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Mellinee Lesley | Marian MatthewsPlace-based inquiry can

help preservice secondary

teachers to understand

discipline-specific

applications for content area

literacy.

Place-Based Essay Writing and Content Area Literacy Instruction for Preservice Secondary Teachers

For many practicing and preservice teachers, the term content area literacy raises questions about the relevance and applicability of literacy in subject area learning. Often perceived as teacher-directed study skills and textbook-based reading strategies, content area literacy conjures up images of graphic orga-nizers and heuristics that constitute little more than busy work and drain the amount of time available for content area instruction. Part of the resistance secondary-level preservice teachers express toward content area literacy comes from their notions of the kinds of texts and curricular material they will be teaching. Preservice teachers often tell us, “I’m just going to be teaching math (or musical performance, physical education, cooking)” or “There aren’t any textbooks or reading in my content area.” With such implicit definitions of curriculum, reading, and text, it is no wonder that so many secondary-level preservice teachers express resistance to learning about content area literacy and view it as merely adding material in their curriculum that will detract from subject matter information (Bean, 1997; deBeck & Feret, 2004; Lesley, Watson, & Elliot, 2007).

As teacher educators involved with teaching content area literacy methods, we try to encourage broad applications of literacy within content area instruc-tion. Our classes are filled with students seeking secondary-level certification in a range of content areas including mathematics, English, history, science, music, physical education, art, agriculture, dance, family and consumer sci-ences, and foreign languages. To address concerns like the ones raised previ-ously with such a cross section of majors, we strive to teach through authentic learning, sans prefabricated formulas created in isolation from the contexts of intended use.

As part of our instruction in content area literacy, we seek to “(1) mak[e] the discourse expectations explicit within the content area, (2) us[e] literacy as a tool for learning content matter, and (3) improv[e] students’ acuity with literacy skills through content area learning” (Lesley, 2004/2005, p. 323; see also Vacca & Vacca, 2005). To invoke authentic learning that can ad-dress these three goals we have incorporated place-based writing and inquiry

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(6) March 2009doi:10.1598/JA AL.52.6.6 © 2009 International Reading Association (pp. 523–533)

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with our curriculum. We believe place-based writ-ing fits well with the apprenticeship model (Braunger, Donahue, Evans, & Galguera, 2005) and other ap-proaches concerned with discipline-focused content area literacy instruction for preservice teachers. We also believe place-based writing supports models of teaching content area literacy through multiple texts (e.g., Walker & Bean, 2005). In what follows, we de-fine place-based content area literacy and discuss the ways we use place-based writing and inquiry to help preservice teachers understand authentic content area literacy pedagogy.

Content Area LiteracyMethods of content area literacy are predicated on the notion that students need explicit instruction in reading and writing about content area materials to successfully comprehend those materials. As such, content area literacy is contingent upon the norms, traditions, Discourses, questions, and modes of in-quiry in a specific field of study (Brozo & Simpson, 2007; Moje et al., 2004). Theories of content area lit-eracy also discard the belief that students who read and write successfully in one content area can read and write successfully in all content areas. Because literacy is shaped by the linguistic and sociocultural nuances found within each academic discipline, con-tent area literacy is ultimately a situated experience. In effect, content area literacy cannot be divorced from the unique Discourses of individual content areas (Braunger et al., 2005).

Vacca and Vacca (2005) defined content area lit-eracy as the “ability to use reading, writing, talking, listening, and viewing to learn subject matter in a given discipline” (p. 7). Although concise in its de-scription, this definition involves much more than comprehension of print-based text. In fact, current views of content area literacy present a multifaceted perspective of literacy in which the types of literacies found in any one content area are constituted by mul-tiple sign systems, texts, technologies, nomenclature, and ways of reasoning (see, for example, Alvermann & Heron, 2001).

As the field has moved away from content area literacy definitions that relegate notions of literacy instruction to textbook learning and moved toward

definitions that incorporate theories of adolescent lit-

eracy, critical literacy, multiple literacies, disciplinary

discourse, and principled practice, the possibilities for

explorations of place-based writing and inquiry readily

emerge (Brozo & Simpson, 2007; Lesley, 2004/2005;

Stevens & Bean, 2007; Sturtevant et al., 2006). To

see the connection between place-based writing and

content area literacy instruction, it is important to be-

gin with the expansive views of content area literacy

described in this body of literature.

