Episode 902: Leading Adolescent Literacy: Content Literacy Helping Students Read, Write and Learn Across the Curriculum

Ashley Mengwasser:

Isn't it eye-opening when students in grades four through eight realize that the skills they use to read and write, think and learn apply beyond language arts? They're annotating, digesting specialized vocabulary, and crafting written summaries across content areas. And suddenly the student notices, "Oh, this is familiar, and I practice it in math, and science, and social studies." This enlightenment is part of each student's literacy journey, and it's the linchpin of our discussion today on content literacy. Listen along,along part two of our miniseries, Leading Adolescent Literacy.

Good day, teachers, champions of literacy. Yes, I'm host Ashley Mengwasser, and this is another thoughtfully-crafted episode of Classroom Conversations, your source for teacher talk. I personally find it therapeutic, but then I'm not a teacher. I get it. Luckily, we're led by education subject matter experts, the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting. It's early in season nine and we've arrived at part two of three in our adolescent literacy miniseries. Go back and listen to part one about basic literacy, if you haven't yet, where we explored the importance of supporting students in grades four through eight who need help with basic reading and writing skills.

This episode is about strengthening content literacy strategies, enabling students to excel across the curriculum. I'm assisted by a comfortingly wise voice experienced in these matters, Mary Hannah Gaddis. Say hi, Mary Hannah.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Hello.

Ashley Mengwasser:

She says hi. Mary Hannah was our guest in part one, and is the Director of Structured Literacy for Marietta City Schools. Welcome back, my familiar friend. How are you?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Thanks. I'm great. Honored to be here again.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Twice in a row. I'm so proud. I didn't ask you this in part one when we talked about adolescent literacy and basic literacy, but I feel like it's good baseline banter for our conversation. What is your favorite book in the adolescent literacy arena? Can you think of one, four through eight?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I taught fifth grade for a while. I taught fourth grade for a while. I've recently been engaging with more middle schoolers than I have in earlier parts of my career. I don't know that there's a specific one, although anything by Gary Paulsen is just such a hook for students who think they don't like to read, boys in particular.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, yeah.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I love Hatchet, but I really like to lean into any books that are also awkward. They have awkward main characters because the adolescent years can be awkward.

Ashley Mengwasser:

How on-theme. That's a really good answer.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I would say that mine is the 1961 classic The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Did you read that?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

That's a complex book.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It is a complex book, but I love that it's about the process of seeking knowledge and it's fully about wordplay, which I love. I think it's probably why I became an English major. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with that book. It's such a great book.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

It's a good choice.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Like Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, it's so significant. I love it. It reminds me of the fun and the charm of getting into chapter books at that age. Do you remember that feeling?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Oh, yeah. A book for a bit earlier student is Frindle. Do you remember that one?

Ashley Mengwasser:

I don't think I read it.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

It's where I think he may be a fifth grader, he comes up with new words for existing objects. Yeah, fun.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, I'm going to have to read that now as a 39-year-old. Please tell us, Mary Hannah, about your work in literacy at Marietta City Schools. What do you do?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I am the K-12 Structured Literacy Director. What that means is that I help lead and support the literacy professional learning that we've been doing over the last five years. We're moving into year six and we're rolling up to 10th grade. We have slowly and steadily moved from birth to five, to kindergarten to third grade, then we looped in fourth and fifth. Two years ago, we began our adolescent literacy journey with the middle grades, six to eight. Last year, we dabbled in ninth grade, and this year we're fully in ninth and 10th grade across content areas following what the research suggests. I have an amazing team of people that I work with. It's kind of who we are in Marietta, and I'm just alongside everybody else.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes. Your district has been pointed out across the state as being very exemplary in this area. You've had literacy coaches in your schools since, was it 2021?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah. We've had literacy coaches longer than that.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

But in 2021, we had Science of Reading facilitators. Our board and some outside funding allowed us to hire those additional coaches to come alongside our existing coaches to ensure we were up-to-date on the Science of Reading research.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What do you like about literacy in the adolescent space, grades four through eight? How is it different?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

You know what's so exciting, is that teachers and students can realize that a rising tide raises all ships and that the work they may be putting in their English class or their reading class helps them access the material in other classes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes, it is an aha moment, I think, as I was teasing. What are your thoughts on the timeliness of the mounting statewide effort to identify and rectify gaps in literacy? Is this the time? Why now?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah, this is the time. Well, the time was a long time ago-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Good point.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

... but I'm really grateful that legislation is supporting this work. I mean, it's so necessary. Our students deserve it. Our future deserves it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes. Our governor, Brian Kemp, signed into law Georgia House Bill 1193 in May, I believe it was like May 5th, toward the end of the school year. That bill specifically pertains to early literacy. Did you all have a hand in helping define some of that?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

We've been engaging in this work for the last five years, and I do think some of the work that we've done has helped serve as a model maybe across the state. We already have assessments. We already have processes for coaching. We already have structured literacy, professional learning, all of the things that are in the bill. We have been engaging them for a while.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I'd like to add that the Georgia Department of Education is committed to supporting literacy improvement for adolescents after the third grade, because even though that bill was about K through three, today we're talking about our adolescents four through eight, which you mentioned is kind of a weird time, right?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

It is.

Ashley Mengwasser:

We need some different and tailored support. Our episode today is content literacy. Let's talk about first a definition of that please for the non-educator in the room. Help us define content literacy, Mary Hannah.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I would say that content literacy are a set of universal instructional routines that are backed by reading research that can be applied across the content areas, supporting students from class to class. There's some research by, I think, Sharon Vaughn out of The Meadows Center at UT Austin when we engaged with her, or I've read before, that says, "Oftentimes our most at-risk learners, we are giving them the most varied instructional approaches across the day." And so, that's cognitive overwhelm or overload that's unnecessary. Content literacy is just consistency across classes in a way that can use literacy skills and strategies as vehicles for learning any content.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Just to use these words, consistency and structure breeds safety. I'm sure that's very comforting to a student to see that familiarity from class-to-class.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah. I wish I had numbers for you, but I can feel it. I can feel across our classrooms. I can feel the safety. I can see the engagement in our students. It's just different than it was in the past. This is an elementary example, but one of our wonderful principals at A.L. Burruss Elementary, Dr. Jillian Johnson, she did pull the discipline numbers and she was able to compare referrals prior to shifting from balanced literacy to structured literacy and then after, and it's just fascinating.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What did she find?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Well, she found that there was a huge decrease-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

... in discipline referrals. I see that in our middle schools. I mean, our hallways are still an exciting place.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Rowdy, sure.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

But when you get in the classroom, students aren't able to opt out. Teachers know exactly what the students need and then how to help the students get what they need. But then also, to ensure that all learners from those furthest from mastery to those who are already at mastery, routines for helping them engage in the content and learn and grow.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Well, I respect and appreciate your visceral reaction to things. Why is it a critical responsibility for all teachers, not just English language arts teachers, to take a part in this?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

One of the things I say all the time to other content area teachers that aren't English language arts or reading teachers is that do you really think that 45 minutes a day or one hour a day is enough? Am I going to build the language and literacy brain? It's not enough. It's a shared responsibility. In Marietta, we like to say we believe in literacy and justice for all, and that is also all teachers. We are all committed to this work. It's a shared vision.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's perfect. Is that on a bumper sticker? Do people still use bumper stickers?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

It's on T-shirts.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay. Literacy and justice for all. I'd like one, please.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

You got it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

But you're making a great point that reading and writing are tools for learning that are building access in all the content areas, right? Is that what teachers are seeing when they practice this?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I like the way you said that. Reading and writing are vehicles for learning content, I would say. That's what content literacy is. I don't need the social studies teacher to be a reading and writing teacher. I need them to use reading and writing to help them learn social studies.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right. Yes, that makes sense. As Marietta City Schools expanded its adolescent literacy work, what made you realize that supporting struggling readers wasn't enough, that you had to have every content area teacher play a role as well? Did you know that from the jump or did you discover that?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

We have discovered how important that is over time, but we did know going in because we did consult with some secondary literacy experts and said, "What do we need to be careful of, especially now that we're moving into ninth to 12th in a more systematic way this year?" It's common sense, right? You need there to be consistency across the student's day, same expectations and same tools to access content across classes. We did know, but it has become more and more important.

I think it has helped us remember that our teachers aren't being asked to be literacy experts. They are content experts, but we need them to employ these literacy routines so that the students can access their content. That's super-easy. It's like everyone wants their students to learn the vocabulary terms in their room, whatever content they're teaching. And so, that's part of literacy.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes. I want to talk about them, our content area teachers out there, who you may have had to build some buy-in with because they're not seeing themselves as literacy teachers per se. What concerns did those teachers have and what messages resonated with them as you started to talk to them about this?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I do think we were pretty careful on the front end about making sure they didn't think we were just trying to replicate what we had done in K-3 and then K-5. We were very careful on the front end. I was also very open that I am an elementary teacher, but that the facilitation in their classrooms were secondary literacy experts, people who had experience teaching middle schoolers. And so, we were careful on the front end.

However, I will tell you a misstep is that we realized our teachers at one point were talking about doing the Science of Reading and they would say, "Oh, I've already done the Science of Reading. I'm past that in my lesson." We're like, "Wait, what?" That was kind of a misstep that people saw it as something on top of teaching their content. Even though we thought we were clear, we had to do lots of side-by-side coaching to say, "Oh no, you don't do the Science of Reading. You don't do it at all actually, unless you're a researcher. You are a structured literacy instructor, if anything. But more than that, you use structured literacy to help your students learn your content."

