Teaching and Reading with a Purpose
In Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey’s Rigorous Reading , they claim that student learning increases by the simple act of explicitly stating the lesson’s purpose beforehand and revisiting it after the fact. The practice has become more common in our classrooms, but I believe we can continue to improve with how we begin our lessons and how we assign our texts. I think we all fear that moment when a visitor to our classrooms pulls a student aside and asks, “Tell me what you’re learning today in this class?” I often hold my breath when the question comes out, not entirely confident that the students know or that I’ve been clear enough in explaining it. Still, taking a few moments each day to establish the purpose and how it relates to the broader ideas of the course is important. I suspect that many of us do this in a general sense, though fewer of us take the time to write out or read that specific learning purpose for the day. This...