Term

Spring 2019

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAT

Facilitator(s)

Trish Harvey and Julia Reimer

Content Expert

Tim Popp

Abstract

Literacy in science is an important aspect of a student’s education. However, it is often not explicitly taught by teachers. The material chosen for reading is typically from a textbook, boring, and difficult to comprehend for most students due to the large number of low occurrence vocabulary words and sentence complexity. This is especially true of ELL students who are still developing their general vocabulary. This project was chosen after working in a school with a student population of over 90% ELL students who are mostly below grade level in reading. The research question for this project was how does the use of novels in the middle school science classroom impact student reading and literacy skills among ELL students. The project consisted of creating supplementary curriculum for an eighth grade science class using a novel related to space. A backwards design approach was used to create the curriculum which is to be used with the regular curriculum on space. The curriculum consists of 12 lessons ranging from an entire class period in length to 15 minutes. Most of the lessons are 15 to 20 minutes and take place every three days. The lessons introduce students to three different reading strategies for a novel which students practice throughout the reading of the novel. The ultimate goal of this project was to not only give students tools to use when reading science to aid in comprehension and overall literacy, but to also engage students more in science.

Project Type

Curriculum

Keywords

Curriculum, ESL/ ELLs, Literacy, Science

Additional Files
Elizabeth Das Project.pdf (261 kB)

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text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

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