Literacy Learner Case Study Project

Literacy Learner Case Study Project
Alyssa Hogan - TE846
PART 1
Learner Introduction:
My case study student (named Mark for the purposes of this project) is 16 years old and
a junior. I am an instructor for the marching band at my school, and I have known Mark
for the past 3 years he has been in marching band, and this year he is in my Algebra 2
in the Workplace class. I would be working on mathematics and focusing on word
problems with linear equations. One of his strengths is that he is persistent and does
not give up easily, and one of his weaknesses is that he sometimes moves forward in
problems before he has completely gathered his thoughts and thus gets confused
easily; and as he says, “I really, really don’t like math that much.” His interests include
music (he is a very talented trumpet player), history, and cars.
Assessment 1: Interest Survey

Interests, Reading, and Math Survey
Part 1: Getting to Know Each Other

1. What is your favorite subject in school? __________________________________
a. Why is it your favorite? _______________________________________
2. What is your favorite pastime or hobby?
3. What obligations do you have besides school? (Check all that apply)
• Work If so, how many hours per week? ______ Where at? _____
• Sports If so, what sports? __________________________
• Music If so, what? _______________________________
• Family (taking care of siblings, chores, etc) If so, what? __________________
• Community/School Activities If so, what? ____________________________
4. What are your talents? Sports? Music? Drawing? Interacting with others? Making
friends? Studying? Reading? Other (describe)? Please list:
5. What is a possible career or occupation you are considering pursuing after you complete
your education?
6. What kind of writing do you do besides school writing? Letters? Poetry? Notes to
people? Journal writing? Email? Other (describe)? What is your favorite kind of writing?
Please List:
7. What is your favorite movie?
8. What type of music do you like best?
9. Name one of your favorite musicians/musical groups:
10. Do you have a favorite poet? Yes or No
Part 2: Getting to Know Each Other as Readers

11. How many books do you own?
• 0-10
• More than 10
• More than 25
• More than 50
• More than 100
12. Does your family get a newspaper regularly? _________________

If yes, what is the name of the newspaper? ____________________________
13. Is there a computer in your home? Yes or No

If yes, who uses the computer most often? ____________________________
For what? (Check all that apply)
• Internet browsing
• Email
• Business
• School Work
• Games
• Other (explain) ___________________________________
14. Who reads a lot in your home? _________________________________

What do they read? _____________________________________
15. What are some different reasons people read? ______________________________
16. What does someone have to do to be a good reader? (Check only the 3 MOST
IMPORTANT ones)
___Read aloud Well ___Read with expression

___Understand what they read ___Concentrate on the reading
___Read a lot ___Read harder books
___Pronounce all words correctly ___Know the meaning of most words
___Know when they are having ___Use strategies to improve their
Trouble understanding understanding
___Read different kinds of books ___Read fast
___Enjoy reading ___Other: _____________________
17. Do you think you are a good reader? Yes or No

