EDUC3526 Literacies Across the Curriculum in the Middle and Secondary Years

This topic supports pre-service teachers to think about their role as a literacy teacher. The topic begins with a focus on how socio-cultural background shapes students' textual practices. Preservice teachers will then consider place-based educational considerations and definitions of literacy. Against this background, pre-service teachers will examine their responsibility to teach literacy in their specialist teaching areas. Current frameworks for thinking about literacy will be introduced, and classroom strategies which support student learning will be explored.

This topic aims to:

• Understand some of the factors that impinge on teachers' work as literacy teachers (policy, place, student needs)
• Develop understandings, knowledge and skills appropriate for beginning middle and secondary schooling literacy teachers
• Develop a positive disposition toward literacy
• Understand the responsibilities associated with teaching literacy in the middle and secondary years in content area classrooms

1. Build a familiarity with a range of written, oral and visual texts, be able to select appropriate texts and ways of dealing with texts for middle school students
2. Understand that a text is influenced by who wrote it; when, where and under what circumstances it was written; its intended audience and purpose: these are contextual understandings
3. Know the language structures and features of different text types, why they are significant, and ways of teaching them in classrooms
4. Understand a range of teaching strategies that support students' literacy development and be able to use these strategies effectively
5. Embed literacy teaching in their teaching content areas
6. Develop their own language proficiency and literacy competence to the point where they can confidently teach students and use metalanguage that is clear and precise
7. Understand a range of currently held views about literacy learning and teaching and how they influence classroom decision making
8. Articulate an informed and defensible personal view of literacy so that they can interrogate their classroom practice for consistency with this view