Elizabeth Meyer-Chapman
Subjects Matter
Chapters 4-6
New Learnings:
Chapter 4 “Toward a Balanced Diet of Reading” focused on strategies which would cultivate an in-depth understanding of content material. It focused on primary verses secondary sources and how primary can be a real hook for students. The text indicated that an effective hook is created when readers connect with who is being written about. When the reader cares about the writer, or the character being described interest is created and in-depth understanding becomes plausible. According to Zemelman and Daniels, a balance of reading must be struck between textbooks and other genres. Within these other genres a balance of choice versus assigned; fiction versus nonfiction; classics versus contemporary and hard versus easy will also need to be struck. I do have the advantage of my own classroom and I came to classroom with several books already. As I continue to add more books, I will be buying several of the books suggested in Subjects Matter, (the book contains about 20 pages of book suggestions.)
Chapter 5 was a marvelous read. It was chocked full of activities which show kids how smart readers think. The ‘Before ‘activities were activities to prepare students to read. The ‘During’ activities focused on helping students construct, process and question ideas as they read. The ‘After’ activities were for guiding students to reflect on, integrate, and share the ideas when they’re finished. I will most likely pick two to three strategies every six weeks to try and continually practice in my classroom. I can weed out what is the best and keep the rest. It will become a go to book for me while planning until some of the activities become automatic.
Chapter 6 talked about how to use a textbook. It contained several activities which could be used to model for students how to read a textbook and make the independent reading of textbook operational.
Personal Reading Strategies:
Whenever possible I annotate and highlight text while I read. This way I can go back through and look at my questions, short summaries and ah-ha’s. I also employed rereading when I was confused by something.
Discussion Protocol:
We used the Last Word protocol in our group. While reading we were to write a sentence on one side of a note card and on the opposite side, our reaction. We read the sentence to the group and each member had a chance to share their reaction to it. The person who initially shares the sentence gets the last word. I liked it because I was able to get everyone else’s interpretation before sharing mine. Learned a lot, shared a lot and remembered a lot.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
De Roia- Post day 2
Cheryl De Roia
Reading Reflection 6/24
Subjects Matter- Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman
Chapter 4-6 (pages 49-165)
These chapters of the book really hooked me in and gave many new insights as to things I could do in my classroom. Again, discussing the idea of using a textbook, the authors write “Are kids actually working, thinking, and engaged with the text we assign- or are they just imitating a sentient life form while remaining functionally unconscious?” (152). I will fully admit that in my classroom, 100% of the kids are not actively engaging and using the text 100% of the time. Do I wish they were? Sure, but I haven’t done a good enough job through planning co-teaching lessons to guarantee that were true. I love this book because not only does it tell the reader the mistake, it shows the reader how the correct way looks in practice and then gives many formulas (worksheets) for bringing the reader into the text. I have been sitting in my chair wondering if the staff at my school would welcome or even use some of these text engagement strategies. And if so, who would it be? Chapter 5 gives “24 essential strategies to promote the thinking students need for learning effectively from what they read” (99). Some are ones I have used prior including brainstorming, KWL, and double-entry journals. There are others that I haven’t used before such as sketching my way through the text, written conversation, and coding the text. In coding the text, students use a specific set of codes such as checks or stars to record mental responses to their reading. According the authors, the reason we use coding is “if students are not accustomed to thinking actively as they read, the needs to make conscious efforts to do so…symbols help students remember a strategy, notice when their thinking has followed it, and then very briefly note the spot in the text where that thinking occurred.” I keep thinking of the classroom where the kids ask why we are doing something. I love that this books gives a clear why and example so that I can share that with the kids.
Protocol
Today we used the “Last Word” protocol in our group. We read independently and then on an index card we copied down a phrase or passage that spoke to us and wrote a response to it on the back of the card. When sharing our card, we were not allowed to speak but instead listened to others comment. We then got the last word on the passage as we read what we wrote about the passage or commented on another person’s comment.
