Section 1 Table of Contents Classroom Examples Copyright Evergreen Curriculum Section 3





Language and learning are inseparable. Through all four language modes - listening, speaking, reading and writing - understanding is developed and extended within areas of study. Each area possesses novel as well as common language requirements. Every subject makes unique language demands. Vocabulary is the finger-print of a subject area. Words are labels for concepts. Physics is not the properties, changes and interactions of matter and energy. Physics is the language and study of the properties changes and interactions of matter and energy. Social Studies is not the individual in society. Social Studies is the language and study of the individual in society (Postman, 1979, p. 165).


Why Focus on Language?

Vocabulary provides the foundation to explore, develop and build concepts. The introduction of subject area vocabulary is too important to be incidental or accidental. Therefore, it is important to plan meaningful opportunities for students to connect their background knowledge and experiences with the area under study. Careful planning and instruction can overcome possible barriers to learning that may develop due to an incongruence between the wealth of individual knowledge and interests students bring to a subject area and the language demands of that area of study.

Many learning activities assume that students' prior learning and experiences will enable them to think through and actively construct the meaning of texts, lectures or films for themselves. It is often assumed that students can translate this knowledge into another form (e.g., comprehend text passages, write a report, or prepare a speech). Such assumptions contribute to difficulties for students in reading, writing, listening, viewing and speaking such as:

Carefully planned language experiences supported by teacher modeling and student practice can overcome these difficulties. Practical approaches to developing language across areas of study can foster student learning in all stages of the instructional process.


Preparation for Reading, Listening or Viewing

Developing students' language abilities across areas of study includes supporting students' understanding of the "text", be it an actual textbook, an audio source (e.g., lecture, audio tape, piece of music, speech or debate) or a visual representation (e.g., film, video, piece of art, drama production or dance). The teacher's role is to develop a blueprint for understanding, a plan to enable students to use and understand their "texts".

The job of enabling students to use and understand subject area text requires teachers to explain and model how to read, listen or view. Advance organizers can provide a vehicle to chart the development of student understanding throughout a unit. Concepts are introduced by arranging key vocabulary in order to show important relationships. When teachers share their organizational tools with students and explain and model how these tools can organize and direct thinking, students benefit.

    Structured Overview. One such advance organizer, the structured overview (see Vacca, 1981), outlines and displays the unit allowing students to see the important concepts and their interrelationships. The overview can take several forms: an outline, a flow chart, a concept map, a web, a graph, a pictorial display or an arrangement of objects. The key factor in the overview, regardless of its form, is that it shows the relationships among unit ideas. It provides students with a structure that can assist them in organizing and understanding the information to be introduced.

Ideally, the overview connects the students' prior knowledge and experiences to the resources and content to be studied. It is most meaningful when it is rooted in the student's own experience providing a bridge between what is known and what is new. A series of concrete objects whose relationships are shown using string (see Figure 2.1), a hierarchical chart drawn on the chalkboard (see Figure 2.2) or a typed handout (see Figure 2.3) serve to bring meaning and structure to units of study. Overviews can provide students with an opportunity to bring meaning to the unit and to add new information and understandings to it as the unit progresses.


Figure 2.1 A bulletin board overview of a unit on magnets. Strings connect classroom objects that are attracted by magnets to the magnet. Broken strings show a lack of attraction.



Figure 2.2 A structured overview of a unit on rocks illustrates the hierarchical relationship between the unit concepts. Igneous Rock is subordinate to the Rock Cycle and coordinate to Metamorphic Rock and Sedimentary Rock and superordinate to melting and crystallization. The overarching concept, Rock Cycle, subsumes all the others.



Figure 2.3 A structured overview of a literature unit that combines the class; study of a novel with a group study of novels whose themes are similar. Lessons within the unit move from teacher-centered small group presentations in the class study to student-centered small group interactions to individual research projects. Adapted from Vacca (1981), Content Area Reading.

