1 / 41

Advanced Literacies in the content areas

Advanced Literacies in the content areas. Kristina Love Australian Catholic University. Overview. The concept of ‘Advanced Literacies’ Working with advanced literacies in Australia Future challenges. 1. Literacy: some premises.

effie
Download Presentation

Advanced Literacies in the content areas

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Advanced Literacies in the content areas Kristina Love Australian Catholic University

  2. Overview • The concept of ‘Advanced Literacies’ • Working with advanced literacies in Australia • Future challenges

  3. 1. Literacy: some premises • A major responsibility of all teachers, regardless of the subjects they teach, is to develop their students’ skills in handling literacy, both in reading and in writing. • Proficiency in reading will help develop proficiency in writing, and vice versa • Carefully structured oral interactions also help build literacy

  4. Literacies: insights from research • Modern literacy is very diverse and complex, often requiring images, diagrams and graphs to be read and interpreted, alongside words. • The nature of literacy changes fundamentally from Year 1 to Year 12, and the foundations laid in the early years are not sufficient to support the complex literacy demands of the later years of schooling

  5. Theoretical insights into advanced literacies • Christie & Stenglin, 2006 • Christie & Derewianka 2008 • Coffin, 1997, 2010 • Fang & Schleppegrell 2008 • Schellepgrel & Colombi, 2001 • Unsworth, 2006, 2010 • Veel, 1997

  6. Year 3 Science • The Little pygmy possum is the smallest in the possum family • Its body is 5 to 6:5 centimeters long and its tail is another 6 centimetres. It weighs around 7 grms. It has a cone shaped head. Its fur is a soft brown colour with a tight grey belly. It has very large rounded eyes. Its big toe, known as a hallax on each foot helps it to climb balanced with its tail which curls and grips branches. • (from Christie & Stenglin, 2006)

  7. Advanced Literacy: Year 7 Science • “The cells that line the nasal cavities have cilia, tiny hairlike extensions that can move together like whips. The whiplike motion of these cilia sweeps mucus into the throat, where it is swallowed”. • Identify potential language challenges.

  8. The cells that line the nasal cavities have cilia, tiny hairlike extensions that can move together like whips. The whiplike motion of these cilia sweeps mucus into the throat, where it is swallowed. Technical language Long noun groups Re-packaging of noun-> adjective (whiplike) Nominalisation (move -> motion) Info in first sentence is compressed and becomes the point of departure for further elaboration in second sentence. This facilitates scientific reasoning, but challenges readers to ‘unpack’ densely organised information

  9. Advanced literacy: Maths • Relationships between multiple abstractions • Area = Length x Width • Volume = Area x Height

  10. Nominalisation and abstraction • The demands of increasingly technical and abstract mathematical language accumulate dramatically by high school, when many struggling learners are left behind. • Teachers who can explicitly discuss such language features with their students, and their role in making mathematical meanings, can engage them more deeply with mathematical content (Huang & Normandia, 2008). • See NSW Maths for Literacy paper pg 9.

  11. Scaffolding advanced literacies through talk: Maths • T. What distance do you have to measure?S. The distance.T. Which distance?S. The distance from the vertex.T. Which vertex?S. (pointing) That one.T. Can you be more precise?S. The top left vertex.T. OK. So what do we measure?S. The distance from the top left vertex.

  12. T. Good. To where?S. The outside of the other shape. T. I’m not sure what you mean. Where on the other shape?S. The bottom left hand corner.T. OK. And what do we call that shape?S. The object.T. OK. So the line’s going to …S. The bottom left vertex of the object.T. OK. Put that all together and tell me what you’re measuring, what distance?S. The distance from the top left vertex of the image to the bottom left vertex of the object. • Transcript Robert Veel, 1997

  13. The language of mathematical reasoning • Precision in use of language for locating and measuring • Use of abstract and technical concepts • Written-like conventions of the language preferred over spoken-like • endophoric, not exophoric reference • lengthy noun groups.

  14. The challenge of advanced literacies • Primary school cannot prepare readers for the specialised reading in high school eg • Literary works • Historical documents • Scientific explanations • Mathematical problems • Here, S’s engage with more complex combinations of genres, in new contexts of learning that are further removed from their personal and everyday lives

  15. Increased complexity of generic structure

  16. From recounting history … • Year 10 History • “By 1929, American factories were turning out nearly half of the world’s industrial goods. The rising productivity led to enormous profits. However, this new wealth was not evenly distributed”. • How has information been ‘packaged’ to build from sentence to sentence? • Students can be explicitly taught to identify how information is presented in one sentence, then re-packaged as the point of departure for the next sentence.

  17. … to critiquing history • From a text used to teach about the causes of the Boxer Rebellion in China. • “Imperialist powers had been competing to carve the country into spheres of influence for years, while enforced opium addiction and widespread corruption had reduced most of the populace to abject poverty” (Denny, 2008) • Students must unpack abstract and highly nominalised concepts (bolded). • … and recognise that what are presented as ‘facts’ are often interpretations to be evaluated, as historians make more or less explicit judgements about the people and events in history.

