Reading Across Texts
Common Core Anchor Standard Number Seven is perhaps the most non-descript of all the common core standards. Here is what it says. “Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.” It doesn’t really indicate much direction in terms of how to integrate and evaluate content, or explain what types of diverse media are most important, so it can be interpreted rather broadly. Here is my take-away. Challenge student understanding of text by asking them to read across texts (preferably from different mediums, like print and video or print and visual etc).English
The classic example would be to read a scene from Romeo and Juliet, and then to show them a staged version of that same scene. Students then should discuss the differing interpretations of that text, as well as how the visual representations use specific elements (ie. lighting, camera shots, sound, music, make-up, pacing) to develop a feeling or mood.
While it is good to utilize other mediums, it is also important to get students to read across different forms of printed text. The MCA Reading test has items that specifically address this. For example, they have an article about the history of the Eiffel Tower followed by a fictional excerpt from a diary written by a worker who worked on the Tower.
Social Studies
Social studies offers many opportunities for teachers to challenge students to read across texts. In fact, it is part of the tradition, as students are consistently asked to read sections of a history text, complemented by primary source documents that enrich their understandings. This is also done whenever students are asked to “read” video, and synthesize it with concepts or material they are getting from their textbooks. But it will also involve explicit lessons in map reading, where students need to be taught how to identify important features of maps and how they are used to reflect a wide variety of concepts.
Science
Again, by the nature of the curriculum, students are often asked to read across multiple texts (print, still image, charts, video etc), in order to better understand important ideas. Reading different mediums of texts will require that teachers spend some time explicitly guiding students on how to read charts, graphs, and diagrams. One rather innovative use of visual elements is to offer students a graph, chart or diagram, without the accompanying textbook analysis, and then ask them to discern the main idea. What observations can they make about that visual? Activities like this encourage students to approach these other mediums with the same set of processes they might approach print text: preview the visual, make some predictions, read it, fix comprehension when it breaks down, and finally, put it all together in a final summary and observation.
Math
The “multi-modal” nature of math, again, allows for daily opportunities to help students read “across” texts. Lessons in math might emphasize how to approach the page of a math text. Do you start with the print? Do you jump to the images first and try to make sense of the problem and then, if need be, back up and read the printed word? What do you do when the mental image that you constructed within the print text doesn’t seem to match the diagram of the book? When possible, helping students to navigate these multiple forms of text will ultimately provide them with a path forward.
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