Teachers can construct and use the structured overview as follows:

  1. Examine the concepts and vocabulary of the unit. Prepare a list of the key concepts or vocabulary that are critical to understanding the task at hand.
  2. Develop an overview that demonstrates the interrelationships among the concepts as they relate to the learning outcomes. Select a format that best illustrates the unit theme and connects with students' past experience and language.
  3. Evaluate the overview prior to presenting it. Does it effectively communicate key concepts within the unit? Does it show the major relationships? Can it be simplified or made clearer?
  4. Introduce the unit using the structured overview. Use brainstorming, prediction and other reflective techniques to encourage students to add to the overview and contribute their insights and understandings. Use the overview to establish prior questions.
  5. As you move through the material under study, relate new information to the structured overview when appropriate. Encourage students to use the overview as a study guide or for extending their understanding through reading, writing or oral assignments.

As a pre-reading, pre-listening or pre-viewing activity, the overview can enhance students' abilities to follow a narrative sequence, anticipate outcomes, recognize different organizational patterns in resource materials and ultimately, increase their understanding of the unit. It provides a framework that invites students and teachers to establish prior questions which set the stage for the unit or lesson and which guide students' search for understanding. Overviews can connect new understandings with previous learnings. They can be used as a unit summary or review, as an outline to guide students' writing and speaking or other introductory or extension activities.

    Cloze Procedure. Cloze activities model inferential processes for students, reinforcing their knowledge of concepts, syntactic structures, language patterns, and vocabulary. Students are encouraged to read material and think about what it means critically and analytically.

Cloze is a psychological term which applies to the human tendency to complete (bring closure) to a familiar but not-quite-finished pattern. The term has been adopted to describe tasks in which specific words have been systematically eliminated from a passage of text and replaced by blanks. Students read the amended passage and try to "cloze" the gap with an appropriate term.

Cloze exercises demand the reading and rereading of passages for clarity and understanding thereby enabling students to relate parts of the passage to the whole. Students come to understand how context clues can determine appropriate word choice. This understanding can be transferred to the writing process as students recognize the importance of word choice in determining the overall meaning of their message.

As pre-reading, pre-listening or pre-viewing activities, cloze and the ensuing discussions can assess the extent of the prior knowledge students bring to a task and reveal their abilities to recall, relate or synthesize information. Cloze activities can assist in assessing students' language competence by revealing their understanding, use of cueing strategies, vocabulary, and awareness of language patterns and structures.

Cloze is most effective when completed as a co-operative small group task. It allows for discussion and sharing of ideas resulting in increased understanding and ability to deal with complex language. The discussions engage students to think about the text in front of them. They are encouraged to conscientiously ask questions and search for meaning.

Cloze activities can be structure as follows:

  1. Select an important section of the text, reference book or teacher-prepared handout which outlines the most important concepts and related vocabulary. Students should not have read the passage yet but may have it assigned later.
  2. Key words are systematically deleted and replaced by a number blank fifteen spaces long. This may be done at random (e.g., delete every 8th or 10th word) or done deliberately (e.g., delete teacher-selected terms). Leave the opening and closing sentences intact.
  3. Explain the task to the students. Model the completion of a cloze exercise to demonstrate that there are several appropriate terms that can be used to "fill in" the blanks.
  4. Students do not usually use reference materials. Working in small groups of two to four members, encourage students to share their ideas and discuss possible solutions.
  5. Allow a reasonable amount of time to complete the task. Monitor the group and facilitate discussion when necessary.
  6. Discuss the assignment with individual groups or the whole class. Be flexible and recognize that there may be several appropriate responses for each blank.
  7. Use the observations made during the activity to plan for instruction and to assist in materials selection.

Practical information regarding cloze can be found in Vacca's (1981) Content Area Reading and Chilver and Gould's (1982) Learning and Language in the Classroom.

Variations of the cloze procedure can be used for different purposes:


Supporting Understanding During Reading, Listening or Viewing

Comprehension may be considered the backbone of subject area instruction. Motivated students and those who have been well prepared for the learning tasks to be undertaken may still experience difficulty matching their abilities to the demands of the materials used in the area of study. The conceptual demands of the material as well as its structure and organization must be made obvious to students. They must be shown how to "think through" the medium being used.

