Comprehension Strategy Lesson Plan Demonstration Reflection

Last week for class I demoed ten minutes of the first lesson plan in a series of two that we will write up for our key assessment. For this demonstration we were just supposed to pick a comprehension strategy and model it for our fellow classmates using material we would teach in our respective content areas.

 

I am a future English teacher so I chose a strategy that would work with ninth graders. The comprehension strategy I chose was developing images. I chose this strategy because in an English classroom it is very important that students understand what they read and one way to help them get a better understanding of what they read is through visualization. Furthermore, if I fit this strategy into the two lesson plans for our key assessment I would act like my unit was on descriptive language as I hope many of us experienced in ninth grade. I remember an entire two months spent on grammar. This strategy is particularly useful for struggling readers who can use the visuals they create to help them get an understanding of the text. The strategy is simple: read a passage from a text and pick out the descriptive language in order to create a picture. I tweaked it for my class and had them pick out any sensory details – not just the visual ones.

 

So this reflection is aimed for looking at what went well, what we would change if we could present this lesson again, and what the future of this strategy would look like in my class.

 

I think the modeling of this strategy went very well. I spent a lot of time scaffolding this part of my lesson so that it was a gradual release of responsibility and followed the typical I do, we do, you do format. The passage I selected was a few paragraphs from the first chapter of Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford (a young adult novel full of descriptive language and just a non-academic text for some fun exploration). I did the first paragraph on my own, modeling what language I would pick out and what I would visualize from this language. Then the class and I did the second paragraph together. I read it and asked them what they would pick out, giving hints along the way. Finally, the students did two paragraphs on their own and when they were done they paired up and shared what they found in those two paragraphs. I only had ten minutes so I couldn’t scaffold to complete independence, but I think the initial scaffolding went well.

 

If I could change something about this lesson I might change my materials and give them the copies of the passages with my modeling already on the page so they could see what I did. I think that visual would help them rather than just trying to follow what I say – they would hear it and see it. I might also preface the text more and explain why I chose that particular text more because I got some crazy looks from my classmates when I said where these paragraphs were from.

 

I really liked using this strategy and I think it could be manipulated many different ways. I could have the students pick out the descriptive language and then actually draw what they see, create comic strips, etc. I could make it into a more hands on and artsy project for the students. I could have the students act out what they are seeing in the passage and get them moving around. I could scaffold all the way to independence and have them scan entire chapters to get as many examples of descriptive language as possible. I think there are many different ways to use this strategy and I could make it really fun and engaging for my students.

New Literacies

Our world is no longer confined to print, to ink on paper bound in textbooks. Our world is very much electronic with the takeover of technology. And this change in our world prompts a change in our schools. We cannot ignore the technology shift. We cannot force students to flip through pages in a textbook and get angry when they cannot learn that way. We cannot expect to lecture for forty five minutes and have the students take copious notes. Our world is changing. Our means of education need to change.

 

Chapter Two of Content Area Reading focuses on this idea of “new literacies” and how we as teachers can implement these new forms in our classrooms to ensure the most learning opportunities. The writers claim that these new literacies are changing the ways in which students read and write.

 

We cannot rely solely on print based literacy anymore. We need to incorporate screen based literacy. Our classrooms need to still include print but also become multimodal: video, audio, graphic design, etc. If we can understand these modes of learning, then we can use them in the best possible ways in order to advance the learning of our students.

 

(But what about those pesky State Standards? How will these new literacies fit in with those? Well you might be surprised to learn that these new literacies are already embedded in the standards under terms like media literacy and technological information resources.)

 

So now that we know that we need to change and use these new literacies as well as the State Standards actually want us to use these new literacies – what does that classroom look like. Here are a few characteristics:

1. They feature daily work in multiple forms of representation
2. They discuss the benefits of using these new literacies They have the teachers model how to use these new literacies
3. They combine individual work with collaborative work with using these new literacies
4. They work towards that “flow” state for students of optimal learning

 

Moving forward we will learn about helping students think and learn in a multimodal environment and how to use these new literacies in our classroom.

