My Book Blog 2: Integration

One of the framing questions for LLSS538 is: how do people become literate? Since I started my book, I have been intentionally searching for the exact text that provides an answer to this framing questions. Only until know did I realize that this whole book was answering this question: students become literate by learning to read and write, and students become readers and writers by processing massive amounts of text. It appears that Routman's definition of literacy is limited to mostly reading and writing. However, if we read deeper into the text, Routman believes that reading is the route for students to become literate and literacy represents a much bigger picture. She goes on to propose that in order to promote literacy development, skills should not be taught in isolation and that students need to see how the discrete pieces of literacy learning cohere into a communicable whole.

Routman argues that "breaking learning into bits and pieces can actually make things more difficult for students…and focusing excessively on skills in isolation severely limits learning possibilities…" (50). Therefore, basic skills should be integrated into a meaning and challenging context.  

Routman's notion of integrating skills into a meaningful context reminds me of Gee's definition of Discourse, which is an integration of acts: saying, doing, being, valuing and believing. Gee goes on to defines literacy in terms of Discourse (the mastery of a secondary Discourse); so Gee's definition of literacy is also an integration of skills. I am having difficulty to explain this in a clear way, but I really see certain connection here. I think Routman's idea aligns with Gee's theory.

As I was reading this section of my book, I cannot help thinking about our developmental reading program here at Central New Mexico Community College. Our reading curriculum is pretty much isolated and operates on its own, which could be one of the reasons why our student success rate is low. My students come into my reading class to learn all the reading skills, such as finding main ideas and supporting details, making inferences, identifying purpose and tones, analyzing arguments, etc. However, they don't know how to apply these skills outside of my classroom into their overall college study.  Besides, students do not get too excited about our reading courses because they don't see the relevance or meaning of a reading improvement course. Both Routman and Gee hits on the notion of integration one way or another, so it must indicate something important.

The good news is that at our school, we have been making an effort to create a more integrated curriculum. For example, we pair up our reading course with a sociology or psychology course and form a learning community. In the learning community, students can practice their newly-learned reading skills into the study of that content subject. So far, the practice has shown good results. I think it just confirms the importance of an integrated curriculum.