Teachers can help students' reading, listening and viewing by showing them how to be selective in their handling of subject area materials, how to distinguish important and less important ideas, how to see relationships and how to respond to materials in an active manner. One way to guide students as they interact with subject area materials is through using reading, viewing or listening guides. See Figure 2.4 for an example of a reading guide which helps students to focus on the most important information in the text.

    Three level Guides. Three level guides (see Herber, 1978) solicit student responses at three levels of comprehension - the literal level, the interpretive level and the applied level. These levels are interrelated and overlapping. They may be separated for instructional purposes but are inseparable in terms of how they develop insight and understanding of the conceptual complexities of subject area resources.

The literal level focuses on reading the passages, hearing the words or viewing the images. It involves identifying the important and essential information. With guidance, students can distinguish between the important and less important ideas.

At the interpretive level, the focus shifts to reading between the lines, looking at what is implied by the material under study. It requires students to combine pieces of information in order to make inferences about the author's intent and message. Guiding students to recognize these perceived relationships promotes understanding and decreases the risk of being overwhelmed by the complexities of the text being viewed, heard or read.



Figure 2.4 A reading guide designed to promote student interaction with text and with each other.

Understandings at the literal and interpretive levels are combined, reorganized and restructured at the applied level to express opinions, draw new insights and develop fresh ideas. Guiding students through the applied level shows them how to synthesize information, to read between the lines and to develop a deeper understanding of the concepts, principles and implications presented in the text.

Teachers can guide students to respond to meaning at many levels. Guides for reading, listening or viewing can be developed to focus students' search for information and direct the quality of their interpretation of the material under study. Harold Herber (1978) suggests the following procedure for developing three level guides:

  1. Examine the material to determine what information (in light of the purposes of the lesson) is to be emphasized.
  2. Decide on how much help students will need to successfully use the material to achieve these purposes.
  3. Begin to construct interpretive level statements which focus on the author's underlying intent and the relationships which the facts seem to imply. Express these ideas in clear and simple terms.
  4. Search the "text" for information to support inferences developed at the interpretive level in step 3. Transform these into statements of fact to create the literal level segment of the guide.
  5. Decide whether or not to use incorrect or irrelevant information. Such distractors can be viewed as being useful in that they encourage active searching for information. Students will recognize not all statements in the guide are supported by the text.
  6. Develop statements for the applied level. These statements should reflect insights gained by combining relationships presented in the text with ideas from outside the text. These statements should be bridges between what the students already know and what they have gleaned from the text.
  7. Plan time to discuss the guide.
  8. Be creative! Put these statements into an interesting format for your students.

    Pattern Guides. Pattern guides make the text organization explicit. The comprehension guide focuses on recognition of important ideas and information; the text organization is implicit. Students will often interact with visual, auditory or print materials without consciously being aware of the pattern of organization being used. If a predominant pattern does exist and it is recognized by the student, comprehension can be improved.

Compare and contrast, cause and effect, time sequence, and problem-solution patterns are commonly used to organize information. Figures 2.5 and 2.6 illustrate ways in which teachers can guide student comprehension by raising the organizational patterns of resource material to the instructional level. These guides model not only the manner in which ideas are presented and related but also provide a framework for summarizing and extending' those ideas into written and oral work.


Extension Through Writing and Speaking

Writing and speaking activities can help students make sense of their learning experiences. Writing is a means to develop understanding. It points to areas of student interest, tracking their interpretation and level of understanding as they move through an area of study. Writing constructs a personal map of the ideas, concepts and information students encounter in their learning experiences. Writing helps students save their learning experiences and provides an overview of how they structured, questioned, synthesized and expressed their understanding as they journeyed through a unit.

Teachers must guide students through writing activities. Actively engaging students in reading, listening and viewing activities deepens their understanding and sets the stage for subject area writing. Guided writing experiences provide a framework, a model for students to follow in order to structure their writing. The structured overview, modified cloze activities, reading, viewing and listening guides, concept maps and prior questions can provide starting points for student writing. Such organizers provide students with a mechanism or a schemata to express ideas clearly and logically in their own words.

Students should recognize the various purposes which their writing may serve. A partial list of writing purposes includes:

    Journal Writing. A journal is a collection of thoughts, feelings or questions that may be used for future reference or that may be kept as a record of experiences and understandings. Through journal writing, students can shape, explore, clarify, develop and express their understanding using their own language.