 

To help students think about a multimodal environment it is important you model what that looks like. You do your own multimodal search of some topic and show the kids how you do it: jumping from page to page, using audio visuals, reading articles, etc. The Internet is very nonlinear and it is important to help students learn to navigate from page to page and that there are many ways in which they can move to different pages. This gets the students using something called hypermedia which is built on hypertexts. Hypertexts are webpages that have a nonlinear structure. These are important for instruction because it includes built in scaffolding for your students. You can select one page for them to start at and all of your students can learn at their own pace from it. A great exercise to get students more involved with hypermedia is to have them use it in their writing. For example, if they are writing a literary analysis of a poem they can learn to use hyperlinks in their writing to link to descriptions of terms without having to include them in their actual writing piece.

 

However, this can be a slippery slope. If we let the students use the Internet we need to teach them how to evaluate the websites they are looking at. Teaching them these steps will help them gauge the quality of the website:

1. Examine the bias of the site
2. Determine the reliability of the site
3. Determine the accuracy of the site
4. Synthesize the information presented on the site in a meaningful way

 

Encourage your students to look at all sources on the Internet (keeping those evaluative steps in mind of course) including blogs, wikis, and nings. You could even have the class create their own in order to synthesize information collaboratively online.

 

Do not be afraid to use the Internet and incorporate those multimodal literacies in your classroom! They can really improve the learning experience for your students and you might find that the students could teach you a thing or two as well with how fast they absorb new technology. If we stick with the print literacy only system we will miss out on really reaching the students and helping them learn in today’s world.

Writing and Tests

This week we read two chapters from our textbooks Content Area Writing: the first “Public Writing” and the second “Writing for Tests and Assessments.”

 

These chapters look at going more in depth with student writing. Earlier, I posted about short writing assignments called Writing to Learn. Today, I am moving away from that subject and on to the bigger writing assignments. However, not all bigger writing assignments are research papers or literary analyses. Students also need to learn how to write for the tests and assessments we give them. This means how do we teach writing for essay tests not only within our classrooms but also on Standardized Tests.

 

First we look at this idea of Public Writing. So far we have looked at the private, unedited, spontaneous Writing to Learn assignments that are not graded. What about Public Writing is different? Well, this kind of writing has the following qualities:

• Substantial – longer, more in-depth pieces
• Planned – intentional writing with a focused purpose
• Authoritative – writing that argues a point or gives information in a confident manner
• Conventional – writing that strives to reach its audience by conventional writing standards
• Composed – writing that has been drafted and revised a few times to make sure it is polished and clear
• Edited – writing that pays attention to the pesky details of grammar, punctuation, and spelling
• Graded – writing that will be evaluated

 

Now Public Writing is a great idea, but many times it can be daunting for students. How do we as teacher make Public Writing more accessible and less daunting for our students? Well, we can work on giving students choice. If students have a choice on topics about which they can write, then we are making our assignments relevant and engaging. It is often easier for students to approach an assignment they had a choice on rather than getting forced to write about one specific topic. Besides choice, we can give the students time to write in class. If we make students do all their writing outside of class, many students can fall behind or get confused, but if we allow time in class to write we can provide the support and modeling they need throughout their writing process. Furthermore, we can respond to the student’s writing. Our feedback during the writing process can greatly enhance the student’s writing and give them more confidence when writing alone for tests and assessments. Quelling students’ fears about big writing assignments can be easy if we model good writing and turn our writing assignments into processes that slowly move from step one ‘til the end with plenty of support and feedback along the way.

 

Step Two – let’s look at what kind of writing students will be doing besides the big papers. Let’s look at what writing students will be doing for tests and assessments. Now tests are supposed to assess what students learned; however, there are limitations:

1. We have taught students to write for an external reason. They write for a grade. They do not write to persuade or inspire. They write simply to regurgitate the information we fed to them.
2. Tests do not have a large audience. The student either writes for the teacher or an anonymous test grader they will never know. There is no connection or desire to want to reach people through their writing.
3. Our questions we pose for them to write about are limited themselves. We get what we ask for and nothing more. Students do not elaborate. They answer the question in as basic terms as possible and move on.
4. Students only get one chance to write their answer. They are given a fixed amount of time and no way to add in the writing process of drafting and revising.
5. Tests only look at one moment in time. They do not show how a student progressed throughout a unit. What you get in an essay could be what they learned or it could be what they already knew. Tests do not allow for overall assessment of how that student learned.

 

So now that we know how limited tests are – how do we fix it?

 

We design better essay tests. We ask better questions. We focus on the big picture and long term meaning rather than the specific, tiny details the student will forget the second the next unit is started. We use tests throughout the unit that focus on writing and create a process the student can really learn from.  We give students more time to write their essays either in class with fewer questions or use take home tests.

 

We prepare students to respond to questions in a variety of ways. We give them examples and we model for them. We teach them how to look at a question or testing situation and approach it logically. We teach them how to take essay tests and by extension standardized tests.

 

There are three strategies to do this:

1. Keep students writing year round. Give them assignments that have them explain their ideas, elaborate on them, and connect them to other ideas. The more comfortable they become with this process – the easier the tests will be.
2. Make sure the students know the expectations about what is supposed to go in their answers and how they present their answers. They need to be able to look at a question and decipher what it is asking and how to give their answer.
3. Relate test taking to what they know: video games. Teach them that test taking is all about being ready to engage, being alert, using strategies, thinking over modes of moving forward, and deciding the best route to take.

 

By preparing students for writing on tests, we can help them improve their overall learning in every area as well as improve how they approach other problems in life once out of school. We no longer need to “teach for the tests” because we can learn to use the tests to really teach for the kids.

Building Student’s Vocabulary

Chapter 8 of Content Area Reading looks at developing a student’s vocabulary. Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz write “teaching words well means giving students multiple opportunities to develop word meanings and learn how words are conceptually related to one another in the texts they are studying” (CAR, 235).

 

Why is this important? Why do students need to have a better vocabulary?

 

To improve their reading comprehension. If students know the words they are reading on the page then their reading comprehension will improve.

 

However, how do we as teachers define vocabulary?

 

There are three distinct types:

• General – everyday words with well known meanings
• Special – words from general vocabulary that take on specialized meanings when adapted to different content areas
• Technical – words that are only used/applied in one specific area

 

To teach vocabulary it is important to know when to preface a reading and teach certain words, when to give a list of words for students to keep in mind during their reading, and to have a list of words students should discuss after reading.

 

To begin this process it is vital we look at the term “concept.” Many students learn in terms of concepts and every concept has its own hierarchy of relationships. To teach a concept it is helpful to look at this hierarchy of relationships, oftentimes through a graphic organizer.

 

To create a graphic organizer that explains the hierarchical relationships of a concept it is helpful to follow the following six steps:

1. Analyze the vocabulary and list the important/key words
2. Arrange the list of words in terms of a hierarchy from most important to related
3. Add in example words for your vocabulary list that you believe the students already know to help clue them into the meanings
4. Evaluate the organizer and make sure the relationships are correct
5. Discuss the graphic organizer with the class before doing a learning task
6. After learning task relate discussion back to graphic organizer and add more words if needed

 

However, before graphic organizers can be used in the class it is helpful to work with students before learning new vocabulary to activate their prior knowledge. Have them write on what they already know about the words with Word Exploration activities. Put the students in groups and have them brainstorm related words to the given vocabulary words.

 

If there is one word in particular that stands as a word beneficial for the student’s long term vocabulary, have them work with that one word. Have them categorize it, define it in their own words, brainstorm their own comparisons, illustrate what they think it is like, anything really that gets them using their own words/experiences to learn this new word will help commit it to their long term memory.

 

Other activities for long term memory include:

• Semantic Feature Analysis – create a chart of similar words and have students determine which properties go with which word and which words have overlapping properties
• Categorization Activities – create activities to help students explore the relationships between words
• Concept Circles – help students describe a concept by looking at relationships of concepts in circle

 

However, when faced with an unknown word while reading it is helpful if students have activities they can use to help unpack an unfamiliar word. Helping them learn how to use context, word structure, and the dictionary will help students learn unfamiliar words on their own.

 

Context offers three clues that will help students learn an unfamiliar word. The first clue is typographic and this clue can be found in footnotes, italics, bold, parenthetical explanations, pictures, graphs, etc. They are the visual aids included in text books meant to help explain an important concept, and teaching your students how to use these helpful clues will improve their reading comprehension. The second and third clues are syntactic and semantic clues – the clues hidden within the text. Learning how to unpack a sentence and write it in the most basic words will help student discover the meaning of words they don’t understand.

 

Word Structure can help students decipher an unfamiliar word too. The smallest unit of words, morphemes, will help students predict the meaning of a word. Teaching your students about well known morphemes, suffixes and prefixes, compound words, etc. will help prepare students to figure out a word while reading.

