Compelling Question How do I actively engage my students in reading informational text across the content areas?
Abstract
Rationale and Findings
Throughout my studies as a graduate student at North Carolina State University, I had the profound opportunity to create and develop a compelling question that I ultimately answered throughout my coursework and experiences. As an elementary education teacher, my passion for lifelong learning was ignited as I began sharing my love of informational text with my young students. However, as a novice classroom teacher, I began to recognize that my students were not actively engaged in informational text. Further, it was challenging for my students to interact with informational texts and participate in invigorating classroom discussions related to the content of a specific text. As I observed my students grapple with informational texts in the classroom setting, I was empowered to examine my craft knowledge as well as my instructional methods in order to better prepare my students for the challenge that informational texts pose. And thus, my compelling question was born: How do I actively engage my students in reading informational texts across the content areas?
Over the past three years, I have been shaped, changed, and challenged as a educator. I have had the opportunity to engage in meaningful coursework that has resulted in profound changes in my craft knowledge as a literacy teacher across the content areas. As a novice educator, I once believed that I would fail to overcome the instructional challenges that are associated with teaching students how to read and understand informational texts. However, reflecting on my experience as a graduate student as well as an experienced educator, I am able to clearly identify how I have been able to actively engage my students in reading informational texts across the content areas.
Specifically, I have found that by integrating technology into my instruction and pairing informational and fictional texts promotes student engagement and understanding. Further, I have discovered the importance of incorporating informational texts into my balanced literacy instruction in order to meet the rigorous demands of the three instructional shifts in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts.
I have created this space to synthesize and present my findings with others with the hopes that they too will recognize the importance of actively engaging students in reading informational texts across the content areas.