And so, just being clear with them about what that looked like and having in-person coaching in their classroom side-by-side with their content was just the most valuable.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That sounds like that's going to make all the difference across the state as we implement this. Let's talk about canned responses or mantras that you used when you worked with teachers. You might have gotten the common response, but Mary Hannah, I'm not an ELA teacher. Did you have some nice cozy one-liner that our other districts listening could furnish when their teachers say, "But wait, wait, wait, I'm not an ELA teacher."

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I will tell you one that I learned from our director of multilingual learners. She says all the time, "Every student is a language learner." And so, I've kind of shifted that to talking to teachers. I say, "No, every teacher is a language and literacy teacher. You use these things to acquire all knowledge, so you are in fact a language and literacy teacher."

Ashley Mengwasser:

So it's not that you're not, it's that in fact, you are. So you're just changing their mindset around it?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay. Sounds easy, right? You make it sound easy.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

So easy.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What did your professional learning look like? How did you help these teachers translate their literacy research into their everyday classroom practice?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

In elementary, we were able to use the Reading Teacher's Top 10 tools, and then later the Cox Campus for the professional learning platform, which is so important to have that common understanding, or I like to call it mental Velcro. I didn't come up with that, but just this common understanding that everyone has this turbine understanding. And so, when we were searching for such platform in middle grades, it was very hard to find, but we learned that the AIM Institute had some courses specific for secondary learners, and that's what we used.

It's called Pathway to Proficient Reading Secondary. The audience is meant to be secondary teachers, and every example in the professional learning is connected to a secondary learner because nothing will turn off a secondary teacher faster than you saying, "Okay, this is a first-grader reading a fluency passage, but you would do the same thing with your seventh grader."

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

No, no, no. Even if that's true, and it isn't always true, you don't say that to a secondary teacher.

Ashley Mengwasser:

No. We adapt to our audience, which is adolescents in this case. Right. I'd like to think of this next part as the core of our episode, Mary Hannah, where we're actually going to look at some content literacy strategies, if you can help share these with us. Let's talk about some reading to learn strategies. Do you have anything for us?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Reading to learn. One consistent strategy that we taught to every content teacher across six to eight is getting the gist. I don't actually know who initially designed this, but we use something called paragraph shrinking, or get the gist, and we were able to teach that to every teacher, six to eight. And so, that's just a partner reading routine where the students are working together to attack a text, a complex grade level text. Then after each portion or paragraph, they have to name the most important thing, who or what, the most important thing about the who or what, and then sum it up in about a 10-word sentence.

And so, it doesn't matter what content you're teaching. If there is a text, you can use this routine. It also helps students check for understanding that metacognition as they go along, but to have a partner helping them with that work, get the gist is a very common read to learn routine that we use.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And fantastically useful life skill for reading anything that will serve well. What about writing to learn strategies? Any favorites here?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I'm really excited about this one because the work of our sixth to eighth grade teachers this year is going to be around the writing revolution, which is an approach to, it's not a curriculum, but it's an approach to using writing to check for comprehension, check for understanding across any content area. It can be used in math, science, social studies, PE, health, ELA. We are going to hit that deeply with our teachers. We did previously teach some of the routines last year in year two of our rollout, but it's essentially using sentence stems and directly teaching about syntax and conjunctions. One of our favorites is because-but-so. So you would give a stem. The American Revolution was influential because. It was influential, but. It was influential, so. Because-but-so is a writing routine that we use across content areas and students can do it orally, even in PE or health or art, you can just have students complete these types of activities orally and then transfer it to writing or not.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right. A speaking and listening strategy, which is also literacy, right?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah. Oral language is the foundation of all of this work.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah. What about a vocabulary instruction strategy?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Vocabulary was the carrot we dangled to get every content teacher on board, to be honest.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, smart, because they all have specialized vocabulary, right?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

That's right. And they were already teaching vocabulary. Teaching vocabulary may in the past have looked like a quick slide where they have the word and define the word, and then move on to 12 more words. And so, we worked to develop a simple vocabulary routine with all of our teachers that ensure that students hear, say, read, and write the word. And then encouraging, and teaching, and modeling for teachers how to have the students use that word either across the day, but especially across that class period is how you're really going to get the word to stick.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

So we do. We have a simple vocabulary routine that we use in all of our classes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I heard you say the word modeling, and that was going to be my next question. Any other modeling strategies you'd like to share?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I can't say loud enough how important modeling is, even if it feels awkward. I was an instructional coach for a long time, and I still will model. And it does feel awkward, especially if you as the coach don't know a lot about the content that you're teaching, but it's so important to be side-by-side with the teacher. Yes, you can co-plan. Yes, you can completely take over and do it on your own, but doing it side-by-side modeling with the teacher just builds trust and helps you see. I always tell the students, "Hey, I'm practicing to become a better teacher." And they're really kind. Students give you a lot of grace and they help you with what you're trying to do, and it helps the teacher see that you're bought in and yeah, this is the way to do things.

