Content Area Reading and Writing (322-0-20)
Instructors
John Shanahan O'Connor
Meeting Info
Annenberg Hall 101: Mon 2:00PM - 5:00PM
Overview of class
This course is designed to help teachers develop an understanding of specific strategies that readers must use to achieve deep comprehension of content material. We will explore cognitive foundations of reading comprehension and their influence on methods of instruction and assessment, as well as the interrelationships among reading processes and language learning. Theory and practice relationships will be explored as students experience and learn about: text structure, use of background knowledge, comprehension connections, inferencing, strategies for active engagement, socio-cultural influences on reading, reading/writing relationships, text sets, and assessment of content reading. As a methods course, we will also discuss the elements of good teaching, the theory and history of teaching, curriculum design, instructional methods, and the developmental needs of adolescents.