 

Finally teaching students how to use a dictionary may seem trivial, but most students don’t know how to approach the dictionary. Emphasizing the “best-fit” option for definitions will help students find the correct definition they are looking for in relation to what they are reading (a relation that can be helped by knowing the context of what they are reading.) it is important when asking students to use a dictionary for an assignment to use it sparingly. Have the students learn a few big concept words really well instead of overwhelming them with every descriptor word you can think of. (And a helpful side note is to teach students about the pronunciation keys and how to decipher the symbols and translate them into sounds.)

 

Vocabulary may seem like a trivial, memorize and go topic, but vocabulary is vital for a student’s reading comprehension. The better their vocabulary – the better their reading comprehension – the more they learn!

Encountering Diverse Classrooms

Chapter Three of Content Area Reading is titled “Culturally Responsive Teaching in Diverse Classrooms.” This chapter focuses on how teachers respond to those cultural differences by using different scaffolding methods when instructing.

 

Why should we pay attention to this? Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz write that “the rapidly changing demography of the United States and its schools is transforming the country into a society that is increasingly multicultural” (CAR, 54).

 

Our schools are changing. Our student groups are changing. Therefore, as teachers, our instruction needs to adapt with the changes in order to best teach every student.

 

This multicultural instruction starts with cultural understanding, and this understanding can be approached in the following ways:

• Contributions – emphasizing culturally specific celebrations/holidays within curriculum
• Additive – integrate themes related to multicultural concepts and issues into the curriculum
• Transformative – promote understanding of different ethnic and cultural perspectives by continually providing opportunities for reading, reflection, and discussion among students
• Decision-Maiking/Social Action – provide opportunities to engage activities and projects dealing with cultural themes, issues, concepts, etc.

 

However, one time inclusion of multicultural concepts is not enough when working with a diverse group of students. Teachers need to do more and can do more by including multicultural literature within their curriculum. The texts chosen must be solid texts from which to teach and must provide opportunities to learn about cultural norms relating to family, morality, sex roles, dress, and values. These criterion will help ensure the students are getting the most out of the texts. When using these texts it is important to note that not every student will approach them in the same way. Different cultures have different views on education and different methods for attaining an education; therefore, it is necessary for teachers to be aware of this fact and make sure the students stay on the same page throughout instruction.

 

One way for a teacher to keep students on pace is to create a culturally responsive classroom with the following characteristics:

• High Expectations – support students and push them to learn more
• Positive Relationships – include families and communities in this group to help foster as much support for students as possible
• Cultural Sensitivity – create curriculum that addresses different cultures and teaches students to respect all cultures
• Active Teaching Methods – have a variety of instruction methods to reach every student
• Teacher As Facilitator – be present in the classroom working closely with the students
• Student Control – let students have some control of each lesson whether that be in group work or class discussions
• Low Anxiety Instruction – create pairs and groups to let students work with each other to understand the material in a low anxiety environment

 

To further reach every student in your classroom, look at linguistic differences. Pay attention to the students who might not know English as well as others and understand that they can learn just as well with a little extra help and time. Provide adequate support for your English Language Learners. Adapt your instruction to be easy to comprehend while at the same time providing just as many opportunities for complex reasoning/growth with strategies like simple language instructions, vocabulary development activities, intensive and extensive reading activities, activities centered on active learning and engaged learning, and writing strategies for practice with language skills.

 

It is important to remember that every student can learn in your classroom no matter what cultural roadblocks may occur. Working together with the students to get over those roadblocks will help ensure the best possible learning for every single student in your classroom.

Writing to Learn Demonstration Reflection

This past week we were asked to do a five minute Writing to Learn (WTL) demonstration. I did mine on Point of View Guides (POVGs).

 

To begin preparation for this I looked at the description of POVGs in our text book. I read about them. I found out that POVGs are used to look closer at a theme/idea/concept to get the students deeper into the text. POVGs use role play to give a situation and pose interview-like questions to which the students respond. They get students speculating and elaborating on ideas, and they are great at relating the text to the personal lives of students because there is no way for students to role play and not include their own experiences. Besides learning about POVGs for my own knowledge, I read the examples. I thought of different examples teachers could use in different content areas. I got myself comfortable with the concept behind POVGs and with trying to explain them to people who have no clue what they are (my roommates). And finally I chose a POVG I wanted to work on: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

 

When it came to actually doing the lesson, I worked a lot on scaffolding. I had the students pair up and work with the title, discussing a time they took the road not taken. After that I handed out half sheets of paper that gave a situation and posed questions for the students to answer. They were given time to write their answers and afterwards (if we had time) we would have discussed the answers and actually read the poem. I tried to structure a slow entrance to the world of the poem, starting with the title and then moving to the main idea, before we actually read it. And I feel like that whole scaffolding worked really well.

