Using Homework To Promote Literacy In Computer Science/ict

Every subject has specialised texts and materials where knowledge is presented in subject-specific language. In my chosen specialism of Computer Science, there is technical vocabulary and scientific reasoning which require a discrete level of literacy. But there is also a rich wealth of literature which can open up the subject and greatly enhance one's appreciation and understanding - as long as the student has the core literacy skills to access it. As such, every teacher needs to teach the fundamental literacy skills which will act as scaffolding for content area literacy. Homework might be the key.

Just as with every discipline, there is room within Computer Science to set meaningful homework, and this can involve writing. From defining terminology to researching prominent figures or key events in the subject s modest history, there is scope to support a whole-school commitment to improving literacy. Of course, the link between homework and pupil attainment is inconsistent and inconclusive: Kralovac Buell call homework a black hole in the learning process which leaves teachers both unaware of the progress their students are making, and unable to ensure their learning is properly scaffolded. The key is to ensure that homework isn`t "one size fits all".

There is currently more of an emphasis on the correctness of what has been produced than the writing process itself. I want to challenge that. With greater freedom to set their own purposes so that homework isn t simply an exercise in literacy, there is more scope for students to get creative. For one of my secondary classes (year 7), I set a homework task for which students were given a brief but had freedom to fulfil that brief however they wanted. The task: to design a computer game. Beyond that, they had free reign. Some expressed themselves colloquially, others formally, but every student was clearly motivated by the task habitual and apprehensive writers alike.

The primary phase is almost exclusively entrenched in fictional narratives and this provides scant preparation for the factual, informational writing encountered at secondary school. In the sciences, the language is a technical one, full of barriers to comprehension, and the skill of the teacher is therefore to be a translator of sorts. The goal of a Computer Science teacher, therefore, is to find ways to encourage this kind of writing in a manner that develops subject knowledge as well as bolstering literacy skills.