Explain Why:
18. Do you think reading will be important to your future? Yes or No
Explain Why:
19. From what you can remember, learning to read was…
• Very easy for you
• Easy for you
• Hard for you
• Very hard for you
20. What do you usually do when you read? (Check all that apply)
___I read silently. ___I try to figure out the meaning of
___I look over what I’m going to read words I don’t know
First to get an idea of what it is about ___I read aloud to myself in a quiet
___I try to pronounce all words correctly voice.
___I get distracted a lot while I’m reading ___I look up words I don’t know in
___I ask myself questions about what the dictionary
I’m reading ___I picture what is happening in the
___I have trouble remembering what reading
I read ___I try to read with expression
___I try to get the reading over with ___I put what I’m reading into my
As fast as I can own words.
___I read a section again if I don’t ___I try to understand what I read
Understand it at first ___I try to read smoothly.
___I try to concentrate on the reading ___I think about things I know that
Connect to the reading
21. What is the best way for you to read?
___ Read silently to myself
___Listen to the teacher read in class
___ Read aloud by myself or with a partner
___ Listen to other students read in class
22. Do you ever read at home, other than for your school assignments? Yes or No
If yes, what do you read?
23. How long do you usually read at a time?
• 1-10 minutes
• 11-30 minutes
• 31-60 minutes
• More than an hour
24. What kinds of books do you like to read? (Check all the ones you like to read)
___ Science fiction ___Thrillers ___Picture Books
___Adventure/Action ___True-life drama ___Comic Books
___Horror ___Poetry ___Romance
___Mysteries ___Short Stories ___Fantasy/Myth
___How To Books ___History ___Information Books
___Sports ___Science/Nature ___Teen Problems
___Biographies ___Humor ___None
___Other: ___________________________
25. How do you choose a book to read? (Check all the ones that apply)
___Look at the cover ___ See how long it is
___Ask a teacher/librarian ___Look for an interesting title
___Pick a book that looks easy ___Ask a family member
___Look at the pictures in the book ___Look for a particular author
___Ask a friend/classmate ___Look to see if it’s won an award
___Look based on a subject ___Look in special display cases
___Read the book cover/jacket ___Pick from a best-sellers list
___ Look for books that are movies ___Read a few pages
___Look for specific genre ___Looks for books on my culture
___Look for books I’ve heard about ___Other: __________________
26. In general, how do you feel about reading?
Part 3: Getting to Know Each Other as Mathematicians (Circle one)
27. After I Study a topic in math and I feel that I understand it, I have difficulty solving
problems on the same topic.
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
28. There is usually only one correct approach to solving a math problem.
29. I’m satisfied if I can do the exercises for a math topic, even if I don’t understand how
everything works.
30. I do not expect formulas to help my understanding of mathematical ideas, they are just
for doing calculations.
31. Math ability is something about a person that cannot be changed very much.
32. Understanding math means being able to recall something you’ve read or been
shown.
33. I expect the answers to math problems to be numbers.

34. In math, it is important for me to make sense out of formulas and procedures before I
use them.
35. I often have difficulty organizing my thoughts during a math test.

36. Reasoning skills used to understand math can be helpful to me in my everyday life.
37. To learn math, the best approach for me is to memorize solutions when taking math
tests.
38. School mathematics has little to do with what I experience in the real world.
39. When I am solving a math problem, if I can see a formula that applies then I don’t
worry about the underlying concepts.
40. If I get stuck on a math problem, there is no chance that I will figure it out on my own.
41. I often get stuck because I do not understand what question I am being asked.
42. I think it is unfair to expect me to solve a math problem that is not similar to any
example given in class or the textbook, even if the topic has been covered in the course.
43. I get upset easily when I am stuck on a math problem.

44. For each person, there are math concepts that they would never be able to understand,
even if they tried.
45. I often do not know what mathematical terms and symbols mean, even if I know when
to use them.
46. Overall, how do you feel about math?
Assessment #2: Retrospective Miscue Analysis
Science & Math

Explainer: What is a GPA and what use is
it?
By The Conversation, adapted by Newsela staff
Text Level 3
03/21/2017
Word Count 396
Students earn grades for the classes they take. The grades tell how well they did on their work.
At the end of a school year, a student has several grades. They have one for each class they took. The
average of these grades is called the grade-point average, or GPA.
The GPA is a number that shows how well the student did over a certain time, such as all three or
four years of high school.
How Do We Figure Out A GPA?

Some schools have letter grades. These are grades such as A, B, C and D. Some schools use words
instead of letters. Others use numbers.
The GPA is figured out using numbers. To find it, each grade has to be turned into a number. For
example, the grade A is equal to the number 4. The grade B is equal to the number 3. The grade C is
the number 2, and so on.
Let's say a student takes four classes. In two classes, they get A's. In the other two classes, they get
B's.
The GPA is found using an equation. First, the grades are changed into numbers. Each "A" becomes a
"4" and each "B" becomes a "3." Then the numbers are added together.
It looks like this:
4+4+3+3
= 14
Counting Classes
The next step is to divide this number by the number of classes. When 14 is divided by 4, the answer
is 3.5. This is the student's GPA.

