6. Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication

Artifact 1: Trade Book Report for use in Music Classroom

This essay is a report that describes in detail two trade books in the music discipline and the ways in which they may be used to engage students in reading. It was produced for my Literacy Across the Disciplines course during the fall semester of 2017. Within this report, you will find summaries, discipline and grade recommendations, and classroom implementation strategies for The Mysteries of Beethoven’s Hair (Russel Martin and Lydia Nibley, 2009) and The Way to Stay in Destiny (Augusta Scattergood, 2015). The goal is for students in all disciplines to have trade books they can read to deepen their interest and/or spark inquiry into the subject. This report analyzes two examples.

By reading trade books and developing this report, I thus demonstrate my ability to recognize the relationships among reading, writing, and oral communication and my understanding of how to integrate these components to increase learning in music and other various content areas (IPTS 6F). By seeking out trade books that relate to various content areas, I therefore understand how to design, select, modify, and evaluate a wide range of materials for the content areas and the reading needs of students (IPTS 6G). During the production of this report, I selected, modified, and used a range of printed materials appropriate to the content areas and the reading needs of my proposed students (IPTS 6J). Each book’s report also includes ways in which to stimulate discussion in the content areas for varied instructional and conversational purposes (IPTS 6S).

Over the course of several weeks, I took the time to read each book and deliberate ways in which they could be useful to teachers in the music classroom. Along the way, I also discovered several other disciplines that may benefit from their inclusion in the curriculum. In the process of writing up these reports, I discovered the many ways in which trade books can contribute to and supplement traditional methods of instruction. Especially true in the music classroom, increased overall literacy typically results in higher retention rates and overall academic success. It is important, then, to engage students in all subject areas in reading that will deepen their experience of those subjects.

Artifact 2: Quantitative and Qualitative Text Complexity Analysis

This text complexity worksheet is an assignment that I completed for my Middle Grades Literacy course during the fall semester of 2017. The document includes both qualitative and quantitative text complexity measurements of “Father” by Edith Pattou and The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan. The quantitative measurements include lexile score and grade level recommendation according to quantitative measurement. The qualitative measurements include complexity of levels of meaning, complexity of structure, complexity of language conventionality and clarity, complexity of knowledge on-demands, and finally, grade level recommendation according to qualitative measures. For each text, you will also find reader-task considerations for use in the classroom.

The text complexity worksheet presented here demonstrates my ability to integrate appropriate and varied instructional approaches to use before, during, and after reading, including those that develop word knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and strategy use in the content areas (IPTS 6A). My qualitative analysis and reader-task considerations of the two texts illustrates my understanding that the reading process involves the construction of meaning through the interactions of the reader's background knowledge and experiences, the information in the text, and the purpose of the reading situation (IPTS 6B). In putting the analysis and considerations into action within the classroom setting, this worksheet would provide an effective framework upon which to teach students to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and summarize information in single texts and across multiple texts (IPTS 6O).

In studying text complexity and the ways in which it contributes to what students read at what grade level, I was able to understand the underlying factors that go into those considerations. Prior to the learning segment that prompted production of this document, I was relatively unaware of the systems used to determine readability and grade-appropriate texts. The most striking realization that I came to while writing this paper was the considerable differences that can exist between quantitative and qualitative grade level recommendations. This methodology will also serve me well in my ability to choose trade books for my students in a well-informed manner.