Because language arts are a more direct or obvious path to literacy, I feel, it is imperative to be aware of it. If you have a strong sense of literacy, a good grasp on it in your language arts classes, you are more likely to find and develop it across content lines. It is important for students to have literacy components within all content areas for many reasons, but I believe the best reason is for their personal growth. What I mean by personal growth is that all students have different strengths and interests. Some are great at math some have a hard time grasping it. Some love to read and write and some can’t stand sitting through one chapter. When you are learning something you enjoy or are good at, the learning process is done with much more ease. So, when a student grasps literacy in a math story problem, they may come to my English class with a better understanding of how to interpret literature.
    For my primary content area, language arts, I believe variety will be my best friend in introducing literacy. For each story we read, for example, I will have multiple components including, vocabulary, summary, interpretation, Socratic questioning, and connection between author and reader. This will insure critical thinking. By having my students looking at the text in multiple ways, they will gain control of how they think and interpret literature. One thing that I believe will encourage literacy will be alternate endings. I will have my students interrupt the climax and write their own ending by still using the elements of the beginning such as voice, characters, running metaphors and so on. Language arts class may be an obvious place for literacy, but you can take it further. For instance, if you just have them read and write about the text, you will only be using the base of literacy. In an English class, you have a great opportunity to incorporate deeper comprehension by having students interpret, question, visualize, predict, find context clues and many other things.