Sometimes it can be a little harder. Some grades might count more than others if a class had more
work. An "A" in one class could be counted more than an "A" in another class. Each school does this a
little bit differently. That makes it hard to compare GPAs from different schools.
Why Do We Use GPAs?

GPAs show how students are doing in school. They are also used to find the top students in a school.
Students with high GPAs sometimes win prizes. But students with low GPAs might get in trouble.
Grades are supposed to be fair. But this is not always the case. For this reason, GPAs are not perfect.
They do not always tell the full story of learning. Someone might get a bad grade even though they
are a good student. The grade might not really show how much they have learned.
Assessment #3: Think Aloud Protocol

A stone fell from the top of a cliff into the ocean.
In the air, it had an average speed of 16 m/s. In the water, it had an average speed of 3 m/s
before hitting the seabed. The total distance from the top of the cliff to the seabed is 127 meters,
and the stone's entire fall took 12 seconds.
How long did the stone fall in the air and how long did it fall in the water?
Student Work and My Notes
Interest Survey:
Retrospective Miscue Analysis:
Student’s volume and speed of reading was good, and there were minimal pauses and
pronunciation issues. The miscues that did occur were mostly adding or omitting words,
there was one misread word.
When asked to retell what the article was about, the student gave a very vague answer
to start: “It was about GPAs, how the average is found, what they are, and how we get
to them. It also talked about how they are not accurate in terms of the learning curve, a
good student could get a bad GPA which wouldn’t be fair to them.” When asked to
describe how GPAs are calculated, repeated the example that was given in the text, but
could not elaborate on how those numbers are obtained. An important detail about how
if some classes are more important they will have a larger impact on the calculated
GPA. Even though the student is familiar with averages and knows how to calculate
them; he was only able to recall the real world, general implications and meaning
discussed in the article. The mathematical content was not as easily recalled, and the
context understanding was not there, even when prompted.
Think Aloud Protocol:

The student began by reading through the problem, and spent a few minutes thinking
through what he needed to know to figure out the different times: The distance traveled
in the air and the distance traveled in the water. However, this information was not
explicitly stated in the problem, and when he realized this, he said, “Well this problem
can’t be solved then, if I don’t know that information.” I told him that this was a solvable
problem, and just to try something. He then proceeded through the work shown above.
As he was working through the problem, he made many comments like, “I’m not sure if
this is right,” and, “I’m just guessing here.” When he made these comments, I told him
that it’s okay and I just want to see where he goes with the problem, I did not want to tell
him whether he was on the right path because I wanted to follow this thought process
through until the end, uninfluenced by my input.
Ultimately, he did arrive at an answer, but it was an incorrect answer. The student
started the problem with the correct mindset about the information that he needed to
find to solve the problem, but he just went about obtaining that information in the wrong
way. The student used a series of percentages and ratios, and started by finding the
average speed of the falling stone over the entire distance. He then was trying to find
the ratio of time spend in the air and water, and then applied that ratio to the total
distance, so that he could find the information he was looking for: The distance spent in
the air and the water, so that he could multiply those distances by the different speeds
to find the time spend in the air and time spent in the water. When he had finished the
problem, we did talk through it together, and he did understand the incorrect
assumptions that he had made in his solving, and the correct solution did make sense
to him. However since it wasn’t a solution path that was immediately apparent to him,
he opted to use percentages and averages, something he knew and was familiar with.
Analysis:
Interest Survey:
What literacy skills does this assessment assess? For each skill, share an
example of how the assessment assesses that skill.
This assessment assesses my student’s views on reading and mathematics. There are
questions that ask the student what they think makes up a “good reader,” and then
whether or not they consider themselves a “good reader,” as well as things they do
when they read (Survey - Part 2, Questions 16, 17, and 25). There also questions that
ask about the student’s perception on what it means to learn and understand
mathematics (Survey - Part 3, Questions 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, and 37). These questions
act as a way to determine the student’s perceptions, feelings, and understandings of
reading and mathematics which will help to determine areas that they need work in.
Discuss what you noticed about your student’s strengths and challenges as a
result of the assessment. Share specific examples from the assessment.
I noticed, that my student did understand the importance of reading in his future. As he
stated in the interest survey , he wants to be a professional trumpet player (Survey -
Part 2, Question 5), and he recognizes that there will reading involved on his path to
achieve that goal as a part of his college career (Survey - Part 2, Question 18). I found it
interesting, that when asked what someone has to do to be a good reader, my student
did not say that that person had to be a fast reader or that they enjoy what they read
(Survey - Part 2, Question 16). But then, when asked if he thought he was a good
reader, he said,”No. I’m not fast and I don’t enjoy it much.” (Survey - Part 2, Question
17) As part of the math portion of the survey, my student understood that there is math
present in places other than the math classroom (Survey - Part 3, Questions 36 and
46). However, he does still have a mixed view on mathematics as a whole; he believes
that there are usually more than one correct approach to solving a math problem
(Survey - Part 3, Question 28) which is a really good start. But, he also is satisfied if he
can solve a problem even if he doesn’t understands how everything works (Survey -
Part 3, Question 29), he believes that understanding mathematics just means being
able to recall something he has been shown (Survey - Part 3, Question 32), and that he
expects answers to math problems to be numbers (Survey - Part 3, Question 33).
What are the implications of what you learned? What should this student work
on in future lessons? How could you draw on their strengths and interests in
future lessons?
I learned that the student’s idea of a, “good reader,” is focused mainly on the ability to
pronounce and know the meaning of individual words. This tells me that I need to work
on the importance of reading comprehension with my student. I also does not quite see
the importance of understanding mathematical concepts in the context of different
problem; my student sees mathematics more of a final answer than a learning process.
My student recognized that mathematics is present in his two interests: Baseball and
music. I can find lessons that focus on these two topics in order to keep my student
engaged, as well as emphasize the importance of understanding in context. If the topics
are of interest to the student, then the importance of understanding will mean more to
the student.
What questions do you still have?
I still wonder if my student sees a connection between reading and mathematics. I