 

I think my classmates took away that slow entrance approach. One of the Pat on the Backs said she liked how I built curiosity. I worked on getting the students personally related to the poem and I think that personal meaning really stuck. Before we began the activity I gave a bit of background knowledge of POVGs and I spoke about how versatile and adaptable this WTL activity is. I think my classmates were able to see how they would use this activity in their own content areas.

 

However, if I could do this differently I would most definitely address the modeling part. I do not know how that slipped my mind, but unfortunately I did not model this activity for the class. Next time, when scaffolding out the instruction I would make sure to interject my own examples so that the students would have an idea of where to go.

Twofold Literacy

The two pieces we read for this week’s post were chapter ten of Content Area Reading by Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz called “Studying Text” and an article by Alan M. Frager and Elizabeth A. Frye called “Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction.” Both readings focused on the literacy of a student in a classroom. And both took on the two different sides to literacy: one the student’s side and one the teacher’s side.

The chapter took on how students study a text. If students do not know how to study a text, then their literacy will not be the best it can be. Students need to be equipped with the right tools to tackle a text if we teachers want them to learn from the text. This chapter argues that studying texts help students “make connections and think more deeply about ideas encountered in reading” (CAR, 317). However, students need to have reasons to study the text like acquiring knowledge, organizing/summarizing/using information and ideas, etc. And texts can offer several benefits to students like reflective thinking, self-directed study, hard work, and smart work.

A student’s work is directly related to the structure of the text. Texts include two types of features that aid this process:

1. External – format features, organizational aids
2. Internal – text patterns which revolve around:

• Description = information about topic
• Sequence = putting the information into a logical sequence
• Comparison and Contrast = point out similarities/differences about topic
• Cause and Effect = show how information originates and informs other information
• Problem and Solution – show development of problem and list solutions.

These text structures are usually recognized by signal words/phrases such as: to begin with, now, as, before, however, but, as well as, because, since, therefore, etc.

Along with linguistic pieces, students can use the visual aids within texts to help study. Graphics organizers are the best examples of these visual aids because they help learners comprehend and retain textually important information. Most often these graphic organizers reflect the text patterns and more often than not they can be used to revolve around questions students either have or should be aware of. Examples of graphic organizers include: word maps, semantic webs, flowcharts, and tree diagrams (CAR, 324).

Another tool students can use to study texts are written summaries. Writing summaries is a great activity for students because it teaches the students how to discern and analyze the text structure. A great example of a writing summary activity is GRASP or guided reading and summarizing procedure. GRASP happens as follows: teacher selects a passage, students read passage silently, students recite information they believe to be important, teacher writes information on the board, students re-read passage, class discusses list and adds/subtracts information.

The last tool is note taking. Now most people are very familiar with this tool, but unfortunately most students do not know the most effective means of note taking. Note taking is all about paraphrasing, summarizing, reacting critically, questioning, and responding personally to a text. It is not about copying down word for word a definition or other important concept. Most forms of note taking happen in reading logs, T-notes, cornell notes, and text annotations.

Text annotations address four types of notes:

1. Summary – condensing of main ideas
2. Thesis – addressing what main point of piece is
3. Critical – captures reader’s response
4. Question – looking at what the student thinks after reading

If students can learn these few tricks to studying a text then their literacy will improve.

However, it is not only up to the student. The second reading, the article “Focus on the Essentials of Reading Instruction,” addresses the teacher’s side of literacy in a classroom. Frager and Frye provide a rubric for teachers and evaluates how teachers are addressing literacy. They believe that there is a gap in between education classes where literacy is crucial to instruction and student teaching where literacy is optional. Their grades range from F to A just like any other rubric and are explained as follows:

F = Teacher reads entire text aloud or uses round robin reading techniques. Teachers focus on reading for information and ignores reading for meaning.