Place-Based Content Area Literacy and LearningPlace-based pedagogy is essentially the practice of ex-

amining physical settings through various forms of

inquiry. Place-based pedagogy lends itself to learning

in all content areas because the world is constructed

through content area knowledge. The places we live in

and know are filled with opportunities for content area

learning. Restaurants, stores, museums, graveyards,

courthouses, ponds, sidewalks, walls, rivers, fields,

forests, grandparents’ homes, public parks, and schools

all contain artifacts of every content area taught in

educational settings. Place-based learning is grounded

in teaching for relevance, understanding the here and

now, and seeing how the present is connected to what

has come before. “There are no radical ideas motivat-

ing community-oriented pedagogy such as this, just

deep thinking about what education is for and how

teachers can best facilitate the construction of signifi-

cant student understanding” (Theobald, 1997, p. 146).

Place-based teaching can help students grasp the

unity of things that a focus on teaching discrete skills

has all but eliminated from the classroom. Even be-

fore the recent emphasis on high-stakes testing, Orr

(1994) noted how fragmented education had become:

We have fragmented the world into bits and pieces called disciplines and subdisciplines, hermetically sealed from other such disciplines. As a result, after 12 or 16 or 20 years of education, most students graduate without any broad, integrated sense of the unity of things. The consequences for their personhood and for the planet are large.... True intelligence is long range and aims toward wholeness. (p. 11)

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Orr was prescient in his predictions that we were becoming more and more ignorant of the things we need to know to live sustainably on the earth, as the current understanding of the issues of global warm-ing has increasingly demonstrated. He stated strongly that students need to know how to “think in whole systems, how to find connections, how to ask big questions, and how to separate the trivial from the important” (p. 23).

However, this kind of teaching is not just impor-tant for understanding and wholeness alone. It is im-portant for the attitudes that are developed and the sense of inspiration that occurs outside of classroom settings. Inspiration is one of the keys to engage-ment in learning. This sense of inspiration is often absent from the secondary classroom where emphasis is typically placed on context-less, textbook-focused instruction that deals in excess abstractions, blandness based on a fear of controversy, and removal from lived experience or local issues and concerns.

In place-based learning, students can become actors in making and remaking their communities. Literacy is vital to this kind of “culture-making” (Robbins, 2005). Robbins described literacy not as a skill but as a purposeful activity that begins through writing. We introduce content area literacy through place-based writing, and we encourage preservice teachers to become actively engaged in “culture-making” in their own communities. By beginning our classes with place-based writing, we hope to inspire preservice teachers to focus on broader issues and understandings of literacy in their disciplines as they investigate the possibilities of content area literacy methods.

In order for educators to begin to think about constructing content area literacy pedagogy grounded in place, there are two key requirements that must oc-cur: (1) primary source research and (2) inquiry over time. Preservice teachers are often amazed by what they discover through the process of repeated obser-vations in a particular setting. One preservice teacher planning to teach social studies wrote the following in a place-based essay about her multiple observations of the Castro County Courthouse (see Figure 1 for a complete description of the essay assignment):

I sit in the courtroom each Wednesday morning and listen to [the judge] read people their rights and notice

the blank look on their faces. Some have never been in a courtroom. When the judge reads them the right that, “You should also understand that with written waiver, the court will assess punishment, either upon or without evidence, at the court’s discretion,” the de-fendant is usually even more confused.

As someone engaged in systematic observations, this student is gathering data. She captures verbatim the language used in the courthouse, gives readers a sense of legal discourse, and draws conclusions about the relationships between most defendants and the judge as well as the ways literacy is used in this set-ting and can ultimately be applied to her content area. She is also discovering authentic purposes for teaching literacy in her discipline. The defendants in this set-ting need an understanding of the particular texts and Discourses used in a court of law. Without appropriate literacy strategies, the defendants are at a loss. In addi-tion to discovering authentic purposes for literacy in her content area, through such observations recorded

Figure 1 Assignment for Place-Based Writing to Support Content Area Learning

Place-Based Pedagogy and Writing From Primary SourcesRecent curriculum studies have focused on pedagogy that is grounded in an understanding of place. For this assignment, I want you to tap as many primary sources as you can to think about connections between place and pedagogy and to construct a piece of writing about a particular place that addresses the ways your content area can be taught from information you gather in this place.

