CI 414/504 Fall 2024 Coppola

 Buehl's chapter about fostering interest and inquiry around disciplinary texts was a nice read for me, and I found it very engaging. I appreciated the opening, comparing insider knowledge of baseball with insider knowledge of music theory. I really liked the way Buehl used this example about disciplinary insight and how we can learn from each other.  This post made me think about ways my previous educators helped me develop an ability to read disciplinary texts and understand them. Truthfully, I did not have many teachers who helped me do this, and I felt like most of them in hindsight were gatekeeping to some extent. I had a difficult time feeling like these texts were accesible and as someone with an interest in History, I really struggled being able to read disciplinary based texts and finding them. Thankfully, I grew up in the digital age, and was able to find different means of accessing these texts. I had to learn a lot on my own, in terms of being able to understand wh...

     This week's reading was a bit different than usual, but nonetheless I enjoyed the graphic novel. The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a wordless graphic novel that tells the story of a man that sails to foreign land to seek a better life, leaving his family behind. The graphic novel tells a story that a lot of people can relate to, not only to those who migrate to another country, but also those who struggle fitting in. Overall, I enjoyed the graphic novel not only for the story it convey, but also the art style. It give a drawn on old paper feel to it, which I very much find appealing.      I t was difficult trying to make a connection between the novel and my discipline, but I came up with a few ideas. In terms of thinking mathematically while reading, you can make connections to math concepts like graphs or mathematical notations or you can look for patterns like shapes, structures, etc. For example, on page 21 (of the pdf) students can identify geometric s...

     Buehl’s chapter emphasizes that building disciplinary literacy and inquiry skills is not just about understanding a text’s content, but also about helping students become thinkers within that discipline. By modeling and scaffolding inquiry, providing necessary background knowledge, and encouraging engagement with text features, teachers can help out students in navigating and critically engaging with the complex materials they run into in various subjects. From what I interpreted, the end goal here is to prepare students to think like disciplinary experts and critics, depending on the disciplinary context.      The question I want to ask everyone is; why do you feel building background knowledge so essential for students when reading disciplinary texts? What ways can teachers effectively prepare students to engage with complex, discipline specific content? Feel free to share any strategies you’ve utilized or plan to implement in your teaching spaces!

The graphic novel The Arrival by Shaun Tan has no words but still conveys a powerful message. With just illustrations, readers can see that this story is about a man who leaves his family to go to a new place in search of a better life. The story shows that this journey of being an immigrant can be scary and unfamiliar, but eventually, you find your way. Shaun Tan uses different colors to show the emotions that the characters feel at that time. For example, the illustrations have warm tones of yellow when the characters are happy. When it is scary or unfamiliar for the character, it is cold and has a grey hue. This strategy is really effective because warm tones are associated with feeling positive, and cold tones are the opposite. This is especially useful in art, but it also can be applied to many other disciplines. This association with colors is a scientific phenomenon because we feel happier when things are bright, and the sun is shining. Most of the time, we feel more depressed w...