  18. Recognizing ideology • In evaluating the Boxer text as a commentary on a period of Chinese history, students must assess the writer’s 21st century post-colonial stance by focusing on his choice of value-laden epithets (‘abject’), verbs (‘carved’ and ‘reduced’) and nouns (‘corruption’). • Students need support in learning to read in these highly specialised ways, drawing attention to how such language operates to construct a particular argument about history • ie learning to be critical historians, able to interrogate various viewpoints.

  19. Learning to interrogate • In evaluating the Boxer text as a commentary on a period of Chinese history, students must assess the writer’s 21st century post-colonial stance by focusing on his choice of value-laden epithets (‘abject’), verbs (‘carved’ and ‘reduced’) and nouns (‘corruption’). • Students need support in learning to read in these highly specialised ways, drawing attention to how such language operates to construct a particular argument about history • ie learning to be critical historians, able to interrogate various viewpoints.

  20. Interrogating multimodally • Web site on the one child policy in China http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=128&catid=4&subcatid=15

  21. Advanced literacies and multimodal texts • The multi-generic and multi-modal nature of texts in education • LASS Unit 5 Screens 3-6, 11-1

  22. Advanced literacies and image-text relations • New research into image-text relations • Image equals (=) verbal text • Image adds to (+) verbal text • Image elaborates on (x) verbal text • Image contradicts (-) verbal text • Unsworth http://www.pucsp.br/isfc. Proceedings 33rd International Systemic Functional Congress 2006

  23. Image = (clarifies) verbal text • In the verbiage, the information about fly traps is simply “… constructed fly traps from old PET drink containers to catch flies.” The nature of the trap and how it catches flies are clarified by the image.

  24. Image + (extends) Text • In the verbal text, the absorption of evaporated moisture in the air, its movement and eventual precipitation is described without any mention of 'clouds'. It is in the diagram that the formation and transport of clouds and precipitation from them are specified

  25. Image x (elaborates) text • When an image enhances the text by adding causal, temporal or spatial meanings • The cropped colour photograph relates to the bold caption below it by ‘manner/means’

  26. Image - (contradicts) text • Pictorially the levels are allocated equal proportions • Verbal text states that each level is of radically different depth • What is explicitly stated in the verbiage about the relative depths of the different ocean zones, is strongly visually contradicted.

  27. 2. Working with advanced literacies • Zammitt: Framework for multiliteracies • BUILT, LASS and LASS+ • Other curriculum support materials: focus on Maths • NSW materials on Maths • Parkin & Hayes article (program with Indigenous communities)

  28. Zammitt (2006) Framework for multiliteracies

  29. Using the Framework • Evaluate the pedagogy underpinning this TLF site • http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/sample_curriculum_content/tm_-_civics_and_citizenship.html

  30. BUILT

  31. BUILT’s structure

  32. Literacy Across the School Subjects • New film footage of high school teachers • New insights from research on Academic Literacies • Updated technologies

  33. A taste of LASS • Unit 1: interviews with world experts, students and teachers (Gatachi, Screen 20, video 2) • Unit 4 Screen 3 Frogs exercise • Unit 5: multimodal genres • Units 6 & 7: supporting literacy pedagogy • Unit 8: planning around literacy.

  34. LASS Plus (Recounts) • First in a series of 6 • http://www.eshowcase.unimelb.edu.au/packages/lass

  35. Other curriculum materials • Focus on Maths • NSW materials on Maths • Parkin & Hayes article (program with Indigenous communities)

  36. 3. Challenges

  37. Challenges in Sweden? • Teachers’ attitudes? • Resources development? • Others?

  38. References • Christie & Stenglin, 2006 Understanding English language and literacy development http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/knowledgetransfer/downloads/LiteracyPositionPaper.pdf • Christie, F & Derewianka, B (2008) School Discourse. Continuum Press • Fang, Z. and Schellepgrell, M. (2008) Reading in the secondary content areas: a language based pedagogy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. • Gibbons, P. 2002. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. • Kress, G. (2003) Literacy in the New Media Age, Routledge, London and NY. • Love K, Pigdon K, Baker G, with Hamston J. (2005) Building Understandings in Literacy and Teaching (BUILT) CD ROM 3rd Edition, The University of Melbourne, Vic. • Love K, Baker G, and Quinn, M. (2008) Literacy Across the School Subjects (LASS) DVD, The University of Melbourne, Vic. • Schellepgrell, M. & C. Colombi Eds (2002) Developing Advanced Literacy in first and second languages: meaning with power. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum • Unsworth, L. (2006) E-literature for children: Enhancing digital literacy learning. Routledge • Unsworth, L. (2007) Image/text relations and intersemiosis: Towards multimodal text description for multiliteracies education. Online publication available at http://www.pucsp.br/isfc.

More Related