an object of inquiry.

One way to consider this is to think about a science teacher and an art teacher working together on a unit with students. The science teacher would consider the content and curriculum they are teaching. The art teacher would think about their content and curriculum. The process or product of the interdisciplinary unit might have students use art to illustrate or creatively express content of the other discipline. This is not a bad thing, but we’re reminded of Aristotle who stated, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

Metadisciplinarity

Metadisciplinarity is the understanding of the structure of a discipline, “of what the discipline is, what it tries to accomplish, and how it tries to accomplish its aims.” ⁹ Metadisciplinarity goes beyond one discipline into the structural understanding of various disciplines in order to make comparisons and connections between disciplines. ¹¹ The elements of metadisciplinarity include practices such as defining notions, generalizing ideas, drawing parallels, developing classifications, choosing proper classification grounds and criteria; to find out causal relationships, building logical reasoning and making (inductive, deductive, analogical) conclusions. ¹²

In the graphic above, metadisciplinarity finds the connections, or correspondence (marked with “μ”) between subsets of practices, skills, content, and dispositions from one discipline to the other.

One way to think about this is using our example of a science and an art teacher working on a collaborative unit. Teachers and students would examine and compare the similarities and differences between the two content areas. They may consider the affordances of each of of the disciplines.

Transdisciplinarity

As detailed above, educational research and practice can be framed as a spectrum starting from content area silos and a disciplinary focus to more of an integrated interdisciplinary connection that includes multidisciplinary associations. The concept of transdisciplinarity is slippery, in flux, and has a plurality of definitions. ¹³ One of the features of transdisciplinarity is blurring and transcending disciplines. These spaces have been shown to provide fertile grounds for exploring patterns of change, transformations, and invariants in and across content areas. ¹⁴ Transdisciplinarity breaks down the silos and pro-
vides an enriched experience that is more true to life in that disciplines are experienced
simultaneously rather than in isolation. ¹⁵

In the graphic above, transdisciplinarity involves the blending of disciplines by blending of practices, skills, content, and dispositions from one discipline to the other.

One way to think about this is with our example of a science and art teacher working together on a unit. They consider the concepts, expressions, and forms shown in art, science, and in-between. They study gardens as heterogenous assemblages where art, science, and people meet. They consider how the plants need water and cultivating in order for the garden to prosper. In their work, they include elements of art, science, and beyond. But, their work process and product is an iterative assemblage as they consider where the living sciences, and abstract nature of art meet.

This post was written by Nenad Radakovic and Ian O’Byrne. This was originally posted here. Portions of this content from our publication titled Toward Transdisciplinarity: Constructing Meaning Where Disciplines Intersect, Combine, and Shift.

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

Wicked Problems

Teaching

Many important societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems. ¹⁵ A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and groups, has unpredictable outcomes, and defies typical problem-solving techniques. ¹⁶

Wicked problem is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It’s important to note that the word (wicked) is used to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil. ¹⁷

Systems Theory

Because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. We make sense of this through systems theory, or the the interdisciplinary study of systems. These systems are cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made.

Every system has causal boundaries and is influenced by its context, defined by its structure, function and role, and expressed through its relations with other systems. A system is more than the sum of its parts as it can express synergy, or the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Systems can also show emergent behavior, or an unanticipated side effect of bringing together a new combination of capabilities. Emergent behaviors can be either beneficial, benign, or potentially harmful, but in all cases they are very difficult to foresee until they manifest themselves.

Addressing Wicked Problems

To address a real-world, wicked problems a transdisciplinary lens is needed to support educators and students as they engage with this content in ways that extend beyond traditional academic boundaries ¹⁸ Transdisciplinarity is a research or educational approach that seeks to challenge disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic perspective that enables inputs across scientific and non-scientific communities. ¹⁹ Looking at a problem and context through a transdisciplinary lens allows one to construct meaning in more authentic contexts where disciplines intersect, combine, and work together. ²⁰

What could be described as a wicked problem is really a situation in which we’re recognizing the power and irregularity of evolving systems. In education, we want to provide learning opportunities for students that are valid representations of the challenges they’ll encounter in the real world. This calls for a greater amount of flexibility on the part of the teacher. Given the lack of structure, and problems with validity, reliability, and access of open digital information, educators need to be more flexible and tolerant as they engage in the learning process. ²¹ Teachers need to have an appreciation for the complexities, pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities that exist when using open, digital information in the classroom. ²² Educators must constantly re-envision what it means to be educated, and what it means to be literate as technology advances. Through the careful use of texts, tools, and pedagogy there is an opportunity to effectively achieve Friere’s goal that teachers should be learners, and learners should be teachers. ²³

Students also bear a great deal of responsibility when engaging with wicked problems in the classroom. Students must display the discipline, responsibility, persistence, and flexibility required to work as an active participant in these interactions. In this process, students must take an active role in learning, and reconsider the concept of “school.” ²⁴ In a classroom in which teachers empower students to wrestle with wicked problems, students may have to take a leadership role in the crafting and revision of new learning process or product. ²⁵ ²⁶

Conclusion

We we prepare youth to enter their futures, it is important to be honest with learners and let them know that the systems, policies, and practices that govern our spaces may not always make sense. As we address wicked problems it is important to consider all of the contexts and contingencies that impact the these decisions. As learners in a globally connected community, we need to continue to evolve with these incomplete, contradictory, and changing challenges from a systems perspective.

When we think about pedagogy or curriculum in terms of content areas or disciplines, these arbitrary designations limit the creativity and perspective that youth need as they prepare for their futures. This siloed view of teaching, learning, and assessment stunts youth from fully engaging with meaningful experiences.

Adding complexity to this wicked problem of considering these opportunities in learning environments is that as we debate whether to include them in classes, the wicked problems themselves evolve, intensify, and metastasize. Educators need to evolve and reset paradigms around teaching, learning, and power as the challenges persist.

Content originally posted at https://wiobyrne.com/wicked-problems/

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Webinar: Transdisciplinarity as a Gateway to Critical Literacy

Announcements

Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our next after-school Webinar Series session.

Traversing, Transforming, Transcending, and Transgressing wicked problems in the classroom.

Many critical societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems (Zellner & Campbell, 2015). A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and groups, has unpredictable outcomes, and defies typical problem-solving techniques (Rittel & Webber, 1973). To address real-world, wicked problems, a transdisciplinary lens is needed to support educators and students as they engage with content in ways that extend beyond traditional academic boundaries (Alford & Head, 2017). Students experience deeper learning and start thinking outside the box when their teachers collaborate to present different aspects of the same subject across various disciplines. (Mauser et al., 2013). A transdisciplinary lens allows one to construct meaning in more authentic contexts where
disciplines intersect, combine, and work together (Rice, 2013). This session will define transdisciplinarity and provide teachers with techniques to expand critical literacy opportunities in their classrooms.

When: This webinar was held on Tuesday, December 28th, 2022, 6:00 – 7:00 pm ET.

The slide deck for the presentation is embedded below.

The video recording of this session is available below.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session featured Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session will feature Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne

Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne (@wiobyrne) is an associate professor of literacy education at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on individuals’ dispositions and literacy practices as they read, write, and communicate in online and/or hybrid spaces. Ian is the author of many journal articles and book chapters focusing on initiatives ranging
from online and hybrid coursework, integrating technology in the classroom, computational thinking, and supporting marginalized students in literacy practices. His work can be found on his website or in his weekly newsletter.

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Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash