Reading Apprenticeship Proposal

link for article http://faculty.ccp.edu/dept/viewpoints/f04v6n1/rarara.htm Reading Apprenticeship Proposal

Re-Awakening Reading Awareness through Reading Apprenticeships

Project

The Re-Awakening Reading Awareness project is a professional development activity intended to make instructors more sensitive to the demands of the reading tasks embedded in their disciplines and enable them to develop and improve their instructional techniques. Community college students struggle with literacy. Years ago, Richardson, et al investigated the literacy problems in the two-year college classroom, and in recent years Howard and Obetz (1998) characterized the reading abilities and preferences of community college students.
Grubb (1999), his study of teaching in community colleges, focused on the teachers in attempting to identify some possible reasons for these literacy difficulties. He noted that “many faculty find it difficult to answer questions about their teaching; they have neither the time nor the reasons to discuss teaching, and they lack colleagues with whom to do it.” (25) Usually, they were not trained as teachers but were hired for their subject matter expertise. Some instructors cited colleagues as powerful influences on their teaching, but the culture of the community college, with its segmented schedules and large number of part-time faculty, produce a professional context which is characterized as “individual, isolated, and lonely.” (Grubb, 49)

The lack of training, isolation, and focus on discipline might seem to be insurmountable obstacles to improving reading instruction, but recently Donahue (2003) has developed a model of professional development, a sort of reading apprenticeship, which actually builds on some of these alleged drawbacks to re-kindle sense of newness about the teaching of reading.
Reading apprenticeship is a professional development process which will take instructors outside of their disciplines and incorporate them into a dialogue with other instructors. The 20 participants would be divided into groups: one group of 10 reading instructors (English teachers who regularly teach English 083, 089, 099, 100, or 108) and another group of 10 math and science (biology, chemistry, and physics) and also allied health and technology teachers. The participants will be paired so that an English teacher was linked with a math/science teacher. Each participant will choose a text from his or her field which he or she has not read, but would recommend.

The apprenticeship consists of three distinct phases. During the first two weeks, each participant will read his/her book and keep a reflective journal, posting at least three entries a week. The journal may be on paper or online, but it will be shared with the partner. In the journal, the participants will reflect on what they read, and also why and how they read it. Since at this time they are reading a book in their disciplines, the participants are functioning as master readers, or the trainers of apprentices.

After two weeks, the participants switch books and read outside of their disciplines; the English teachers read a science/math/tech book and the other teachers will read an English book. Using the journal kept by the partner, each reader will have a guide for reading and may also contact the partner who recommended the book. Participants will continue to keep a journal, this time reflecting on what, how, and why they are reading a book outside of their discipline. During this phase of the activity, the readers are apprentices.
The last phase of the activity again lasts two weeks. During this time, each set of partners works together to consider three questions:

What have you learned about reading in your discipline?
What have you learned about reading outside your discipline?
How will you use this information to help your students make meaning from the texts assigned in your class? (Donahue, 28)

The apprenticeship will culminate with a group meeting to share answers to these questions.

It is anticipated that the participants will increase their awareness of the difficulties, challenges, and rewards associated with reading in and outside their disciplines and will also be able to adjust their instruction to help students improve their reading comprehension. By answering the last question: “How will you use this information to help your students make meaning from the texts assigned in your class?” teachers will show that they have a plan to implement their recommendations. Donahue (2003) has indicated that an activity of this type is effective with teachers in training, and it should also be effective at Community College of Philadelphia.

In addition to improving instruction, this activity should also foster cross-discipline communication. After exchanging books, journals, and considering how to improve teaching, the instructors should have common interests and insights to foster further dialogue.

Timeline:

Preliminary: 5 January – 27 February 2004 – College community is informed about project, faculty are invited to participate, participants are selected, books are recommended and purchased.
Phase One: 8 -22 March 2004 – each participant reads own book, keeps and exchanges journal.
Phase Two: 22 March - 5 April 2004– each participant reads partner’s book and keeps journal.
Phase Three: 5 April – 19 April 2004 – participants write up answers to three questions and select comments from journals to share with group.
Group Meeting: 23 April 2004 (Study Day) – participants meet to share insights

Evaluation

Each participant will be asked to submit at least one comment/reflection from each week’s journal and answer each of the three questions listed above. The comments and recommendations will be collected in April 2003. Later, they will be shared in a professional development week presentation (fall 2004) and Viewpoints article.

Budget
Honoraria 20 teachers @$100 each = $2000
20 books @ $25 each             =   $500
            ___________________________________
Total                                               = $2500

The project will not continue after the funding period is over. The project director will integrate the activities associated with this project into the usual daily workload.

References

Donahue, D. Reading across the great divide: English and math teachers apprentice one another as readers and disciplinary insiders. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(1) September 2003, 24-37.

Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C., & Mueller,F. (2001) Apprenticing adolescent readers to academic literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 71(1), 79-127.

Grubb, W., & Associates. (1999) Honored but Invisible: An Inside Look at Teaching in Community Colleges. New York: Routledge.

Howard, J., Obetz, W. Community college literacy: Is the middle right? In Literacy for the Twenty-first Century: Research, Policy, Practices and the National Adult Literacy Survey, edited by M. Cecil Smith. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998.

Richardson, R., Fisk, E. Okun, N. (1983) Literacy in the Open-access College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Publishers.