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Content Knowledge in Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Cheyenne Brammer

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2018

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Introduction

As a teacher, a person must be knowledgeable in the subject they are teaching. For an

elementary school teacher, they have to been knowledgeable in all content area. Because there is

only a short amount of time in a school day it is important for a teacher to integrate different

subjects into other subjects. One of the easiest subjects to integrate in other places is language

arts. During a math lesson, a teacher can find a book that is talking about the certain math area

and read it to the class to reinforce what they are learning. The same goes with science and social

studies.

Rationale of Selection of Artifacts

The first artifact is using the book The Scarlet Stockings Spy by Trinka Hakes Noble and

Katie’s Trunk by Ann Turner. My cooperating teacher and I chose these books because they are

from the perspective of a patriot and a loyalist from the Revolutionary War period. They were

used as my transition between social studies and language arts. The students had a discussion the

day before about the three different sides of the war. To see two books from the perspective of a

little girl who is around their age I think resonated with them well. The Scarlet Stockings was

from the perspective of a patriot and Katie’s Trunk was from the perspective of a loyalist. This

way the students got to see the two different sides of the war. Most of the time I feel like teachers

only show the perspective from the patriots because they are the reason we have our

independence from England today. But I think it is important to see from all sides. Especially in

Katie’s Trunk, the books used certain phrases to indicate whether the main character was a

patriot or loyalist. Because they have the certain phrases, the students were able to tell me what

side the main character was on. We have also been reading a book called Colonial Voices which

I did not mention but it is another great resource to show the different perspectives of the war.
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My other artifact is a lesson that I did for language arts. The students are learning main

ideas in non-fiction. In a workbook the teacher had in the classroom, there is a short article about

Argentina ants that have a super colony. While the students do not have a lesson for the super

colony, the article talked about the life cycle of an ant and how the colony was able to grow so

big because of its habitat. We read the article together and I had the class answer questions about

whether the scientist solutions would work or not. Then the students created a graphic organizer

and filled it in with information such as the life cycle of an ant. This article gave the students an

example of how to go back into text and find evidence of things.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

Reflecting on the lesson for the Revolutionary war, I think the students enjoyed hearing

about the two different perspectives from the war. It gave them a different perspective from what

they are used to learning about. Something that was highly expressed in the Teaching Reading

and Language Arts Across the Curriculum is that reading should be implemented in all subjects.

When we spend all our time teaching about the different patriots who helped America get its

independence, students do not always get that second perspective. I remember always being

taught why the British were wrong and the colonist were right. Using reading to give that second

perspective can be important for students. This way they can understand the different sides of the

war better. It can also show students why some colonist chose to side with the British instead of

the patriots. I found that when reading The Scarlet Stockings Spy the students were engaged. In

the book when they find out that Maddy Rose is making her own American flag the entire class

let out an ‘oh’ because they were putting pieces together from what they know about the

Revolutionary War. Gail E. Tompkins talks about reader response. “This powerful feeling of

pleasure and desire to do more reading is reader response, and it’s what teachers want their
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students to experience” (Tompkins, 2016, pp. 238-39). I resonated with this line because when I

heard them make that noise I knew that they were engaged and enjoying the book.

For the non-fictional text lesson, I think the students really enjoyed it. After we finished

reading the article the students were talking about how they thought the scientist idea of spraying

a different scent into the colony would work or would not work. They were so engaged that I had

to say a couple of times they needed to get back to their seats and work on the assignment that

went along with the article. The students became interested in the topic of Argentina ants and

were curious and wanted to know more information about the topic (Tompkins, 2016, p. 254).

Even though ants may not be something they are usually interested in the article made it

interesting and had the students wanting to know more.

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Reference

Tompkins, G. E. (2016) Language Arts: Patterns of Practice. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson.