Thursday, March 23, 2017
Thursday, March 02, 2017
AVReading March
Reading Complex Texts
Do you sometimes worry that your curriculum has been watered down to meet students where they are at? Do you worry that if and when these students make it to post secondary courses, they will be unprepared to meet the demands of school? This is perhaps my most regular and persistent concern in teaching. It feels like I am constantly tacking between assignments, tasks, and expectations that are too rigorous and those that are not rigorous enough, constantly searching for that sweet spot, that almost mythic and generally elusive Zone of Proximal Development where students get into that “productive struggle”.
On occasion, I will steal some of the assignments my son-- Jacob-- has from college. I might post a writing prompt or an excerpt from one of his readings for my 9th graders to see. I show it to the students and ask them to reflect in writing for a little while. What do you think of that prompt / text? Would you be able to tackle it? What do you have to do in the next few years to prepare yourself for that level of academic rigor? In some ways, it is a good accountability check for students. Are you complaining about your assigned readings? Do they seem unnecessarily difficult? Are your academic choices now going to put you in a position to be successful later?
Reviewing those assignments, also reminds me of the need to expose these students to demanding and difficult texts. But it isn’t enough to simply throw Beowulf, War and Peace, and The Brief History of the Universe at them and hope for the best. Native Son is a powerful, intense, and truly tragic piece, but once we get a student to actually pick the book up, it will be our responsibility to give them the tools necessary to make meaning of that highly complex text.
There are many different things that teachers can do to promote good reading skills with rigorous texts, so this month, I’ll share a number of specific practices. Listed below are various ideas taken from Jeff Zwiers’ Building Academic Language. These activities can be done within your content areas to help students take on these demanding-- but important-- texts.
Read Alouds
I truly believe that students are never too old to be read to. Not only do I read aloud to my own children (who are now in their early teens), I read three books a year to my 9th graders. I always give them a “managed choice”, meaning I create a pool of books from which they can choose and then they work as a collective to narrow down their choices. I intentionally create pools of books that will stretch them in someway. My hope is to show them something new and different.
Comprehend Alouds
A comprehend aloud is really just a type of “think aloud”. It is a read aloud, where the teacher models the reading to students by stopping as one reads to make observations. In this way, the teacher demonstrates the types of thinking that a good reader does when reading. For this to be effective, students should have the copy of the text in front of them, and teachers should confine their reading to just a few paragraphs, 5-7 minutes maximum. I will also use a document camera to show how I mark up the text or do annotations as I read.
Paired Reading
I’ve been using this more in the last year, and I have been surprised by the overall results. For this, I will pair up students and assign a text. I tell them that they will need to do the following: First, they must assign one person the role of Partner A and the other as Partner B. Partner A begins by reading the first section of text (could be a paragraph or a page depending on the text), while B listens. Upon completion of that section, Partner B must do a “think aloud”, where he / she must summarize, question, or evaluate the text. Then Partner B reads the subsequent passage, after which Partner A then does a “Think Aloud.” I then scatter pairs around the room (and into the hall) and then evaluate their participation. I tell them that it isn’t enough to simply read aloud; I must be able to observe their thinking as they read as well.
Text Discussion Activities
I won’t go into much detail on Text Discussion Activities because I have covered them in an earlier newsletter this year. However, I will add a couple of thoughts. First, for some students, they need to “talk themselves into comprehension.” It’s like they can’t understand the text fully, until they have a chance to process it out loud with a partner or a group. Second, students generally rise to the occasion. Of course, some groups are better than others, but whether you have them do a Fishbowl or a Jigsaw or a Tea Party, students do a decent job at getting involved, especially if you are observing them. In general, I am reminded as I listen to these discussions that I need to take more opportunities to step back and allow the students to construct their meaning versus making them be dependent on me for giving it to them.
Anticipation Guides
Texts are generally very difficult because students have little background information on the topic or story. A good anticipation guide can allow students to either mentally activate what they already know or to establish background on a topic they know nothing about. I generally start with five simple “Agree / Disagree” statements that can be pulled from the theme or central ideas of the text. I have students read the statements and indicate whether they agree or disagree with it. Students then read the text and return to the statements to indicate whether their stance has changed on any of the items.
Word Work
So much of difficult texts is managing the words. However, just telling students what words mean before they read them has little educational value. As Zwiers points out, in our many years of vocabulary learning research, we can now make some general, conclusions about effective strategies. First, students who read widely can grow their vocabulary. Second, targeted instruction of words is effective when students have a chance to meaningfully interact with the new words. On such activity is the “Have you ever. . . “ activity. You can choose three words relevant to the current unit and construct three “Have you ever. . . “ statements. “Have you ever made a proposition? Have you ever felt animosity? Have you ever met someone who as conceited? Describe that situation. Third, students need to learn word attack strategies (ie. using context clues, clues within the word, learning prefix / suffix / root.