should have added some questions to the survey to figure this out. My student did say
that he expects answers to math problems to be numbers, and that leads me to believe
that he does not see much of a connection to reading; but I think some more specific
questions could help me to understand.
Retrospective Miscue Analysis:
This assessment assesses my student’s ability to understand mathematical concepts
that are explained through written explanations instead of numbers and equations that
they are used to. This article walks the reader through how GPAs are calculated, and
explains that the grade and the importance of the class play a role. Though I do want to
ensure that my student can read this article with correct pronunciation, speed, and
volume; I am more interested in seeing if he can grasp the understanding of the
mathematical content involved. Seeing mathematical content and calculations written
out in words, is not something that my students are used too; they are used to seeing
formulas and numbers.
I learned, that my student was able to read through the article pretty well; he had a few
stumbles where he was anticipating a word that was not there or vice versa. However,
he was able to correct his mistakes (all but one time) quickly before moving on. The
words that he accidently added or omitted were not out of the ordinary, and could have
made sense in the context; they were just not the words that were written in the article.
For example, in one instance, the article’s text read, “Tell how,” and my student said,
“Tell us how.” The sentence still made sense, and the meaning was not changed. So,
overall his ability to read the article was a strength.
When it came to retelling the article, he did a nice job of explaining the big picture; that it
was about, “GPAs, how the average is found, what they are, and how we get to them. It
also talked about how they are not accurate in terms of the learning curve, a good
student could get a bad GPA which wouldn’t be fair to them.” But when asked for more
details on how GPAs were calculated; he just repeated the example given in the article,
and could not explain the process in his own words. Also, there was an important detail
in the article that discussed how different classes could have more of an influence on
the GPA calculation if they are more important; and my student missed that detail even
after reading through the article twice. He still said that all classes count the same and
that you just do, “4+4+3+3,” (which was the example given in the article). I do think that
the reason this detail did not stick with him, is because in high school, all classes do
count the same, and so he is not used to this idea of “weighted grades” in his
experiences, so that was not something that clicked for him as he was reading.
future lessons?
I have learned that my student still needs some practice with being able to gain
understanding of mathematical content through text and not equations. My student was
able to give a nice summary of the general ideas of the article, and a nice explanation of
how GPAs are not necessarily the best way to judge a student’s academic
achievements; but the mathematical portion of the article was somewhat forgotten. In
future lessons, this students should work on finding the mathematics in written texts,
and pausing to contemplate what is being presented, and take steps to ensure
understanding. My student is not a fan of mathematics, and he may have just glossed
over the math parts of the article and focused on the non math parts, just because that
is what he was more familiar with. I would want to ensure that my student takes the time
to focus on the math content as well; and perhaps finding problems and articles that
discuss the math in the context of some of his interests such as music and baseball; I
can get him to stay focused on the mathematics.
One question that I still have is: Does my student know when to look for mathematical
content in written texts? In the interest survey I gave my student, he had said that he
expects answers to mathematical problems to be numbers; and then I gave him an
article (with very little numbers) to read. He many not have made the connection that I
wanted him to gain mathematical understanding form the article; because up until this
point, whenever he had been given something to read of that length, it had not been in a
math classroom.
Think Aloud Protocol:
This assessment assesses my student’s ability to extract necessary information from a