At the beginning of the semester, you should select a place to experience, study, and research through the perspective of your content area. You should visit your place on at least three different occasions to gather information about the place and consider the implications for creating content area literacy pedagogy that is grounded in a sense of place. Once you have conducted your observations and researched your selected place you will write a paper that will be shared with the class in an archive. Your paper should be three to five, typed, double-spaced pages in length and adhere to the policy on written work.

In thinking about this writing assignment, consider the following techniques for gathering information from the place you select:

n Observation of the placen Conducting informal interviews with key people affiliated

with the placen Collecting artifacts for analysis from the placen Personal reflections on your experiences with the placen Creating a knowledge map of the place

Make sure to list the primary sources you used to gather information in a reference page.

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over time this preservice teacher is also engaging in primary source research.

Primary Source ResearchPrimary source research is a key component of place-based writing. Because data gathered through primary

sources comprises infor-mation from content area learning, primary sources also offer educa-tors a way to think more expansively about con-tent area texts. Because direct observation often requires students to en-gage in research outside of the classroom, many students do not experi-ence assignments de-signed to develop such

research skills until graduate school. Rather, many students experience curriculum and texts that position them as passive consumers of information through the secondary sources of their textbooks and teachers in-stead of actively constructing knowledge.

Primary source research places students in an in-vestigative role that fosters critical thinking, analyti-cal reasoning, and inquiry. In this manner, primary source research empowers students. Through method-ical observation and documentation, students learn to support their beliefs with concrete details. From such details students are then able to draw conclusions about their observations. To help students make note of the concrete details in their settings, we suggest us-ing the following types of primary sources for gather-ing information about a place: observation, artifacts, informal interviews, and photography or artwork.

As an ongoing process, observation is key to place-based inquiry and writing. In fact, observation over a period of time at different times of the day and on different days of the week is a foundational re-quirement for this type of investigation. One teacher we know used this technique of multiple observations in the same place as part of a science lesson to great success. Adopting the stance of scientists, her students investigated a vacant lot adjacent to their school to

search out artifacts and make discoveries. They first explored the lot with a naturalist who taught them how to look with new eyes. The teacher, one of Marian’s (second author’s) former students, noted the following in her journal:

We walked in the naturalist’s footprints over rocky, then hardpan, then sandy trails; I watched my students’ eyes light up with the expectation of treasure hunters. At our guide’s request, they reigned in their boisterous enthusiasm and walked so noiselessly that we heard a hawk whistle from the top of a salt cedar before he f lew. We were walking through the scars left in the desert at the edge of town by earth moving machines collecting landfill to develop lots and streets from the residential neighborhood surrounding our school. The naturalist told us they were called barrow pits. On that first encounter we took nothing but our eyes and ears and noses. We brought back small tips of plants, dried seedpods, gourds, fox scat, a dung beetle, a dead drag-onf ly, and a new curiosity for this small, forgotten world only blocks from our school.

With each visit, what the teacher and the students had originally viewed as a “waste” area became an almost magical kingdom. Additionally, with each visit to the lot, the students documented new discoveries and de-veloped scientific hypotheses. The students recorded their research in a journal by writing and drawing about their scientific inquiry. In effect, the study of this place served as a catalyst for incorporating content area literacy into the teacher’s instruction.

Similar written observations of real-world ap-plications of content area information are plausible for all content areas. For example, a preservice math teacher explored the geometry of a fountain. A physi-cal education preservice teacher analyzed the physical activities people engaged in at a public park. Viewing primary source material as texts to read and write about allows students from all disciplines to partici-pate in place-based content area literacy.

It is important to capture detailed and concrete descriptions in observation field notes. Consider this preservice teacher’s writing at the beginning of her place-based essay:

The first time I visited the Hale Center Football Stadium was an early Saturday morning. It was about 8:00a.m., the sun was shining from the east, and a cool breeze was still in the air. I could feel it brush my

Primary source

research places

students in an

investigative role

that fosters critical

thinking, analytical

reasoning, and

inquiry.