C = Teachers assign students to read texts silently and then immediately asks questions about what they read. This is problematic because either the books assigned are too difficult/too easy and the students do not know how to read to generate good answers to any questions the teacher might ask.

B = Teacher designs B-D-A reading activities (Before-During-After) to motivate students, activate prior knowledge, introduce new vocabulary, and develop awareness of questions/issues/debates.

B+ = Teacher is gradually releasing responsibility to the students.

A = Teacher continues to build on principles of good reading instruction, pushes personal meaning, and has high-quality discussion.

A+ = Teacher engages in critical literacy which means they are mindful of students’ lives, have a broad definition of text, ask provocative discussion questions, and encourage opportunities to reflect.

Getting Their Interest

This week’s reading was centered around student motivation and even though the idea for the chapter seemed to be a common sense sort of thing – it still is vitally important for every classroom, especially when student’s attention spans are harder to direct. But I feel like this is more than just getting the students to pay attention and do the reading. It is getting the students interested in doing the reading, interested in learning which is like a teacher’s highest goal that never seems to ever be reached. I feel like I had a lot of teachers that just gave up on trying to get us interested in learning and instead just sloughed through the same process day after day, unit after unit, just making sure we covered the content required in the curriculum.

 

How do we change this? How do we motivate students to read? To learn?

 

Our text, Content Area Reading by Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz, brought up an interesting point about self-efficacy. According to the text, self-efficacy is having a can-do attitude when thinking about applying your skills to learning, believing you can actually learn. I guess I never thought about that going through my schooling. Now it stands out as one of those flashing light bulb ideas that scream pay attention to me! And depending on when you come into the student’s schooling – you can have a huge impact on their self-efficacy (CAR, 169).

 

I plan on teaching high school so my main concern will be getting the students interested in the material. Motivation is key. And as the reading pointed out – self-efficacy and motivation go hand in hand: “if students believe, for example, that they have a good chance to succeed at a reading task, they are likely to exhibit a willingness to engage in reading and to complete the task” (CAR, 170). This motivation is increased when the student feels that the text relates directly to his or her life. So moral of the story is to make things relevant! Any chance you get – relate the text to the lives of the students, to today’s world, to something the students will know and relate with, anything (CAR, 170-173).

 

The text gave a few examples for increasing motivation in the classroom:

• Story Impressions – I found these to be really cool (maybe that is just the creative writer in me) but to do this the teacher hands out worksheets divided into two columns. In the first column the teacher lists words/phrases/concepts related to the text the students are about to read, and in the second column the teacher leaves space for the students to then write what they think is going to happen in the story/what their impression of the story is so far based whatever is in the first column (CAR, 173-175). (This idea is brilliant and I sort of can’t wait to use it and see if it works.)
• Problematic Perspectives – put the students in a role of one of the characters in the text they are about to read and pose the problem that character is going to face. Let the students imagine how they would solve the problem. Let them discuss with the other students. Get them involved in the story through the role-play (CAR, 176-178).
• Guided Imagery – this to me seems like guided mediation and might not work for every student, but it should help students invoke visuals of the text they are reading by getting them into the world, the time period, the feeling of the environment. It helps explore concepts and fosters discussion. It is another way to look at the problem perspective activity by having them imagine themselves working through the problem (CAR, 179-180).

 

Another important element of motivating students to read is prediction making. According to the text, “prediction strategies activate thought about the content before reading” and that the students need to use what they already know to make “educated guesses” about the text they are going to read (CAR, 180).

Two prediction making activities are:

1. Anticipation Guides – a list of statements with a wide range of ideas/meanings to which students must respond (CAR, 183-184).
2. Imagine, Elaborate, Predict, and Confirm (IPEC) – the teacher selects a passage to be used as introduction to a text, summarize it for students, have them Imagine the scene while paying attention to the senses, have the students Elaborate on their initial responses with a class discussion, have the students Predict what they think will happen throughout the rest of the text, and then have them Confirm what they imagined/elaborated/predicted during and after reading (CAR, 184-186).

 

The final push of this chapter was to get students asking their own questions. If they ask their own questions it usually means they want to find the answers. This can be helped along by you asking them questions that are answered by their own questions. For example, ask them what they want to learn about a character, about a scene, about the motivations behind a plot. Getting them to generate their own questions will help raise motivation to discover the answers. Then of course, if they raise questions that don’t get answered, after reading discuss them (CAR, 187-191).