given problem, and understand the mathematical context of a problem in order to
problems solving skills to answer two questions. The problem presents certain given
information to the student such as the different speeds a stone falls in the air and water;
the total distance the stone falls and the total time the stone falls for. My student then
needed to find a way to use that given information to determine the amount of time the
stone fell in the air and the amount of time the stone fell in the water.
A strength I noticed in my student as a result of this assessment was that he was

persistent. He initially did not believe this problem could be solved, because the
information he thought he needed in order to solve the problem was not given to him;
however, once I assured him that this problem could be solved, he tried a method
dealing with percents and ratios to attempt to solve the problem. Even though he did
arrive at the incorrect answer, and used an incorrect assumption about the average
speed of the stone; he followed his train of thought to obtain the information he thought
he needed to solve the problem. For example, he believed that in order to solve the
problem, he needed to know the distance that the stone was in the air and the distance
that the stone was in the water; so his solution method was based on obtaining that
information. Though the method he went about using to gain that information was
incorrect. He took the total distance divided by the total time to find the average speed
of the falling stone; however, that would mean that the separate speeds in the air and
the water were irrelevant; which was not the case. He then had an incorrect
understanding of ratios; where he was dividing seconds by a speed, which he thought
was giving him a ratio that he could use to find distance; but that was not the case
either.
future lessons?
I think that the main issue my student encountered was that he was focused on finding
information that was not given to him nor was it what the question was asking. In future
lessons, I would want my student to work on using the given information to answer the
question instead of searching for more, unnecessary information. My student also had
trouble understanding what the operations he was doing meant in the context of the
problem. When he divided 3sec/10.58m/s he thought that was giving him a ratio. But
that could not be the case unless the two things you’re dividing have the same units; but
he was mainly focused on the numbers and not what they represent. There is a lot of
mathematics in his two interests; baseball and music, and he is aware of that. I would
want to use that to create problems that are of interest to him and that he can
understand the context of the problem easily (since it is something familiar to him) so
that he can focus on solving the mathematical problem AND the context that the
problem falls into.
Another thing I notice, is that my student did a lot of work in his head while he was
thinking aloud. He did not write anything down on the paper, until he had already
decided what he was going to do. I would want to work with him on writing down given
information, assigning variables to what he does not know, drawing pictures to help
visualize the problem, and other things that he can write down to help him through his
thought process.
A question that I still have is, what mathematical calculations does my student
understand the meaning of, and what mathematical calculations does my student just
simply know how to perform? When he used the average speed at the beginning of his
solution method, he found the average correctly, but finding the average was not
something that would be helpful in the context of the problem; and I wonder if it is
because he did not truly know, what that average speed meant in the context of the
problem.
Literacy Learner Case Study - PART 2
Lesson #1: Sketching and Interpreting Graphs
Link to Lesson:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XF2ijX0v8JHHIo0OzsZlLxUd7SRpAaZjN3A6w3hyRew/ed
it?usp=sharing
What disciplinary literacy skills does this lesson address?
This lesson is focused on helping my student to gain context and understanding from written
mathematical explanations; and to help my student improve his ability to write his own coherent
mathematical explanations. In addition to being able to read and write mathematical
explanations, my student will also have to be able to read and sketch graphs to represent
certain situations.
Which accommodations or other support are in response to what you learned from
analyzing the assessment results?
From analyzing the assessment results, I had noticed that my student struggled with
understanding the context of a mathematical situation when it was written out; and also my
student stated that he expects answers to math problems to always be numbers. This lesson
focuses on mathematical context, and being able to represent different situations through
written explanations as well as graphs. Also, the answers to these questions will be sentences
and/or graphs, and not numbers as he expects. This will allow him to understand that math
problems can have all types of different answers.
What difficulties do you anticipate the learner will have, and how might you respond?
In teaching this lesson, I expect my student to be frustrated at first, due to the lack of numbers
and definitive answers. For each problem, there are a lot of different sketches and/or
explanations that would work, and there is not just one correct answer; and because of this, my
student may not know where to start. If this is the case, I will respond by emphasizing how there
are so many different routes he could take to solve these problems correctly, that there is no
rush, and to just try something and see if it works; and if it doesn’t, that’s why we have erasers.
Lesson #2: Averages and Percentages in Baseball
Link to Lesson: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15G6tDDT2-

