Teaching Literacy Midterm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Teaching Literacy Midterm - Essay Example 326.) The demands of making meanings, stresses the students to activate their prior knowledge and schemata abilities. Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn. (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p.326) writes that, "Content area teaching has a detailed link with schema theory and prior knowledge."The notion of 'prior knowledge' comprises of few subordinate ideas, which are the 'characteristics of prior knowledge', 'historical back ground', the circumstances of learning and 'classroom acts' (Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326) write that, "This collection of related, hierarchically arranged ideas is a schema." Few followers of this theory even believed that the single most influential factor is the existing and prior knowledge of the readers on which it depends that what he ends up learning from the material (Eric Digest). The accuracy, sufficiency and appropriateness of a schema, needs to be tackled by the instructor in a very delicate and planned manner. Students can make most out of their schemas if only the teachers know how to activate it. (Lapp, Flood & Farnan, 2004, p. ... The renewed awareness in reading was reinforced by the International Reading Association in 1999. The document focused on "advanced levels of literacy" and considered "their ability to read will be crucial". Many instructors turned to interactive manner of teaching reading. Boothe and Walter (1999) quote McCormick, T. (1988) who writes that, "It one of the most promising approaches to the theory of reading today." Boothe and Walter (1999) write that, "An interactive reading model is a reading model that recognizes the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously throughout the reading process." But the reader needs "to interacting with the text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning (Goodman, K. 1981). Most of the reading models, share a common postulation, that many "variables impact student's learning from text" (Pearson, Kamil, Bar & Mosenthal, 2000, p.647). They concerned themselves with cognitive psychology, schema, instructional strategies and the text. Boothe and Walter (1999) while quoting Rumelhart, D. 1985 write, "write that, "These various sources of information appear to interact in many complex ways during the process of reading In this scenario the teacher has to play a role of an instructional designer and their tool is 'text'. Once students are able to develop an understanding of text and identify the text structures then the road begins for towards independent reading. According to Buehl (2009, p.72) the benefits of involving the students in this model means "to condition the students to read material at different rates for verifying purposes" is similar to the core principle of content area literacy. The learners

Language and Power 2.2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Language and Power 2.2 - Essay Example As such, the following analysis will seek to provide an overview and understanding of how educators, as well as fellow stakeholders, can develop effective responses to issues of language in power. It is the hope of this particular author that such a level of discussion will be beneficial; not only in providing a broader level of identification and understanding of the subject matter of module two – but also in terms of effectively understanding the many nuanced impacts that language has upon the life of the individual student and stakeholder within society. Similarly, a specific focus will also be placed upon pedagogical responses to my: such as critical literacy, critical pedagogy, critical multiculturalism, and other aspects that are oftentimes included in core curricula around the globe. In terms of critical pedagogy and critical multiculturalism, Alastair Pennycook indicates that one of the major issues facing educators within the current era has to do with the interpretation of teaching ESL students; or more specifically (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Within his article, entitled â€Å"Critical Moments in TESOL Praxicum†, Pennycook indicates there is a certain stigma that is attached to teaching these students; a stigma that most directly relates to an understanding that TESOL education is a type of grunt work – something that no other educator wants. As can directly be seen, the implication of this has for critical pedagogy and critical multiculturalism is one in which these students are oftentimes understood or viewed in terms of the â€Å"untouchables† (Pennycook, 2004). Whereas it is oftentimes not the race, gender, or culture of the ESL student that encourages certain educators to make this assessment, the impac t of lack of desire, lack of passion, or lack of interest in