 

The biggest take-away from reading this is to really get the emphasis off yourself as a teacher and what you want to talk about or explore, and instead focus on the students and what they want to talk about and explore within regards to a text. Motivate them to read, and they might find what you wanted to bring up.

What to Consider When Planning a Lesson and Writing to Learn Activities

The two chapters we read for this week’s post dealt with planning lessons and different Writing to Learn activities. At first I did not understand why these two chapters went together, but as I read further I realized how integral Writing to Learn activities are in lesson plans. But before I get to Writing to Learn activities, it is important to go over what to consider when planning a lesson.

So with lesson plans, teachers need to look at how students are going to learn during their lessons. Teachers can use something called instructional scaffolding which helps students learn how to learn from texts. It involves the teacher modeling how to read texts, what to look for in texts – basically everything necessary to know of how to use texts to their best degree and then letting the students go for it. This type of instruction is better for the students with the use of explicit instruction which not only teaches students what strategies to use to learn the content, but also the why, how, and when to use those strategies.

The key components of explicit instruction are:

• Awareness and Explanation – tell students about the strategy and why you are using it for this particular activity
• Modeling and Demonstration – walk through the strategies step by step and model it for the students
• Guided Practice – let the students practice the strategies and assess them afterwards for what problems they ran into/what went well/etc.
• Application – let them know when to use this strategy and make sure they keep it as a useful skill

Once teachers know how their students will learn during their lessons, then they can get to planning their lessons.

Questions to consider when planning lessons are:

• Standards – What local/state/national standards are being addressed?
• Instructional Goals – What do you want the students to know by the end of the lesson?
• Eessential Questions – What are the big questions that will prompt good discussion/thought?
• Instructional Strategies and Activities – What are you going to do during the lesson, instructional?
• Materials and Resources – What do you need to gather before the lesson that your students will be using?
• New Literacies – What technology can you bring in that will help aid the lesson?
• Assessment – How will you assess what your students learned?

A great summation of a few of these questions is called B-D-A instructional framework. This B-D-A system looks at what a teacher does during, before, and after reading. A closer explanation of B-D-A:

• B – establish the purpose of reading the text, motivate the readers to read the text, build any prior knowledge needed for the text, introduce key vocabulary and concepts needed in order to understand the text, and provide direction for reading for meaning
• D – guide an active search for meaning in the text and help the students learn how to read texts in order to get the most meaning out of them
• A – extend and elaborate upon ideas found in the text and encourage students to talk about meanings they found

Now that we know a little bit more on lesson planning we can look into more instructional activities and mostly – Writing To Learn activities. Writing to Learn (WTL) are short, informal writings that are centered on exploring ideas and clarifying thoughts about certain concepts found in reading.

But in order to use WTL effectively, the students (and you) need to know why writing is so closely linked to reading. There are two main umbrella connections: composing processes – both construct meaning, both involve purpose and working with ideas, both deal with audiences, etc. , exploration/motivation/clarification – reading provides meaning while writing helps students figure out what that meaning is.

The chapter we read provided five WTL activities:

• Microthemes – mini essays that work on synthesizing, analyzing, summarizing, and taking a stand on a text
• POVGs – point of view guides that are responses to questions posed like an interview, encourages speculation, inferential thinking, and elaboration using role-play, gets students’ own experiences involved in the writing process
• Unsent Letters – uses imagination, interpretation, and evaluation of texts, connects reader’s thoughts to specific audiences
• Biopoems – synthesizing a large text into a small poetic format, a structured reflection of a text
• Admit/Exit Slips – allows teacher to check where students are before or after a lesson

Besides these five WTL activities there are also academic journals. Academic journals help students to log their ideas and feelings on certain topics in readings as well as their own personal lives. It creates a personal connection between the student and what they are reading. There are three types of academic journals: response journals – feelings/thoughts recorded as students interact with texts, double-entry journals – dual entry records that are conceptually related, learning logs – records of learning as it happens in the lesson.

I personally love the academic journal route for WTL. I remember my freshman year of high school, my English teacher gave us journal prompts every day that were either directly related to whatever we were learning that day or were just fascinating questions he wanted us to think about. When I first decided to become a teacher I knew I wanted to use these in my classrooms so I was really excited to read about them and learn that they are actually effective for the whole class and not just the one random student (me).

