Literacy and Numeracy in the Humanities

Literacy and numeracy are the fundament linguistics and numeric

understanding and skills that underpin all subjects. There is a trend toward

explicitly teaching literacy skills with Humanities content. Thus, an

understanding of literacy is very important. What some people might not

consider is that numeracy is also very important in humanities

Literacy – ability to read and write in a way that is appropriate for the context. It’s important to expose children to books and get them motivated to read. This will help them with reading and writing later on. Multiliteracies – the variety of types of language we need to master to be literate in our society. This includes being multimedia literate. Example: Year 7 Fairy Tales In order to compare traditional fairy tales students were asked to read several original fairy tales. They were then shown adaptations in media book, movie and other forms to help them to develop their analysis skills of cultural stories in English with regard to traditional literacy and newer technological forms of literacy. How people use and understand texts 1. Code breakers – combine knowledge with writing, spelling, grammar and other skills 2. Participants – apply knowledge of culture to make meaning. 3. Users – recognize and use genres of texts for different purposes. (Function) 4. Analysis – read between the lines to judge the authors’ point of view, which is important for judging the legitimacy of texts later on. In humanities, text analysis and other skills that are integrated into units that addresses subjects relating to humanities.

Classroom Implications - Read a variety of texts daily to develop listening comprehension, vocabulary, knowledge

and enjoyment - Interactive reading: predicting, discussing and retelling - Breakdown the individuals sounds - Go over new words and their meanings - Encourage students to think about what they read and develop responses to questions

- Teach systematic spelling to improve reading and writing.

- Teach syntactic (rule/grammar) awareness - Include plenty of oral language activities,

especially for ESL students - Integrate literacy across the curriculum

I do this!

Numeracy – ability to use mathematics effectively and with confidence in a range of contexts. Often associated with maths and science, but numeracy can be very important in humanities. Consider statistics. Often historical, geography, economics and other subjects rely on statistics for to stress significant of the subject being studied. Frequently students that study humanities, do not really like maths and shy away from it. The fact the matter is that maths, science and humanities are just perspectives of the whole picture. In order to comprehend the full picture, one must remove the artificial barriers that separate numeracy from humanities. The challenge is to find non-traditional ways to present this statistics. ICT can very useful for this. Consider presenting statistics as visuals.

Examples: What the World Eats: A photo essay http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html Parties: Do They Cut It? (The budget deficit, that is) http://www.flickr.com/photos/25541021@N00/4565272167/ Wolfram Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/