Encouraging Literacy in Science

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My students come from a low income, but close-knit and supportive community. I teach high school science classes, including Introduction to Forensics and Human Anatomy & Physiology. Many of my students see themselves "condemned" to the same fate of their parents, working the same dead-end, low paying jobs. Consequently, their investment in education is limited. One of the sure ways to increase a student's success in school is to foster a love of reading, and increase reading comprehension skills. Many students who take my Forensics class are looking to meet a science graduation requirement without the rigor of a traditional lab science class, such as biology, chemistry or physics. I try to instill a practical science background for them with forensics. They can literally see the science skills they learn in class used in the real world. It gets them excited about the content, despite their insistence that "science is not their thing." I want to take advantage of their interest in the course and infuse it with more reading. Right now, at my disposal is the textbook. I would like to incorporate more exciting and entertaining, yet educational reading material into the course. The Bone Collector is an excellent way to do this. I already use the movie as a learning tool for the students, but the book goes into much more detail about the forensic science behind the page-turning story line. To use a resource like this, encouraging them to read anything, could add a new dimension to my class that could really help these students across the board. Right now, most of the "book" reading that they are exposed to is classic novels in English, that can be hard for students with limited comprehension skills. The Bone Collector is written in much more reader-friendly language, and might open their minds to reading in general, while complementing the material covered in class. I was born a reader, and love to talk about books. When a teacher's passion comes through in the teaching, it becomes contagious. I hope to use these books in my classes to increase my students' enthusiasm for the course as well as increase their willingness to be open to reading, for pleasure and education. In a school that lacks the ability to outfit its science classrooms, I am seeking outside help to supplement my limited supplies. This would help my students this year and in years to come-that's the beauty of books. They become a legacy if treated with appropriate care.