1st Edition

Academic Language/Literacy Strategies for Adolescents A "How-To" Manual for Educators

    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    Fast-paced, practical, and innovative, this text for pre-service and in-service teachers features clear, easily accessible lessons and professional development activities to improve the delivery of academic language/literacy education across the content areas in junior/middle school and high school classrooms. Numerous hands-on tools and techniques demonstrate the effectiveness of content-area instruction for students in a wide variety of school settings, particularly English language learners, struggling readers, and other special populations of students.

    Based on a strong professional development model the authors have been instrumental in designing, Academic Language/Literacy Strategies for Adolescents addresses:

    • motivation
    • attributes of academic language
    • vocabulary: theory and practice
    • reading skills development
    • grammar and writing.

    A wealth of charts, graphs, and lesson plans give clear examples of academic language/literacy strategies in action. The appendices – a key component of the practical applications developed in the text – include a glossary, exemplary lessons that address key content areas, and a Grammar Handbook.

    In this era of increased accountability, coupled with rapid demographic change and challenges to traditional curricula and pedagogical methods, educators will find this book to be a great resource.

    FOREWORD

    PREFACE

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND

    A short history of the term "Academic Language"

    Instruction from an Academic Language perspective

    Why should we teach Academic Language?

    How this book can help

    CHAPTER 2 MOTIVATION

    The importance of motivation

    Research on student motivation

    Setting a purpose for learning: The anticipatory set

    Active learning and hands-on activities

    Modeling and guided practice

    CHAPTER 3 ATTRIBUTES OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE

    Receptive and expressive language

    Application of receptive and expressive strategies

    Professional input and feedback for Academic Language literacy Instruction

    CHAPTER 4 VOCABULARY: THEORY AND PRACTICE

    Developing vocabulary

    Learning and acquisition: The importance of multiple exposures

    Cognates, root words, and affixes

    Contextualizing vocabulary

    Personalizing and operationalizing vocabulary

    Strategies for teaching vocabulary

    Specific activities/techniques

    A sample lesson

    Summary

    CHAPTER 5 READING SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

    Importance of reading in the content areas

    Research on reading and reading comprehension

    Literacy and reading

    Content literacy

    Expository vs. narrative text

    The phases of reading: Reading into, through, and beyond

    Strategies for getting students "INTO" reading

    "Into" activities

    Strategies for getting students "THROUGH" reading

    "Through" activities

    Strategies for getting students "BEYOND" reading

    Integrated activities

    Sample lesson Geometry proofs

    Summary

    CHAPTER 6 GRAMMAR & WRITING

    The importance of grammar to language acquisition

    How should grammar be taught?

    Brick and mortar words

    Why should content area teachers teach grammar?

    Writing and Academic Language literacy

    The relationship between verbal and written language

    Student writing skills

    Building the academic register for writing

    Assessing writing in order to develop writing skills

    Writing: "Into, through and beyond"

    Activities that develop writing skills

    Sample lesson: Three search paper on the Holocaust

    Summary

    CHAPTER 7 SUMMING UP

    GLOSSARY

    APPENDIX 1 Expressive and Receptive Language Strategies and Model Lesson Plan Format

    APPENDIX 2 Sample Lesson Plans Including Expressive and Receptive language Prompts

    Sample Lesson Plan 2.1 Sentence analysis and rephrasing (Earth Science)

    Sample Lesson Plan 2.2 Using the text (Algebra)

    Sample Lesson Plan 2.3 Classifying the elements (Chemistry)

    Sample Lesson Plan 2.4 Using a science notebook (General Science)

    Sample Lesson Plan 2.5 Stem-and-leaf plots (Graphing)

    APPENDIX 3 Sample Lesson Plans Without Expressive and Receptive Language Prompts

    Sample Lesson Plan 3.1: Unit Analysis (Math and Science)

    Sample Lesson Plan 3.2: Word Problems(Math)

    Sample Lesson Plan 3.3: Scientific Method (General Science/Biology)

    Sample Lesson Plan 3.4: Linear Equalities in 2 Variables (Math)

    Sample Lesson Plan 3.5: Intro to Relations and Functions (Math)

    APPENDIX 4 Sample Writing Rubric

    APPENDIX 5 List of Useful Websites for Math and Science

    APPENDIX 6 Common Cognates

    APPENDIX 7 Grammar Handbook

    REFERENCES

    Biography

    Debra L. Cook Hirai is Associate Professor, California State University Bakersfield, where she teaches Masters courses in the Education Bilingual Multicultural Program.

    Irene Borrego is Associate Professor and BCLAD Coordinator at California State University Bakersfield, and a State of California School Assistance and Intervention Team member identified by the California State Department of Education.

    Emilio Garza \is Assistant Professor, School of Education, California State University, Bakersfield, where he teaches in the Advanced Educational Studies Department.

    Carl T. Kloock is in the Department of Biology at California State University Bakersfield, where he teaches courses for biology majors and integrated science for pre-professional teacher candidates.

    "Attention, teachers of all content areas, here is a manual to help with your writing instruction....As a former middle school language arts teacher, this reviewer wishes that she had this book as a reference manual….Highly recommended."--CHOICE