I think that any opportunity teachers have to get their students writing informally is one they should jump at because there are so many benefits to writing that mostly go unnoticed. I know it is a change from how we learned in “the good old days,” but I think this is one change we really need to push for.

Two Reasons Why Textbooks Aren’t Enough

You remember textbooks right? The fifty pound giant books doled out on the first day and returned the last day having only been opened twice – once for midterms and once for finals? Yeah those books.

 

Unfortunately the same books I learned fifth grade science from are being used in today’s classrooms and while textbooks provide good guides to the curriculum, they are not enough. Students don’t read them enough. Teachers rely on them too much. They are good books being stretched above beyond their limits.

 

So what do we do? This post will offer two additions to the typical classroom textbook that will improve the learning of your students.

 

First off let me point out the word “additions.” I, along with the authors of Content Area Reading and Content Area Writing, am not suggesting teachers eliminate textbooks entirely. We are strongly suggesting that other materials and methods should be added to a toned down version of the standard textbook teaching.

 

With that clear the first addition is called a trade book.  Trade books are your everyday average run of the mill books found in libraries and bookstores and certainly not those fifty pound monstrosities handed out on the first day of school.

 

So why should we bring them into school?

 

Because students actually want to read them. Or at least want to read them marginally more than other books assigned in schools. Trade books also have several teaching benefits. For example, they:

• Discuss content relevant to the students’ lives in present day
• Are usually written in clearer language that engages students more
• Are great for differentiation and meeting the different levels of every student in the class
• Provide a deeper understanding of concepts found in textbooks
• Most importantly they motivate students to read more (CAR, 360-362)

 

The three types of trade books most commonly used are nonfiction, fiction, and picture books. Each type provides unique assistance to textbooks and concepts being taught in class. Nonfiction books provide the same if not more information as textbooks in writing that is easily accessible to students with plot lines that are relatable (CAR, 363). Fiction books can use fantastical settings to discuss real world, contemporary issues (CAR, 373). And finally picture books no matter what age can provide a visual and simple representation of events, topics, issues, etc (CAR, 369).

 

How do we implement trade books in the classroom?

 

There were several methods listed in Content Area Reading, but the two methods I found to be most interesting and helpful were self-selected reading and teacher read-alouds. Both methods deal with two different ends of the spectrum, but both provide excellent benefits to student reading and comprehension.

 

Self-selected reading allows students to pick texts they want to read. It sparks their interest. It motivates them to read more. Most importantly it gets them reading regularly in school. Appointed reading time creates a nice routine that allows students to have the freedom to choose what they read as long as they read. And it can be anything! It doesn’t have to just be novels. It can be a magazine or a blog site. Anything as long as students are reading. And giving them the freedom to choose gives students a sense of more control over their schooling (CAR, 380).

 

On the other hand, teacher read-alouds are not just for young students. Older students can benefit from these sessions too.  Read-alouds help students to hear the language and absorb it in ways they wouldn’t have had they just read it quietly on their own. It engages readers. It holds their interest. It helps with discussions. I think teacher read-alouds are also beneficial because the teacher can read the text in ways that will transmit the most information possible, for example, character voices, emotional inflection, pauses to explain what is going on, etc. Read-alouds can be used in nearly every classroom for anything from reading passages from novels to previewing the days assignment to providing background information (CAR, 382-383).

 

The second addition to textbooks in the classroom is writing. Writing to learn is such an easy task that I honestly don’t know why it is not part of every single classroom. There are eight criteria for writing to learn:

• Short – quick little bursts of writing, nothing longer than a page
• Spontaneous – do it off the top of your head, no planning involved
• Exploratory – use it to figure something out, to work over a concept on paper
• Informal – no need for big fancy words or elegant sentence structures, be simple
• Personal – no need to share with the world, supposed to be for you
• One draft – self explanatory
• Unedited – who cares about grammar here?
• Ungraded – don’t need feedback on them, no grades necessary, maybe points for just doing it (CAW, 22-23)

 

These little writing to learn tasks are meant to be quick and easy way to not only give your voice a break but also to let students get their thoughts on paper or figure out what their thoughts are. Most importantly it gets students explaining things to themselves in their own words which will greatly help their understanding of the material (CAW, 25-26).

 

Now I am guessing I will learn specific writing to learn activities, and once I do I shall let you know so we can all hopefully start using them.