Final Synthesis Blog Post

At the beginning of the semester when I realized what this class would be all about I honestly didn’t think that I would get much value from it. I thought I understood what the content would be about, and I thought what we were discussing wouldn’t really apply to mathematics anyways, which is my main content area. Although I came in with a negative attitude towards the content, I feel like there were assignments that really shifted my view. I don’t think I would have the view I have about literacy in the classroom without engaging with these texts and assignments. Now, at the end of the semester, I am glad that I have the opportunity to reflect on them and remember how they help this semester and the knowledge I know have can for years teaching students.

As I mentioned, there are a few assignments that I found to be extremely helping in changing my attitude towards literacy in the classroom. I believe the first of these assignments was our think alouds. Being that math is my main content area, I really didn’t understand the process of a think aloud at first or even the types of texts that worked well in mathematics. Although I do believe these assignments were a learning process for me, I think that they initially opened the door to me understanding the importance of literacy in mathematics. For instance, the problems that I was trying to solve could not be comprehended and completed effectively without understanding how to read and interpret the information given. Literary tools are needed to do this, whether a student or a teacher. Think alouds essentially made me see this by requiring me to slow down and pay attention to the thought processes that were happening internally.

The next large shift in my understanding occurred when we started to use and incorporated the thinking strategies of effective readers that we read from our textbook. These strategies allowed me to understand and comprehend text so much better and it really made me think about how helpful these strategies would be for students of all reading abilities. Some of these strategies consisted of making connections, questioning, inferring, evaluating, analyzing, recalling, and self-monitoring. Looking at that list, every single one of those abilities is needed and utilized in mathematics. At this point in the semester I recognized that literacy was indeed a part of mathematics, the question now was would I ignore it or lean into discovering how to teach it in my classroom.

I feel like all through the semester I was searching for how to use helpful texts within the classroom while also teaching students how to engage with them using strategies I had also learned in this course. I believe that the biggest and most practical answer that I got to this question was through the strategy lessons that we taught the class in groups. I feel like those presentations and my own presentation gave me a clearer picture of what it looked like to intentionally bring literacy instruction into the classroom while teaching another content area. The largest benefit to this was that I got to see a lot of the lessons presented in person along with still having access to them all and examples of them through our textbook.

In my EMAT class this semester we discussed what it looks like to not only help students in learning math but to also encourage them in their ability to think mathematically smart. To show all of our students that they have the ability to succeed even though some students may have different strengths and abilities than other students. I mention this because I feel like seeing the need behind teaching literacy in my classroom has not only allowed me to see a broader content, I should be teaching but also other strengths that I had yet to consider that students can possess. For instance, skills in making connections and questioning are literacy strategies and are simultaneously so helpful and prove to be such an asset to students in math. I feel like this course allowed me to see the benefit of teaching my students literacy in math and also provided me with tools and language to applaud them and encourage them in their individual ways of mathematically thinking and being an asset to our classroom learning environment.

(Word Count: 728)