STEM Literacies: Integrating Reading, Writing, and Technology in Science and Mathematics

Abstract

Research into Practice Karen Wood The standards for science, mathematics, technology, and English language arts have strands in common, highlighting the need for educators to emphasize curriculum integration, curricular relevancy, and the digital skills needed to function in the 21st century (International Society for Technology in Education, 2007; National Council of Teachers of English/ International Reading Association, 1996; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; National Research Council, 1996). This means educators must view the curriculum holistically; develop thematic curricular lessons and units, strategically making connections across subject areas; and engage in team planning. By doing these things, educators can help achieve a longstanding goal of the middle school movement: that the curriculum taught in our schools be challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant (National Middle School Association, 2010, p. 17). To do any less results in what Perkins (1992) called fragile knowledge-an artifact within a fragmented curriculum, characterized by a cursory, surface level of understanding. Fogarty (1991) and Fogarty and Pete (2009) organized models of curriculum integration according to four categories of connections: (1) connections made with other content areas within a single classroom (the fragmented, connected, and nested models), (2) connections made across the disciplines (the sequenced, shared, webbed, threaded, and integrated models), (3) connections made within learners (the immersed model), and (4) connections made across learners (the networked model). In this article, we take you into the classrooms of three teachers who have mastered literacy and technology integration in STEM areas, and we indicate which of Fogarty's models of integration they appear to be implementing in their classrooms. Ryan, a seventh grade science teacher, uses a vocabulary and comprehension strategy that involves graphing terms selected from an online text related to the unit of study. This form of integration represents the sequenced model, in which the teacher topically connects his or her content to another discipline. We describe an example of team planning at work as Janet, an English language arts (ELA) teacher, and her teammate Carlos, a science teacher, work together to help their students build the necessary skills to write a research paper (in both print and digital formats). This represents an example of the shared model, which involves mutual planning as the teachers help students learn how to research and write a paper using multiple sources-a skill needed in all of the subject areas. In the third classroom, Amy uses the Big 6 model to help students engage in research and problem solving in her mathematics class. This example fits most closely with the threaded model, because the school-wide emphasis is on teaching students to use higher-order thinking skills to improve their understanding of all areas of the curriculum. Ryan's seventh grade science class Ryan's seventh grade science students were having difficulty with content area vocabulary, struggling with words in isolation and in the context of their reading. This impacted both the students' word knowledge and their comprehension of the content area text. To increase students' understanding of content area vocabulary and improve their comprehension of science texts, Ryan employed the Ten Important Words Plus strategy during his unit on the human body systems (Yopp & Yopp, 2007). This strategy encourages students to interact with key vocabulary through multiple exposures in a meaningful context. Students determine which words will be chosen for study, giving them voice and a sense of ownership of their own learning, and this may help to motivate and engage students of all ability levels in Ryan's classroom (Dunston & Gambrell, 2009; Wood, Harmon, Kissel, & Hedrick, in press). First, Ryan gave his students access to an online text about the circulatory system (Johnson, n. …