Using the Interdisciplinary Approach to Education to Meet the Literacy Standards in the Common Core: and Ensuring Graduates are College and Career Ready
The implementation of the new Common Core State Standard Initiative (CCSS) warrants changes to current curriculums. This paper establishes the interdisciplinary approach to education as an effective method of instruction for the delivery of the new standards. The CCSS define literacy and college and career readiness anchor standards that students must meet in order to be successful post-secondary. The new English language arts (ELA) literacy shifts include: literacy instruction, content area vocabulary, increase in non-fiction or information texts, increased text complexity, and 21 st century skills are all successful skills to be taught using the interdisciplinary approach and team teaching. The paper establishes a definitive basis for students to have these skills in order to be considered college and career ready in accordance with the new Common Core state standards. This approach can includes collaboration, thematic units, cross-curricular projects, or integrated in order to meet the standards.
Multimodal Literacies in the Secondary English Classroom
We have adopted multimodal literacy practices in our classrooms primarily for two reasons. First, multimodality is now deeply ingrained in how our society communicates (Tierney, Bond, and Bresler 359). Thus, it may be possible to draw on students’ out-of-school literacies to help them perform better in our classrooms. Second, we recognize that not all of our students are proficient in multimodality (Mills 36); thus, they need training as well as access to technology to become competitive in the workforce on graduation from high school.
Extending horizons: Critical technological literacy for urban Aboriginal students
This article outlines the distinctive features of a small-scale literacy progam for urban Aboriginal school students, which was premised on understandings of critical multiliteracies and explored through technological environments and texts. The article reports the pedagogical decisions and design as refined through five action research cycles. The rationale included: avoiding a deficit paradigm; exploring multiple roles for readers, developing multiliteracies across texts and technologies; building a community of expertise; developing a technical vocabulary; being inclusive of the students' worlds; fostering independent learning and problem-solving strategies; experiencing electronic communities; and including role models.