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ponytail against my neck as it would pass me. I slipped into the stadium between the metal gates designed to keep strollers, skateboards, and bicycles out of the stadium and off the black jogging track. Crossing the graveled path to the track and stands, my feet slipped with every step. The lack of traction on the gravel made it feel as if my feet were being thrown back-wards as I walked. The only sound was a bird merrily chirping nearby and the scratching sound of my shoes against the ground.

In this excerpt from a place-based essay, the writer captures sensory details about the football stadium that bring the setting to life and provide the reader with a level of participation and observational verisi-militude. This preservice teacher is also using writing as a form of thinking.

In addition to multiple observations, we sug-gest students gather artifacts from the setting they choose to study, such as menus or trash, to use in their analysis. If possible and socially appropriate, we also encourage students to conduct brief, informal interviews with people they meet in the place they select. Such interviews can add different perspectives and quoted speech to the students’ observations. Finally, we suggest students take photographs or cre-ate drawings of the place to help them view the place through a different interpretive lens. Photos can also be used to create place-based photo essays. All of these sources of data are important for documenting and analyzing places. These sources of data are also forms of content area literacy in which students use “reading, writing, talking, listening, and viewing to learn subject matter in a given discipline” (Vacca & Vacca, 2005, p. 7).

Documenting and Analyzing Primary Source InformationLocating Primary Source MaterialsPrimary sources are the foundation of place-based documentation and analysis. These source materials are immediate, serve to expand upon print-based no-tions of text, and help students make connections be-tween place and content learning.

As a way to demonstrate content area litera-cy methods and introduce students to using pri-mary source materials, Marian uses an oral history

assignment. Students are asked to interview the oldest member of their family or an older member of the community using at least five primary sources to assist their interview. Students must then share what they have learned with their classmates through a short, creative, multimedia presentation that incorporates the five primary sources (see Figure 2 for a description of this assignment).

In addition to learning about primary sources and broadening views of what constitutes text in content area learning, this assignment enables students to con-nect to and learn about their own and others’ cultures and histories while seeing the connections each of us have to the broader history and culture of our coun-try. Most important, students also become aware of a broad range of primary sources as they observe their peers’ presentations. Primary sources consist of items such as the following:

n legal documentation such as marriage licenses, draft and ration cards, manumission records, and work permits

n letters to and from soldiers or faraway loved ones proposing marriage, giving advice, or sharing happy and sad events

n books

n jewelry or apparel such as uniforms, hats, gloves, shoes, and shawls

n photographs of family members

n Bibles with family trees

n quilts

n tools

n saddles

n collections

n recipes and food

After completion of the oral history presentations, Marian takes her class on a field trip to a museum to encourage preservice teachers to make connections between their family artifacts and those of the mu-seum. Marian also asks preservice teachers to con-nect these artifacts to their disciplinary knowledge. Students then engage in a variety of activities to help them analyze the categories of primary sources they choose to examine (see Table 1).

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Knowledge MapsOnce students have gathered enough data on the place they select to study, they are ready to put the informa-tion they have collected into a cohesive representa-tion. One means to begin this process is through the creation of knowledge maps.

Knowledge maps are a way for students to catego-rize information about a place from a locational and conceptual perspective. Knowledge maps may run the gamut from f loor plans to depictions of sounds re-corded in various areas of the place. Some students have also used artifacts as a way to generate maps of their place. For instance, one student cataloged the types of print that could be found in a coffee shop.

Another student recorded the temperature at different times of day. Students can also find aerial maps of their place on the Internet to document such information as water usage, farming practices, and development patterns. Pictures taken at different historical periods of the same location can document changes in retail establishments, housing patterns, and transportation. No matter what the format for the map, we encourage students to create maps that represent various pieces of information or knowledge about the place that are connected to the student’s specific content area.

As a precursor to creating a knowledge map, Marian has used a variety of mapping activities. One of these is the “deep map” idea created by Robert Brooke (1998), which he developed after reading

Figure 2 Oral History and Cultural Celebration Assignment

The goals of this project consist of the following:

1. To learn more about your own family’s history and ancestry.2. To explore in deep, personal ways the connections between your family’s experience and your community’s culture and history.3. To tell the story of your family and community in a cohesive and creative way, using a variety of genres and visual elements.4. To introduce you to using primary source texts.

