Module 4 Application:
Collaboration and
Improvement
Lucas Meister
American College of Education
LIT5203_1810011 Strengthening Literacy
10/28/2018

Literacy Need
 Literacy refers to several related, communicative skills, such as reading, writing,
speaking, and listening, and encompasses both the receptive and expressive
components of language (Alvermann. 2002). With such a broad category of skills,
Rockdale School is at a disadvantage in serving its students because it does not
have a comprehensive and cohesive literacy plan. In establishing such a plan,
Rockdale School should include instruction in vocabulary and word knowledge
across all grade levels, include literacy instruction across all content areas, and use
culturally relevant texts that speak to the experiences of our students.

Research-Based Strategies
 Vocabulary instruction has a positive impact on reading comprehension in
students (Goodwin, 2016).
 The students we serve are coming in with a lower exposure to ;literacy
and a smaller vocabulary.
 To decrease this deficit students should be provided with explicit
vocabulary instruction in the texts that they encounter in every content
area that they encountering school.

Research-Based Strategies
 Literacy is not solely the domain of language arts classes and block, but
rather all content areas have communicative skills that the students
require instruction in (McQuiston, O’Shea, & McCollin, 2008).
 Students require literacy instruction in every content area.
 Content area literacy instruction should include a focus on the
academic vocabulary within that discipline and the common ways of
communicating information, such as essays, models, and
presentations.

Research-Based Strategies
 Culturally Relevant instruction and texts provide students with
away to engage in learning (Chenowith, 2014).
Texts that speak to or are relevant to students’ life
experiences are more engaging.
These texts also allow students to use their background
knowledge to further their learning.

Literacy Lesson Plan
 The students will be using text evidence to answer comprehension
prompts after reading a culturally relevant text.
 Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.1
Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what
the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.6
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and
analyze how the author distinguishes his or her position from that
of others.

 Objectives:
 Students will be able to
Read and analyze how authors express point of view in nonfiction
narrative. RI.7.6
Use text evidence to support an analysis of what the text explicitly
says. RI.7.1

Literacy Lesson Plan
 Procedures
 Students will read a culturally relevant text (A Simple Act) while
listening to an audio version of the text.
Students will highlight and annotate important information while
reading the text.
Students will also highlight words or phrases that t hey do not
understand or have questions about.
The teacher will go over these in a class discussion after the
reading.

Literacy Lesson Plan
 Procedures Cont.
 The teacher will introduce the comprehension prompts to the students
and will model how to complete one of the prompts using the
provided sentence starters.
 Students will work with partners to complete more comprehension
prompts using text evidence.
 As an exit ticket, the students will complete one prompt individually.

Survey
 What should be included in the school’s literacy plan?
 Hoe should the school develop the literacy plan?
 How could the research-based strategies shown be applied to
other content areas?
 How could this lesson be more engaging to students?
 What could be done to improve literacy instruction at
Rockdale School?

References
Alvermann, D. E. (2002). Effective literacy instruction for adolescents. Journal of literacy Research, 34(2), 189-208.
Goodwin, A. (2016). Effectiveness of word solving: Integrating morphological problem- solving within comprehension instruction of middle
school students. Reading & Writing, 29(1), 91-116.
McQuiston, K., O’Shea, D., & McCollin, M. (2008). Improving phonological awareness and decoding skills of high school students from
diverse backgrounds. Preventing School Failure, 52(2), 67-70.
Chenowith, N. (2014). Culturally responsive pedagogy and cultural scaffolding in literacy education. Ohio Reading Teacher, 44(1), 35-40.