Multimodal Literacy: How Students Acquire Knowledge in Your Discipline
Bianca is a High School Math student who is generally well-behaved in class. However, Math has never been her favorite subject. At the beginning of the school year, the teacher observes that Bianca becomes nervous when it comes to attempting to solve problems. When she is working in a group, she will try to sometimes copy the work of her peers without trying to solve the problems herself. She becomes especially apprehensive when it comes to working by herself and sometimes takes out her frustration on the teacher. The teacher decides to host a parent-teacher conference in an effort to better understand Bianca’s background and what could be causing her erratic behavior. The teacher learns from the parents that Bianca had struggled with Middle School Math. The teacher assumes that this is the cause of Bianca’s Math Anxiety. Math itself is a cumulative subject and a weak foundational understanding of lower-level Math would cause Bianca to have much more difficulty in more advanced Math. It is now the teacher’s duty to help Bianca acquire the prerequisite Math skills necessary to succeed in the class.