eM9KayxcK5vW6U7dQ8NqwFjGlUgIg5J7dU/edit?usp=sharing
What disciplinary literacy skills does this lesson address?
This lesson focuses on helping my student to gain a better understanding of averages and
percentages. What they are, how they are calculated, what they represent, and what information
they tell us. The context of the averages and percentages will also be important for my student
to understand.
Which accommodations or other support are in response to what you learned from
analyzing the assessment results?
In analyzing the assessment results of the Think Aloud Protocol, I noticed that my student used
averages incorrectly, and then used percentages to solve a problem that did not require the use
of either of those. I want this lesson to help my student gain a deeper understanding of these
two concepts so he can learn when using these concepts is called for in future math problems.
Through the interest survey, I learned that my student is a huge baseball fan; and so I decided
to create this lesson around baseball and the Detroit Tigers since averages and percentages
are such a big part of the game. This will hopefully help to drive home the importance of
providing context for calculations and how averages and percentages should be used.
What difficulties do you anticipate the learner will have,and how might you respond?
My student knows so much about baseball, and already knows how all of the individual statistics
are calculated and used to analyze players’ abilities. If there are any difficulties, I imagine they
will come from the problems that are asking the student to manipulate the calculations in a
different way than what he is used to. Some problems he will be given a final statistic and will
have to work backwards to determine one of the values required to get that number. Giving my
student time and reassurance though, I think, will be enough to get him through.
Literacy Learner Case Study – PART 3
Lesson #1: Sketching and Interpreting Graphs

