Reflection: Content-Area Variations of Academic Language
The section in chapter four titled “Interpretation in Language Arts” prompted me to consider the ways in which I will approach “interpretation” in my teaching, as it is such a major component to any English literature class. Zwiers reminds us that “[s]tudents are still apprentices in the types of thinking needed to read between the lines and interpret deeper meanings. We must be creative at scaffolding the complexity that has now become automatic to us” (72). After spending so many post-secondary years in English and theatre classes, I need to be constantly aware of my “interpretive” discourse that has become a second nature to me, recognizing that my students are in the early stages of developing this form of dialogue as well as understanding all of the jargon that can be used to interpret.
I could appreciate the text’s example of scaffolding through a conversation in which the teacher discusses interpreting the story with a student (72, 73). I find that interpreting and textual analysis through discussions such as this one are tremendously helpful to the learning process. When teachers ask questions to break down the “hidden” meanings in a text it enables the students to come up with the answers themselves rather than the teacher providing the answers. Also, it models the thinking process for the students, so that they will eventually be able to ask the critical questions themselves when trying to interpret meaning from a text. This method is also directly relatable to interpreting in a drama class, as the teacher will often prompt students with a variety of questions so that they can interpret certain characters or derive meaning from the scene they are rehearsing.
Sara Martens