Journal writing is expressive writing. Students are invited to use their own language in an informal, conversational tone. This provides the freedom necessary to explore ideas and feelings and, to develop hypotheses, predictions and questions as thoughts are recorded on paper. Through such individual exploratory writing, students are encouraged to recognize, appreciate and reflect upon their personal interpretations of the material under study.

Compare/contrast text structure: Example, frame, and summary patterns

Example [contrast]:
    Marsupials are either meat eaters of plant eaters. Generally speaking, one can tell what type of food a marsupial eats by looking at its teeth. Meat eating marsupials have a great many small sharp teeth designed to tear flesh. In contrast, the front teeth of the plant eating marsupials are large and designed for nipping and cutting. The feet of meat-eating marsupials also differ from those of plant-eating marsupials. The meat eaters have feet that look rather like a dog's or cat's foot. The plant eaters' feet are quite different. The second and third toes on the hind feet are joined together and the big toe is opposed to the other toes, just as a person's thumb is to their fingers.

General frame:

Frame for example:

Summary Pattern:
A. Comparison
    ____________ and ____________ are similar in several ways. Both ____________ and ____________ ____________ . _____________ and ____________ have similar ____________ . Finally, both ____________ and ____________ ____________ .
B. Contrast
    ____________ and ____________ are different in several ways. First of all, ____________ , while ____________ . Secondly, ____________ but ____________ . In addition, while ____________ , ____________ . Finally, ____________ ____________ , while ____________ .

Figure 2.5 Compare and Contrast Text Structure. From Armbruster, B., Anderson, J. and Ostertag, J. (1989). Teaching text structure to improve reading and writing. The Reading Teacher, 43(2). Used with the permission of the international Reading Association.


Cause/effect text structure: Example,
frame, and summary pattern

Example:
    In cold or mountainous regions, rocks are often subjected to the action of freezing water because of daily changes in the temperature. During the day, when the temperature is above the freezing point of water (0°C), rainwater or melted snow or ice trickles into cracks in the rocks. During the night, if the temperature falls below freezing, the trapped water changes into ice. The trapped water expands as it changes into ice. Because the expanding ice pushed against the sides of the cracks with tremendous force, the rocks are split apart. In this way, large masses of rock, especially the exposed rocks on the tops of mountains, are broken into smaller pieces.

General frame:

Summary pattern:
    Because of ____________ . ____________ . ____________ caused ____________ . Therefore ____________ . Finally, due to ____________ . ____________ . This explains why ____________.

Figure 2.6 Cause and Effect Text Structure. From Armbruster, B., Anderson, J. and Ostertag,, J. (1989). Teaching text structure to improve reading and writing. The Reading Teacher, 43(2). Used with permission of the international Reading Association.

Student journals are rarely evaluated although they may be shared with teachers and peers. Students are free to use inventive spelling and are not confined by the rules of grammar. They come to recognize that their insights and understandings are valid and that their responses are valued.

Journal writing can serve several purposes:

Dialogue journals are written conversations designed to increase interaction between students and others. Students write comments, questions or reactions to happenings in their school or personal lives with the understanding that someone will read the entries and write a response directly in the journal. In this way, dialogue journals allow for the dynamic exchange of information between students, or between students and teachers. Students ask questions, challenge assumptions, or express opinions and concerns. Dialogue journals encourage and extend students' reading and writing efforts.

Dialogue journal writing frees teachers to respond to the specific needs of students. It empowers teachers to make instructional adaptations that meet the needs of individual students. The confidential nature of the journal makes it an effective means of sharing. Also, it informs teachers of students' thoughts, ideas, interpretations, and depths of perceptions.

A buddy journal is a variation of the dialogue journal kept by a pair of students. They write back and forth "conversing" through the journal. In this manner, they can refine ideas and clarify understandings with and for each other. The buddy journal integrates reading and writing in a natural way using a purposeful and personally meaningful context. Students are encouraged to select their partners and their topics. After a period of time, partners may change.

