RUNNING HEAD: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN INTERDISPLINARY CURRICULUM

Content Knowledge in Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Niyoria McKinnis

Regent University
RUNNING HEAD: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN INTERDISPLINARY CURRICULUM

Introduction

When you become a teacher it is important for you to not only have great classroom

management it is important for you to have great content knowledge on what you are teaching.

Having an understanding of what you are teaching will greatly impact your students and your

students will actually understand more if you know what you are talking about. If a teacher does

not know what he or she is teaching the students would struggle also. There are also times where

teachers have to incorporate two of more subject areas for students to fully grasp the concept

being taught. Like peanut butter and jelly, some things just naturally go together. Curriculum

wise two easy subjects to combine are language arts and social studies.

Rationale for selection of artifacts

The first artifact that I wanted to share was my lesson on maps and globes, Standard 2.6.

This lesson plan showed evidence of instruction through the integration of two content areas,

language arts and social studies. I first began the lesson by reading, Me on the Map by Joan

Sweeney. As we read the text the students pointed out several words they knew and pointed out

if certain words were proper or common nouns. We have been learning the difference between

the two words. It was great to incorporate our language arts focus into a book for social studies.

Throughout the book I paused and asked the students what is the common noun presented on a

certain page. For example, I paused when I talked about the word city, street, state, planet, and

continent. When I paused at each of these the students were able to give me an example of a city,

street, state, planet and continent that were proper nouns. They also were able to tell me the

difference between a common and proper noun as we went on. When student gave me the

answer for common or proper noun another students gave me the answer as to which word is
RUNNING HEAD: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN INTERDISPLINARY CURRICULUM

capitalized. For example, student one said city is the common noun and Chesapeake is the proper

noun. Student two was able to tell me that city is lower case because it is a common noun and

common nouns are not capitalized. The student was also able to tell me that Chesapeake is

capitalized because it is a proper noun because it names the city they live in. After the book was

read we are able to give other examples of different common and proper nouns they could think

of.

The second artifact I chose to share was our foldable writing. After the book was read we

did a writing activity for them to fully understand what the book was talking about and to fully

grasp the concept of common and proper nouns. The foldable was called Me on the Map just

like the book we read. The foldable will also help students understand where they live if they do

not already know. The students really enjoyed this writing activity and also started drawing

pictures with their writings. This helped them identify which words need to be capitalized and

which words need to be lower case. After the students were done with their foldable they were

able to incorporate what they wrote in the foldable to a five sentence paragraph in their journals.

The students really had a great time doing this activity. After they finished they were able to

buddy read with a partner what they wrote.

Another artifact I chose to share was my lesson on the seven continents, Standard 2.5a. In

this lesson, we read our social studies book during whole group time. Different students would

read different paragraphs out loud to the classroom. While in the middle of reading the text

students would pause after every continent which gave the students an opportunity to write on

their graphic organizer about what they learned about each continent. The students were also

able to see the shape of each continent on their paper and relate each shape to the facts they
RUNNING HEAD: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN INTERDISPLINARY CURRICULUM

wrote about each. I feel this was a great lesson because it gave the students an opportunity to

learn about each continent and not just North America.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

During one lesson, students were able to learn about themselves on the map and where

they live, while also incorporating the difference between common and proper nouns. The

artifacts I chose to share were examples of how you can incorporate two subjects into one to

create a great lesson. This was an important lesson to incorporate because the students can

connect what they learned in language arts to different areas of life. The second lesson we still

worked on learning about maps but this time we learned about different continents and students

were able to retell what they learned about each continent.

Student teaching has really taught me how to implement different subjects into one great

lesson. I never thought about incorporating two subjects into one until I started student teaching

and now as I reflect on my lessons I realize that I do this most of the time and it really helps

students fully understand what is being taught in the classroom. In the book, Understanding by

Design, it says that students learn best when they can make connections and this will boost their

academic achievement in the classroom (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). The lessons taught in my

classroom helped students fully understand the concept of common and proper nouns. Now the

students are able to point out more nouns on their own. This is proven when we do morning

work every morning. In the approach to integration, teachers organize the curriculum around

common learnings across disciplines then teachers chunk together the common learnings

embedded in the disciplines to emphasize interdisciplinary skills and concepts (Drake).

RUNNING HEAD: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN INTERDISPLINARY CURRICULUM

Works Cited

Drake, Susan, (2017). Ascd. Chapter 1. What Is Integrated Curriculum? What Is Integrated

Curriculum? www.ascd.org/publications/books/103011/chapters/What-Is-Integrated-

Curriculum%C2%A2.aspx.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (Expanded 2nd ed). Alexandria,

VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.