Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

school was a reason to figure out what was so great about veterans and why we celebrate Veteran’s Day. I feel my students got a lot out of our small unit on Veteran’s Day, and I, along with my uncle, much enjoyed reading their hand-made cards. This approach, in my opinion, was much better than merely opening the textbook to a few assigned pages for the holiday to read and answer questions. By completing the multiple activities within this lesson, students are reading with a purpose, using comprehension skills to identify key concepts, answer questions, participate in a class discussion about a national holiday, apply knowledge learned through text in creating cards, and develop an understanding of the meaning and importance for that particular holiday. Students could also be assessed on conventions of standard English, vocabulary, and other skills incorporated in the reading comprehension questions and research project used in the lesson. Although this lesson was taught and aligned with first-grade standards, the premise of this type of lesson could be used across many grades. The lesson also meets the social studies standard for teaching the importance of national holidays. The social studies and science standards vary for each state and, therefore, may be labeled differently depending on location and curriculum. Traditions of the holiday within a given community, such as the parade mentioned earlier, would depend on the individual community. Lessons such as this would also take a lot of instructional time, which is not always available for content-area lessons. Despite limitations, teachers should make an effort to use the resources they have to incorporate authentic tasks within teaching the state standards. If literacy standards are being taught and assessed during the content- area lessons, part of the lessons may take place during the literacy block as well as the designated social studies time. It is important when integrating content to cover the standards for both content areas and not simply practice and assess literacy skills necessary for a content-area lesson without providing the direct instruction/modeling and scaffolding for students to become proficient in the literacy skill while focusing on content-area topics such as national holidays. When incorporating children’s literature into social studies lessons, it is also important to note this can be approached as a whole-class read-aloud activity in which the teacher reads a picture book or part of a chapter book aloud to the entire class to introduce a new concept or point of view without having a specified literacy standard to be taught and assessed. Children’s literature can be an asset in enhancing social studies lessons and providing multiple sources of information as well as accounts of events from different genres and perspectives. Regardless of whether teachers are systematically teaching literacy standards using the Gradual Release of Responsibilities Model (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) and being sure to model, practice, and asses both literacy skills and social studies content, the use of these texts to enrich students’ understanding of social studies content and be able to personally relate to events through reading same-age personal accounts is reason to include children’s literature in social studies lessons.

her study. She noted the teachers’ desire to seek out professional development opportunities to learn more about culturally relevant pedagogy to make curriculum decisions that were best for their students as they worked to meet the requirement of integrating literacy instruction during social studies lessons. As defined by Irvine (2010), “culturally relevant pedagogy has theoretical roots in the notion that learning is a socially mediated process and related to students’ cultural experiences” (p. 58). Irvine also stated that educators should incorporate this understanding of cultural differences as they plan instruction. One struggle with integrating children’s literature in the social studies classroom is finding materials at various reading levels to meet the needs of students. One way to address this problem is by implementing listening stations during social studies lessons or placing social studies reading material in the listening station during the literacy block. Listening stations and the complex skill of listening are addressed in Fisher and Frey’s (2019) article, which provides ideas for implementing a structured listening station in content-area lessons allowing students to listen and interpret informational recordings and complete comprehension activities to ensure active listening and understanding. Listening stations could also be an alternative for exposing students to literature in which teachers are not able to obtain class sets or literacy resources that are exemplary to the content, but not at the appropriate reading level for some or all students in the classroom. The unit overview below provides one example of a series of lessons in which student interests are considered as well as the expectation for meeting state standards. Example of an Authentic Lesson While teaching in the elementary classroom, I was expected to educate students about national holidays. As a national holiday would approach, my students and I would spend some time as a class reading about the background of that particular holiday, so students were aware of its importance. For Veteran’s Day one year, my students made cards for my uncle who served in the Vietnam War. Before writing, students had to learn about Veterans and what that term meant. Students also needed to understand the sacrifices and bravery of veterans so they could appreciate and understand why there is a national holiday to honor those men and women. Reading the few pages in our social studies book gave a brief overview but was impersonal and hard for some of my struggling readers. Knowing this would be the case, I had already planned to utilize the supplemental reading materials subscribed to by my school, along with finding things from online resource websites I had subscribed to as a teacher. With the social studies textbook, a magazine type article, a comprehension story with questions, and an online project outline with web resources prepared, my students were ready to learn about Veteran’s Day. From the start, students knew they would be out of school for Veterans’ Day, there would be a Veteran’s Day parade near the Veterans Administration hospital in town, and they were going to prepare cards for my uncle. Learning that this holiday impacted people in our community and their interest was important enough to be out of

Reading Matters Authenticity Matters

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 9

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