The learning log is a journal which focuses on specific content and reflects student responses to the lesson. It is an informal record of learning, a personal response to the learning experience. Learning logs help with the retention of the information or material presented and promote the development of understanding. Students may respond to:

Learning logs, like other journals, are not graded. They are informal records of learning. Spelling and sentence structure are secondary to having students respond to course materials in personal, meaningful ways. Like dialogue journals, learning logs provide practice within writing to clarify understandings and help to demystify the learning process. Further information regarding journals can be found in the English Language Arts Curriculum guide (K-5) and Parson's (1990) Response Journals.

When using journal writing, here are some guidelines to consider:

    Note-Making. Note-making extends understanding, requiring students to do something with what they have read, listened to or viewed. The key components in extending understanding are recognizing relationships and organizing information. Note-making does both. It assists students in clarifying relationships and allows them to "do something" with the relationships they encounter and recognize. Once the organizational structure is understood, comprehension can be demonstrated through the written and spoken word or expressed in a variety of other pictorial, graphic or creative/expressive forms.

In the classroom, note-making is not the major role of students. However, the ability to make notes provides students with valuable tools to assist them along the path to becoming more independent learners. Reading, listening and viewing take on new meaning as students make notes, as they anticipate what is coming next, form questions, organize their thoughts and summarize the information being presented. See Chilver and Gould (1982) for further discussion regarding the development of students' abilities to make notes.

Teachers can help students develop note-making abilities. Here are some important questions to keep in mind prior to assigning note-making activities:

  1. How can I provide students with an overview or framework which will alert them to key concepts and major understandings to be covered (e.g., prior questions, structured overview, diagramatic outline, reading, listening or viewing guides, etc.)?
  2. What format should the note-making follow in order to meet the objectives of the area of study (e.g., jotting down key words or phrases, paraphrasing/summarizing existing text, diagramming to illustrate connections between concepts, etc.)?
  3. How can students be introduced to this format?
  4. What supports must be developed to enhance students' note-making abilities (e.g., classroom environment, instructional methods employed, purposeful note-making, teacher modeling, symbol system, etc.)?
  5. At what stage of the note-making continuum are the students at developing notes as a class? using teacher supplied headings to make notes from a lecture? listening and making notes (including headings) independently?
  6. What will students do with the notes they make (e.g., use them as a future reference, to complete a related assignment, to share with a partner, etc.)?

Reflective discussions and debates are two vehicles that provide students with opportunities to extend their understanding through speaking activities. Students' understanding of these and other forms of oral expression can be nurtured and developed through teacher modeling and guidance. See Frost (1987) for information regarding how to introduce debating to students.


Conclusion

Barriers to success in subject areas can be overcome by planned activities which close the gap between the language demands and complexities of resource materials and students' abilities to understand and cope with these resources. The activities discussed here are intended to introduce teachers to some of the methods which can be used, adapted, or developed to help students with language difficulties and demands in areas of study.

All of the activities in this section work toward the development of the C.E.L. of Communication. In addition, Critical and Creative Thinking is often a focus as students attempt to organize the material under study. Independent Learning is fostered as students can use a number of these techniques for purposes of their own choosing. Depending on the particular content of the unit, Technological Literacy and Personal and Social Values and Skills can be developed. Teacher modeling and classroom structures which foster student interaction can also help to achieve objectives related to the C.E.L. of Personal and Social values and Skills. See the objectives related to the Common Essential Learnings.

The reflective checklist which follows is intended to serve as a springboard for planning and action and to be adapted to suit individual needs and purposes.


Reflective Checklist: Language in Areas of Study

The following questions may be useful when planning to develop language within areas of study. However, it is acknowledged that there are other questions which could guide this process. You are encouraged to build on those questions which are useful and to develop others which better suit your purposes.

What purposes will be addressed?

1. To help students with the language requirements of the area of study

2. To prepare students for reading, listening, viewing or writing

3. To enhance students' understanding of what is being read, listened to and viewed

4. To extend students' understanding

5. To help students express their understanding


Classroom Example: Language in Areas of Study


Practical Resources* and References




Section 1 Table of Contents Classroom Examples Copyright Evergreen Curriculum Section 3