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.

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.