Student Work:
What went well during the lessons? What evidence do you have for this in the
student work?
Something that went well during this lesson was my student did not get discouraged, he
continued to work through the lesson, even though it was kind of lengthy. I think part of
the reason why is because this lesson wasn’t the “typical” math that my student was
used to; there were no equations or solving required, he just had to use this logic skills
to interpret different stories and graphs. These interpretations also went pretty well,
once he got going. In the follow up questions to Example 1, he was able to explain his
thinking and his answers, that he looked at the speed and started with the fastest speed
and worked his way down and that he used the durations at each speed, showed that
he was really thinking about the context of the problem and how that information
translated to the graph. For his graph that he sketched for example 3, it was very well
done and represented the given story very well. His answers to the follow up questions
that he wrote down were kind of vague, but when he was sketching the graph, we were
discussing the different decisions he was making. He spent a lot of time making sure
the intervals of time were accurate, and went back and double checked his work when
he was done, reading through the story and following along with his graph to make sure
they lined up.
What did your learner find challenging? What evidence do you have for this in
the student work?
At the beginning of the lesson, my student was having difficulty interpreting the graphs.
We took time and discussed each graph individually, looking at the different sections of
the graphs and what they could represent. For example, for Graph A on the first page,
Mark kept thinking that it was representing speed over time, and the sloping line meant
an increase in speed; even though he saw the y-axis labeled as distance. This lead to a
conversation about how slope is calculated and what the units of a slope on this graph
would be, and how that is the speed representation. Mark also had difficulty with the last
problem where he had to create a story to go along with a given graph. He used a
situation very similar to one of the previous problems, so that gave him a template to
work off of instead of having to come up with his own situation.
What disciplinary literacy skills do you think your learner is on the verge of
learning? What makes you think that?
I think that Mark is on the verge of being able to accurately analyze the contextual
nature of graphs and their situations, I think that this lesson was somewhat narrow
minded and I did have many examples that were along the same line of thinking (having
to do with the speed of a vehicle over time). When Mark used that common example for
his own created story, it made me realize that he has gained a specific understanding of
contextual relationships between speed and time, but it is unclear (due to the nature of
the lesson) whether this understanding can extend outside of that specific context. We
did have some discussions at the beginning of the lesson with the temperature vs. time
graph and the “impossible” graph, however those were still all vs. time. Time is a very
common variable in situations, so I think that Mark having this understanding is certainly
beneficial, but I think that with some more work with multiple different types of situations
he can really fine tune his ability to make connections within the context of graphs and
their explanations.
What would you choose to work on next to support your learner in their
disciplinary literacy skills? What two strategies would you choose to use to
support this?
Next, I would like to work on different situations (not involving time). Being able to
interpret graphs, and to sketch graphs to represent different situations is an important
skill in many different content areas. One strategy I would choose to use to support this
would be use utilize current events to provide real world context into the problems, as
Lent (pg. 33) discusses. Using graphs and context from science, history, and math
concepts would really help show my student, how versatile these skills are and give
them different contexts to work with instead of just speed vs. time. A second strategy I
would like to use would be to help my student build a background for different contexts
that he may encounter (Singer, 2018). I could help build this background by having my
student perform different experiments and collect data that he can then determine the
best way to graph in order to represent the results of an experiment. This would give my
student something tangible that he did to refer back to in the future.
Lesson #2: Averages and Percentages in Baseball