As you research, explore and re-create your family’s culture and past, look for trends or patterns that connect your family’s experiences to the larger forces of the community’s culture and history. For instance, keep in mind the key roles immigration and migration have played in the development of the community. You might remember these guiding questions: Why do people move? What are they seeking? What do they find? What do they give up? How and why did your family move to and/or within the United States? How did they come to live in the community in which they reside? Answers to these questions might help you think about and develop a unifying theme around which you can construct your family’s/community’s story.

You should start with an oral history: Interview an older person in the community, preferably the oldest member of your family, either a grandparent or other older relative. Audiotape the interview so that you will have a way to check your source as you begin to write it up. One thing you should find out as a result of the interview is the original country of origin of the ancestors of this person. If this person has American Indian ancestors, find out what part of the country they came from.

A. Purpose for interviewing. See the listed goals; but you may decide to focus ona. A particular event (the town fire, the town flood, World War II, the Great Depression, when our family immigrated to the U.S., etc.)b. A specific topic (early working experiences, early education experiences, early religious experiences, community history/culture, celebrations,

recreation, architecture, etc.)c. This individual alone or the whole family

B. Selecting an interviewee. Choose a person whom you know has something significant to tell and a fairly alert memory.

C. Pre-interview preparation. Based on your interest, prepare an outline of topics you feel should be discussed, but don’t be locked into these if your interviewee goes off on a tangent that you believe is interesting and engaging. List only a few broad open-ended questions or statements that can get the talk started.

D. Interview. A good rule of thumb is that one of your questions or statements should allow for about 15 minutes or more of talk on the part of the interviewee.a. Make sure you have plenty of time (1½ hours is a good estimate).b. Establish a comfortable atmosphere at the beginning, making some small talk. The first question or statement should be both enjoyable and easy for

the interviewee to answer at some length. (Examples: Tell me about a typical day at school when you were a child. What do you remember about your grandparents? Tell me about the area when your family first moved here. How did the family come to move here? What kind of people were you friends with and what did you do for fun when you were little?)

c. Listen carefully to what the interviewee says and respond to that rather than referring to your prepared questions. Often the interviewee provides highly significant information on topics that you would never have thought to pursue.

d. Show genuine interest in what is being said. Be natural, but typically this is done by nodding your head, saying “uh huh,” looking interested, giving encouraging “gurgles,” and so on.

e. When pauses occur, wait and let the interviewee continue, instead of jumping in with new questions. Encourage him or her with statements such as, “Tell me more about that” or “That is so interesting, I’d like to hear more.”

Be sure to thank your interviewee and ask for any information you need clarified when the interview is completed.

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Table 1 Primary Sources Categorized

Kinds of material Examples

Traditional remains • Folklore

• Place names

• Family names

Written materials • Official documentsLaws, treaties, hearings, court decisions, patentsMarriage and birth certificates, divorce decreesDraft cards, military records, ration cardsPassports, census records, willsCongressional and other government agency records

• Unofficial documentsDiaries, journalsFamily trees, genealogical recordsYearbooks, retail store recordsRecipes, grocery lists, plant listsReport cards, diplomas, honorary certificatesLetters, notes, memos, telegramsInventories of household, store itemsRecords of salesCemetery recordsMinutes of meetings, press releases, reportsAdvertisementsNewspaper accounts of firsthand witnesses

• Maps

• Cartoons

• Posters

Material remains • SitesBattles, marches, important eventsCemeteries

• ArchitectureBuildings, bridges, landscape, roads, docks

• Art workSculpture, paintings, photography, pottery, jewelry

• Furniture and household goods

• Clothing and textilesShoes, belts, undergarments, headwear, shawls, accessories, outerwear, uniforms, backpacks, handbagsQuilts, bedclothes, rugs, pillows, door and wall hangingsAnimal accoutrements, such as saddles, blankets, headgear

• Seals, stamps, coats of arms, medals

• Tools of all kinds

• Toys

• InstrumentsMusical, scientific, mathematical, medical, household

• Arms and weapons

• Money, both paper and coins

• Building materials

• Baskets, suitcases, storage items

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type of writing often takes the form of a place-based narrative in which students describe their experienc-es while gathering field notes. They also sometimes imagine what life was like for the people who lived in the place before. For instance, one student wrote about an imagined journey by Billy the Kid to a small town in New Mexico:

They say one hot July 4th day Billy and some of his fellows came to the ranch to see Sally. Because Billy was sweet on her, he and some of his fellows rode into town to buy some candy for her. Perhaps that day, in anticipation of a grand Fourth of July celebration, Billy’s heart pumped the blood of a young man in love, not that of a hunted, hardened killer.

