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.

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.

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.