Ashley Mengwasser:

They're forgiving. Authenticity is a connective tissue, right?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Oh, that's a good quote.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right? Thank you. How about coaching? This is where Marietta City Schools is very well-versed. What about coaching as a professional learning approach?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

An informed teacher is the most valuable tool in any classroom, and the coaches are the backbone of that work. The teachers can go... Having a coach who is trusted, where the teachers can be vulnerable with them is just also paramount to this work. I can't say that enough either. Someone, a coach who doesn't have to know everything, but has to feel comfortable enough learning it if they don't know it. But then also looking at the data with the teachers, that's been an area of growth for us, which was we knew we developed a literacy assessment suite, we administered it, and then what? What do you do with it next?

And so, our coaches have become experts in really being diagnostic and prescriptive in helping our teachers see what to do with that data and how does it actually influence their instruction.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Even though that's a big piece of the House Bill 1193 that's going to be worked in K-3 elementary school environments, coaching does not stop after third grade. It still has a very key role moving forward.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay, great. As teachers begin implementing this content literacy practice, what changes might we see in our classrooms and in our students' engagement to the learning? I'm sure there are some.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

I'll tell you what we've seen and it's, well, increased engagement. I mean, that's the biggest part.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Some of our teachers will even say, "I have a no opt-out policy." Some of them even say, "I have a no-hands-raised policy that comes from Dr. Anita Archer's work." It's just the understanding that everyone is going to do everything. Here we go. We're in this together. Every student is engaged and getting what they need. If every student is reading, it no longer looks like, "Okay, you're going to pick your sentences and we're going to popcorn read." No, we're all reading this aloud chorally. That's a routine that we're doing. Or no, we're all going to partner up, and the teacher has worked with the coach to purposefully partner his or her students so that they can attack the text in that way. It could be that there's a group with the teacher and the teacher's reading it aloud, or they're echo reading, but our students don't opt out. They're here to learn.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right. Exactly. It's every teacher, every content area which reaches every student, and that's the goal. Now, looking back on Marietta City School's journey, Mary Hannah, what advice would you give to the district leaders out there who really want to build a culture of literacy that is everyone's responsibility like your superintendent has at MCS?

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Well, that's where I was going to start. I was going to say it starts at the top. The vision from the board, and cabinet, and your superintendent is so important because in education we have so many initiatives and priorities, and they'll compete with each other. But in Marietta, everyone knows after safety, it's literacy. That's our focus. I would say vision-setting is very important, but also having the support for the vision is so important, and that continuous support for the people who are supporting the work is so important, and vulnerability for everyone.

One of my favorite things when we started this work in 2021 is that our chief financial officer at the time was engaging in the professional learning alongside all of our kindergarten teachers, and was segmenting phonemes and sounds, and just the buy-in that this is everyone's responsibility and it's worthy of your time. When we started this work two years ago in grades six to eight, the adolescent literacy modules, which are now available for free on the Georgia Literacy Academy didn't exist, but they are there now. I would also say to any district looking to start this work, that the Cox Campus modules are available. The structured literacy for pre-K to five are available on the Georgia Literacy Academy in Georgia Learns, as are the adolescent literacy courses, and they're incredible.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And with you in charge, Mary Hannah, who could resist because you have made content literacy development sound so appealing. Thank you for being here with us.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Thanks. Learning is exciting stuff.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It is. That's two episodes back to back. How did it feel? She said, "Are we done yet? I'm exhausted." You speak so, to use a literacy term, fluently, so thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

Mary Hannah Gaddis:

Well, thank you. I'm honored to be here.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I know you've got to leave and go back to Marietta and make some literacy waves. Thanks to Mary Hannah, we now know that content literacy is our ally, helping students comprehend and love the curriculum in your classroom. You can use reading, writing, speaking, and listening as fundamental tools to think, synthesize, and demonstrate student learning because you're a great teacher, and that's how great teachers roll. That's why this podcast exists, after all. We're here to be your encouragement.

Let's kick this thing into high gear and explore the third literacy ability Georgia's educators are cultivating in classrooms, disciplinary literacy. That's part three of Leading Adolescent Literacy. Don't worry, you're not in trouble, even though it's called Disciplinary Literacy. It is the final episode of our Leading Adolescent Literacy miniseries. You don't want to miss it. Don't go quitting on me yet. I'm Ashley. Goodbye for now.