This kind of writing helps preservice teachers personalize content area information, which not only creates important connections to disciplinary knowl-edge but also allows for content area literacy to f lour-ish. Ref lective writing is also used to question how things should or could be different in the places they investigate. In the following personal account, a stu-dent ref lected over the remnants of Roswell, New Mexico’s, past:

After walking around the historical district, I begin to wonder what it was like in the early 1900s in the small, probably growing, town of Roswell. I assume that these beautiful finely detailed homes were occu-pied by well-to-do people. But how did the not so well off people live? Where were their houses? Why haven’t they been acknowledged as “historical”?

Another student pondered past notions of crafts-manship in a home she was investigating:

As I look around the room, I am struck by all the beautiful old things and how wonderful it is that they have been preserved. It sometimes seems that we live in a world where life moves too quickly and things are made to be disposed of and replaced without much thought. Whatever happened to the pride in crafts-manship, the desire to make quality products, which will last forever? But then we are a society, which tends to use things up and dispose of them quickly. Unfortunately, that has included people and our envi-ronment, as well.

As part of such narrative musings, students of-ten reach important understandings about themselves,

William Least Heat-Moon’s (1991) PrairyErth (A Deep Map). Brooke described this kind of mapping as per-sonally situated:

A deep map is a map of the place where you are now, showing what makes up that place, indicating the forc-es that have led you to be the kind of person you are in that place, representing the tensions which create the energy of that place (positive and negative). A deep map represents the understanding of location, not just description. (p. 3)

When Marian introduces the deep map activity to her students, they often have difficulty developing an appropriate map, so Marian begins by using “metro mapping” from the book Writing for Change (National Writing Project, 2007). The metro map is created as a group activity. Each group draws a circle in the cen-ter of a sheet of chart paper that shows where they are now, in the classroom together. From that central idea, each person has to show on their group’s metro map how they reached this destination. They answer the questions “What brought them here? Which sig-nificant events in their own personal history led them ultimately to this place? What three crucial events in their own lives led them to this place?” (National Writing Project, 2007, p. 111). The students each draw a line from the edge of the chart to their final destina-tion, showing the crucial events as stops on the map.

When students have this kind of step-by-step specificity to start with and a group with which to develop their ideas, they can then begin to go deeper, as required by the deep map assignment, and explore their individual connections to their places on their own. The maps are developed over several weeks us-ing a variety of drawing techniques or materials such as photographs and three-dimensional representations.

Students can also complete concept maps as they develop their place-based projects. These maps are de-veloped from the concepts students identify as being keys to understanding the topics they are exploring in a particular place.

Reflective WritingIn addition to the oral histories, primary source anal-yses, knowledge maps, and observation field notes students gather, we encourage students to write re-f lectively about their experiences in the setting. This

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knowledge through a sense of the human experiences that are connected to the place.

Multimedia RepresentationsMultimedia-driven explorations with place-based inquiry offer numerous possibilities for documenta-tion. Digital video re-cordings, drawings, and photography can capture elements of the place beyond written descriptions. Research has demonstrated that unique and hybridized literacies emerge from information commu-nication technologies, such as digital storytell-ing, blogs, webpages, e-portfolios, and zines (Brozo & Simpson, 2007). The incorporation of technology allows students to capture their learning through other media of representation and make their work available to broader audiences.