Student Work:
What went well during the lesson? What evidence do you have for this in the
student work?
During this lesson, my student was excited about math! He loves baseball, and the fact
that he knew how to do all the calculations without having to look them up really made
him proud. This lesson was designed to help my student gain a deeper understanding
of the context behind averages and percentages instead of just the knowledge of how to
calculate them. Throughout this lesson, my student did a nice job of manipulating
averages and percentages separately to solve different problems. Given the huge
amount of baseball knowledge he already had, he was able to quickly set up problems
to represent the described situations and solve for the information he needed. He
organized his work and was able to explain to me the steps he was taking towards a
solution (even though he did not always write them down).
What did your learner find challenging? What evidence do you have for this in
the student work?
Something Mark found challenging were problems where he had to take averages and
percentages and combine his knowledge of both in order to solve a problem. The last
two problems in this lesson caused him the most trouble, and though he did end up
getting the correct answers, it took a lot of discussion and some frustration. For
example, in solving the first problem; he started off correctly by using the given
information and adding it to the information from the table to calculate the winning
percentage of the White Sox. However, from there instead of multiplying that average
by the number of games left for Detroit (as he had done in previous problems that
required similar steps), he attempted to do a guess and check solution method, where
he was plugging in different numbers of games won for the Tigers and seeing which
winning percentage would be closest to the White Sox. After a few minutes of letting
him try his method, he started to get frustrated so we had a conversation about a
different way he could try to solve this problem. I referenced Question 2 on the first
page of the lesson which was a similar problem and asked him to explain to me how he
solve this one, after his explanation I asked if he could use any of those skills to solve
the problem he was stuck on. He then realized the connection, and what he had to do to
correctly solve the problem.
What disciplinary literacy skills do you think your learner is on the verge of
learning? What makes you think that?
Based on the outcome of this lesson, I think that my student is on the verge of being
able to apply context to multiple mathematical concepts at a time. Coming into this
lesson, my student was able to calculate averages and percentages, however, did not
understand how they fit into the context of a problem, or when they were necessary. I
think that my student’s background knowledge of baseball certainly helped with the
context aspect of averages and percentages, and he had a decent understanding of
them separately as he moved through the first part of this lesson. However, he still had
trouble when it came to multi-step problems and combining multiple concepts in context
as in the last two problems of the lesson; where after discussion he was able to
understand the context, but it did not come as quickly as when it was one concept at a
time.
What would you choose to work on next to support your learner in their
disciplinary literacy skills? What two strategies would you choose to use to
support this?
Next, I would like to move away from average/percentage focused lessons. The vast
amount of background knowledge my student has about baseball may have inflated his
ability to solve these problems, because he already knew how those statistics were
calculated. I think the last two problems (calculations that are not usually done in
baseball) caused him the most trouble because that background knowledge was not as
helpful. I would like to bring current events into future lessons (as I mentioned above
with Lesson #1) and go back to the reading I used for the miscue analysis and the
calculation of GPAs. GPA calculation is relevant to all students and I would be
interested to see if after working on this lesson that focused on averages and
percentages, if he would be able to have a better understanding of how GPAs are
calculated. I would also want to go back to the think aloud problem my student did
where he incorrectly used percentages and averages and discuss ways on HOW to use
the context of a problem to determine if percentages and averages are necessary
(Beers, 2003). The lesson I had my student do focused on gaining contextual
understanding from averages and percentages, but I would like to move on to
understanding from context if averages and percentages are relevant in upcoming
lessons.

Literacy Learner Case Study Project

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Literacy Learner Case Study Project

Alyssa Hogan - TE846

Assessment 1: Interest Survey

Part 1: Getting to Know Each Other

a. Why is it your favorite? _______________________________________

2. What is your favorite pastime or hobby?

8. What type of music do you like best?

9. Name one of your favorite musicians/musical groups:

10. Do you have a favorite poet? Yes or No

Part 2: Getting to Know Each Other as Readers

12. Does your family get a newspaper regularly? _________________

13. Is there a computer in your home? Yes or No

14. Who reads a lot in your home? _________________________________

___Read aloud Well ___Read with expression

17. Do you think you are a good reader? Yes or No

23. How long do you usually read at a time?

26. In general, how do you feel about reading?

Part 3: Getting to Know Each Other as Mathematicians (Circle one)

33. I expect the answers to math problems to be numbers.

35. I often have difficulty organizing my thoughts during a math test.

43. I get upset easily when I am stuck on a math problem.

46. Overall, how do you feel about math?

Assessment #2: Retrospective Miscue Analysis

Science & Math

average of these grades is called the grade-point average, or GPA.

four years of high school.

How Do We Figure Out A GPA?

instead of letters. Others use numbers.

the number 2, and so on.

It looks like this:

is 3.5. This is the student's GPA.

Why Do We Use GPAs?

Assessment #3: Think Aloud Protocol

Student Work and My Notes

Think Aloud Protocol:

What questions do you still have?

I still wonder if my student sees a connection between reading and mathematics. I

Retrospective Miscue Analysis:

What questions do you still have?

Think Aloud Protocol:

This assessment assesses my student’s ability to extract necessary information from a

A strength I noticed in my student as a result of this assessment was that he was

What questions do you still have?

Lesson #1: Sketching and Interpreting Graphs

What disciplinary literacy skills does this lesson address?

Lesson #2: Averages and Percentages in Baseball

Link to Lesson: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15G6tDDT2-

What disciplinary literacy skills does this lesson address?

Literacy Learner Case Study – PART 3

Lesson #1: Sketching and Interpreting Graphs

Lesson #2: Averages and Percentages in Baseball

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_Read aloud Well _Read with expression