View the full Newsletter here.
Do you sometimes worry that your curriculum has been watered down to meet students where they are at? Do you worry that if and when these students make it to post secondary courses, they will be unprepared to meet the demands of school? This is perhaps my most regular and persistent concern in teaching. It feels like I am constantly tacking between assignments, tasks, and expectations that are too rigorous and those that are not rigorous enough, constantly searching for that sweet spot, that almost mythic and generally elusive Zone of Proximal Development where students get into that “productive struggle”.
On occasion, I will steal some of the assignments my son-- Jacob-- has from college. I might post a writing prompt or an excerpt from one of his readings for my 9th graders to see. I show it to the students and ask them to reflect in writing for a little while. What do you think of that prompt / text? Would you be able to tackle it? What do you have to do in the next few years to prepare yourself for that level of academic rigor? In some ways, it is a good accountability check for students. Are you complaining about your assigned readings? Do they seem unnecessarily difficult? Are your academic choices now going to put you in a position to be successful later?
Reviewing those assignments, also reminds me of the need to expose these students to demanding and difficult texts. But it isn’t enough to simply throw Beowulf, War and Peace, and The Brief History of the Universe at them and hope for the best. Native Son is a powerful, intense, and truly tragic piece, but once we get a student to actually pick the book up, it will be our responsibility to give them the tools necessary to make meaning of that highly complex text.
There are many different things that teachers can do to promote good reading skills with rigorous texts, so this month, I’ll share a number of specific practices. Listed below are various ideas taken from Jeff Zwiers’ Building Academic Language. These activities can be done within your content areas to help students take on these demanding-- but important-- texts.
Read Alouds
I truly believe that students are never too old to be read to. Not only do I read aloud to my own children (who are now in their early teens), I read three books a year to my 9th graders. I always give them a “managed choice”, meaning I create a pool of books from which they can choose and then they work as a collective to narrow down their choices. I intentionally create pools of books that will stretch them in someway. My hope is to show them something new and different.
Comprehend Alouds
A comprehend aloud is really just a type of “think aloud”. It is a read aloud, where the teacher models the reading to students by stopping as one reads to make observations. In this way, the teacher demonstrates the types of thinking that a good reader does when reading. For this to be effective, students should have the copy of the text in front of them, and teachers should confine their reading to just a few paragraphs, 5-7 minutes maximum. I will also use a document camera to show how I mark up the text or do annotations as I read.
Paired Reading
I’ve been using this more in the last year, and I have been surprised by the overall results. For this, I will pair up students and assign a text. I tell them that they will need to do the following: First, they must assign one person the role of Partner A and the other as Partner B. Partner A begins by reading the first section of text (could be a paragraph or a page depending on the text), while B listens. Upon completion of that section, Partner B must do a “think aloud”, where he / she must summarize, question, or evaluate the text. Then Partner B reads the subsequent passage, after which Partner A then does a “Think Aloud.” I then scatter pairs around the room (and into the hall) and then evaluate their participation. I tell them that it isn’t enough to simply read aloud; I must be able to observe their thinking as they read as well.
Text Discussion Activities
I won’t go into much detail on Text Discussion Activities because I have covered them in an earlier newsletter this year. However, I will add a couple of thoughts. First, for some students, they need to “talk themselves into comprehension.” It’s like they can’t understand the text fully, until they have a chance to process it out loud with a partner or a group. Second, students generally rise to the occasion. Of course, some groups are better than others, but whether you have them do a Fishbowl or a Jigsaw or a Tea Party, students do a decent job at getting involved, especially if you are observing them. In general, I am reminded as I listen to these discussions that I need to take more opportunities to step back and allow the students to construct their meaning versus making them be dependent on me for giving it to them.
Anticipation Guides
Texts are generally very difficult because students have little background information on the topic or story. A good anticipation guide can allow students to either mentally activate what they already know or to establish background on a topic they know nothing about. I generally start with five simple “Agree / Disagree” statements that can be pulled from the theme or central ideas of the text. I have students read the statements and indicate whether they agree or disagree with it. Students then read the text and return to the statements to indicate whether their stance has changed on any of the items.
Word Work
So much of difficult texts is managing the words. However, just telling students what words mean before they read them has little educational value. As Zwiers points out, in our many years of vocabulary learning research, we can now make some general, conclusions about effective strategies. First, students who read widely can grow their vocabulary. Second, targeted instruction of words is effective when students have a chance to meaningfully interact with the new words. On such activity is the “Have you ever. . . “ activity. You can choose three words relevant to the current unit and construct three “Have you ever. . . “ statements. “Have you ever made a proposition? Have you ever felt animosity? Have you ever met someone who as conceited? Describe that situation. Third, students need to learn word attack strategies (ie. using context clues, clues within the word, learning prefix / suffix / root.
View the full Newsletter here.
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