Long-Term InquiryAs we stated earlier, inquiry over time is an important factor to successful place-based writing. Gruchow (1995) explained the importance of ongoing inquiry:

All history is ultimately local and personal. To tell what we remember, and to keep on telling it, is to keep the past alive in the present. Should we not do so, we could not know, in the deepest sense, how to inhabit a place. To inhabit a place means literally to have made it a habit, to have made it the custom and ordinary practice of our lives, to have learned how to wear a place like a familiar garment, like the garments of sanctity the nuns once wore. The word habit, in its now-dim original form, meant to own. We own places not because we possess the deeds to them, but because they have entered the continuum of our lives. What is strange to us—unfamiliar—can never be home. (p. 7)

This mode of inquiry that Gruchow (1995) de-scribed often grows into long-term inquiry as stu-dents become increasingly invested in the place they select to study. Long-term inquiry enhances the possibilities for content area learning through place-

their families, and their connections to various places. In a ref lection on the place-based assignment, one student said,

I feel that I know more about myself. I think it is very important to make connections with family to fully understand where you come from. My understanding of myself and where I came from has prepared me to be a better person, a contributing member to society, and a well-rounded individual.

Other forms of ref lective writing we’ve encoun-tered are stories students tell of memories associated with the place. For example, one biology student se-lected a creek to observe on his wife’s family farm. As part of his content area place-based inquiry, he in-corporated his wife’s stories of the place. This student wrote:

[My wife] spoke of earlier times, when she was a little girl, and how her grandfather taught her how to catch fish in the creek. Many a late afternoon was spent, after chores were done, with [my wife] and her Opa sitting on the banks of the creek. Mostly they caught perch or bluegill, but sometimes bass could be found in the creek. Also, she spoke of the mustang grape vines that hung from the trees, and that I had not noticed pre-viously. Many a time she had picked the grapes each year in order to make jellies and homemade wine to enjoy.

A psychology student captured a similar historical perspective about the place she selected. This student wrote the following narrative in the introduction to her place-based essay:

When I was 6 years old we moved to a new town and into a new home. I lived in this house until I was 18. Eight years later I moved back into it with my 6-year-old son and many animals in tow. Within these walls there are many memories, including the good, bad and even worse. As with all aspects of my life, I tend to look at and study this house and what it means from a psychological standpoint. In what way did this place shape who I am, what inf luence did it have on me, what does it mean and why is it important enough to ponder?

Personal narratives help students make mean-ingful metacognitive connections to content area learning. Such ref lective narratives enliven place-based explorations and add real uses for content area

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based writing. One of Mellinee’s (first author’s) stu-dents majoring in political science decided to use the place-based writing assignment as a springboard to documenting the gentrification of a nearby neighbor-hood over a year’s time.

Long-term inquiry can also be embedded in thematic learning with an entire class. For instance, Mellinee has used place-based writing to investigate longer thematic inquiry with undergraduate stu-dents enrolled in her secondary-level content area literacy courses. Given the region of western Texas where Mellinee teaches, she created a thematic unit on the Dust Bowl as a means to incorporate place-based writing (Lesley et al., 2007). As part of this the-matic unit, students engaged in place-based writing and content area inquiry pertaining to the history of the region with artifacts and local residents who lived through the Dust Bowl.

Helping Teachers See That Literacy Belongs in Their ClassroomsWith the backdrop of place-based writing and inquiry, content area literacy becomes about using reading and writing as tools for learning through documentation and investigating the discipline-specific and authentic uses of Discourse in a particular setting. Through these processes, students’ literacy abilities are enhanced. In summary, the main points of place-based writing as a means for authentic content area literacy instruction are predicated on the following key ideas:

n Content area literacy is situational and multifac-eted in nature.

n Content area literacy and learning can be-come more authentic and engaging for students through place-based writing and inquiry.

n Primary source research is key for developing content area curriculum through place-based writing.

n Places can be analyzed through multiple modes of documentation.

n Place-based writing can be used to support long-term inquiry.

There are many ways to incorporate place-based writing within courses for preservice secondary

teachers. Used as an initiating activity, a culminat-ing project, or the basis for thematic instruction, we believe place-based writing can serve to address is-sues of resistance toward content area literacy and help preservice teachers broaden definitions of text and see the uses for literacy in their respective content areas.

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Lesley teaches at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA;

e-mail mellinee.lesley@ttu.edu. Matthews teaches at

Central Connecticut State University, New Britain,

USA; e-mail matthewsmak@ccsu.edu.

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