February 1 - Apart of a Whole

I’m going to be honest in this blog. I was having problems taking away useful information related to my area of study. The chapter focused on methods in teaching high school students how to read challenging texts. It high lighted the knowledge needed to tackle hard readings and some specific ways the authors taught their students ways to approach a text in their classrooms. Now, the content was full of very handy and useful knowledge for a literature or history classroom. I just felt that it lacked a substantial amount of information pertinent to mathematics literacy. I know that most of the readings in this class will be focused on literature, the humanities, and history. Despite this, I have usually found the readings to be applicable to my discipline, mathematics. This chapter, though, was a bit of a challenge. This all being said, I will share what I was able to take away.

One thing I noticed as I read about the skills and knowledge necessary for reading challenging text is that mathematical proficiency can actually be very helpful when reading in other disciplines. Besides the obvious mathematical knowledge section, there were the pragmatic and analytical knowledge and skill sections. A pragmatic reader will question the text to further understand it. This is a clear skill that you use and develop in mathematics. To find a solution, you often have to question and reason out the purpose before you can find the answer. And then, often times, you have to analyze how that answer can be applied practically. You develop these abilities by developing questions that you ask yourself as you solve a problem. And then, there’s analytical knowledge and skill. This section included the ability to read tables and graphs, both skill sets that are introduced and cultivated in math and science classes. So what’s the point of this? Well, it just goes to show that teachers in all disciplines need to be able to collaborate to help their students practice skills that are needed to read the challenging texts they will face in college and graduate school.

I have been thinking about and starting research in a few of my classes this past year. It has required me to read articles and studies that are full of highly challenging text structures and aspects. Often times, the language and vocabulary are above my knowledge and graphs, tables, and statistics are included. Conclusions and methods are very detailed and require focus and discipline to read. This type of reading is a perfect example of what a well-rounded student should be prepared for in high school.

Because of the research that most students will face in college, learning data and information retrieval skills are beyond important. Hinchman writes, “ In our current context, we relied heavily on the Internet, which meant that we not only need digital search skills, but also needed critical digital search skills. We checked and double-checked sources, assessing the sites’ provenance and checking the numbers across multiple sources” (p 218). In high school, I had a history teacher who assigned Timeline Projects in which he gave use events covered in the unit and we had to research the exact day, month and year in which the event occurred and put it in order. This required extensive research online and double and triple checking a date’s validity because not every website had the correct date. I learned which websites were trust worthy, how to quickly scan a search result page or a website for accurate information. I could not be more thankful for those projects because they taught me skills I have continued to use in my academic career.

So where does mathematics fit into this? Well, what I gathered from this chapter is that in order to help a student develop skills and knowledge necessary for reading challenging text, we need to collaborate with each discipline, mathematics, science, history, literature, etc. They are all intertwined.