This week Jess and I chose to use the article, Plants Do Math to Survive the Night, located here: http://news.discovery.com/earth/plants/plants-do-math-to-survive-the-night-130624.htm. This article touches on both our content areas, math and biology. Just like the last article, it shows how math and biology go hand in hand. This article explains how plants use math in order to maintain homeostasis. It is a great example of how math is used in the real world, specifically in terms of organisms. In regards to biology, this article discusses the concept of organisms adapting to their environment in order to maintain homeostasis.
The text frames of this article include cause/effect and concept/definition. The author explains that when plants' environments change, specifically the change from light to dark, the plant alters how to use the stored starch in the most efficient way. The author also explained that research was done to determine if the plants could do this when they changed the amount of time the plants were in the dark. The result showed that the plants maintained the same maximum efficiency of food usage.
In terms of the concept/definition text framing, the author focuses on the concept of adaptation to maintain homeostasis, as mentioned above. By presenting the research of the biologists from John Innes Center, the author showed readers one way plants maintain homeostasis during a specific environmental change. Although the article doesn't provide information on the specific chemical reactions that take place for this adaptation to happen, the author explains that the adaptation happens by altering the energy usage in the plant by using math. However, it should be noted that the plants are not consciously performing math problems.
For this reading, I chose to use the Knowledge/Question/Response Charts strategy to promote guided thinking. Frank Smith presented an idea that reading is thinking (McLaughlin, 2015). Hiebert, Pearson, Taylor, Richardson, and Paris continue with this idea, saying that students should be taught how to think when reading (McLaughlin, 2015). This is exactly what this strategy accomplishes. The Knowledge column of the chart helps students to focus on important details of the text. Teachers may also have to guide students to ensure that the parts of the texts in this column are truly important. After writing down statements from the text, students are encouraged to ask questions. The teacher should ensure that the questions are meaningful. This column encourages and reminds students to ask questions about what they are reading. Lastly, in the Response column, students are to write down previous knowledge or experience that relates back to the text, as well as respond to what the author has written.
This strategy, while promoting thinking, also promotes the Transactional Theory of Reading. This theory recognizes that readers are individuals and that in order to obtain meaning from a text, an individual should connect themselves to the text (Probst, 1987). By using the Knowledge/Question/Response Charts, students can ask their own questions and connect their experiences to the new knowledge.
Here is an example of using the Knowledge/Question/Response Charts strategy with the chosen article.
Knowledge Question Response Researchers changed Would the outcome If I slept longer than I
amount of time plants change if they turned would normally, I usually
spent in the light by on the lights earlier? wake up hungrier.
turning off the lights after
an 8-hour day instead
of their normal 12-hour
day to test if the plants
used energy just as
efficiently.
Works Cited
McLaughlin, M. (2015). What Do We Know About Reading Comprehension?. In M. McLaughlin (Ed.), Content Area Reading: Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness (pp. 30-48). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Probst, R.E., (1987). Transactional Theory in the Teaching of Literature. ERIC Digest. Retrieved from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/theory.htm
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