This strategy was effective but since we had lots to say, we ran out of time. I could see it being better used with a smaller set of text and not our long three chapters we covered. Within the strategy there is a listening element while students wait to take their turn to speak. It could present a problem early on as students become accustomed to this process. I found it hard to be silent when someone said something that excited me.
Reading Strategies
While reading today I mostly paced myself to determine if I needed to skim or if I could spend more time digesting the text. I noticed that when I ran across familiar strategies, I quickly looked over them to make sure I have been doing them correctly and then I moved on to non-familiar strategies. Due to a time constraint I feel that I spent less time thinking about how I could use the strategies and more time just absorbing what the strategies are. I did underline important passages or sentences that spoke to me, which made it really easy to go back and find text to use during our group book study.
Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry ch.3
Chapter 3 Asking the Guiding Questions: Reframing the Existing Curriculum into Inquiry Units
This chapter cleared up so many questions I have regarding inquiry, essential questions and enduring understadings. As a district we have focused on writing essential questions and enduring understandings never really differentiating between the two. I knew that essential questions were the big picture, and now know that the enduring understandings are the "absolute bottom line goals for student achievement." The enduring understandings are what we want the students to know at the end of the unit.
The chapter talked about turning standards into essential questions and gave quite a few examples of what that looks like in all content areas. It discussed the importance of writing questions that require evaluation and judgement, essentially asking "how" and "why" instead of "what" questions. There is a section in the chapter that discusses common flaws to watch for when starting inquiry. This section helped me to understand what I did wrong with my inquiry projects last year. It was refreshing to know that the mistakes I made are very common when starting inquiry in the classroom.
My study group used the text rendering protocol while reading the chapter. It was interesting because we had many of the same sentences and passages highlighted to share. We were in agreement that the chapter was invaluable and answered many of our questions regarding inquiry. We talked quite a bit about the impact inquiry can make on student engagement and how we will use it in our classrooms next year.
In additon to the text rendering protocol, I did a lot of annotating and reflecting while reading this chapter. It was a long chapter and easy to read but I noticed that I slowed down my pace while reading and did quite a bit of rereading because I found the material so interesting and useful.
This chapter cleared up so many questions I have regarding inquiry, essential questions and enduring understadings. As a district we have focused on writing essential questions and enduring understandings never really differentiating between the two. I knew that essential questions were the big picture, and now know that the enduring understandings are the "absolute bottom line goals for student achievement." The enduring understandings are what we want the students to know at the end of the unit.
The chapter talked about turning standards into essential questions and gave quite a few examples of what that looks like in all content areas. It discussed the importance of writing questions that require evaluation and judgement, essentially asking "how" and "why" instead of "what" questions. There is a section in the chapter that discusses common flaws to watch for when starting inquiry. This section helped me to understand what I did wrong with my inquiry projects last year. It was refreshing to know that the mistakes I made are very common when starting inquiry in the classroom.
My study group used the text rendering protocol while reading the chapter. It was interesting because we had many of the same sentences and passages highlighted to share. We were in agreement that the chapter was invaluable and answered many of our questions regarding inquiry. We talked quite a bit about the impact inquiry can make on student engagement and how we will use it in our classrooms next year.
In additon to the text rendering protocol, I did a lot of annotating and reflecting while reading this chapter. It was a long chapter and easy to read but I noticed that I slowed down my pace while reading and did quite a bit of rereading because I found the material so interesting and useful.
Dunnington Reflection 2
Deb Dunnington
Multimodal Learning…
Chapters 2 and 3 (pages 31-50)
Reflection 2
The majority of this section of reading in Multimodal was strategies for teaching vocabulary. I think if you have taught in Adams 12 in the last year you have been inundated with strategies and techniques for teaching vocabulary through ELL training and quite frankly, I think that those methods are probably more valid than the ones suggested in Bean’s text.
Some of the things that Bean suggests are cool, but I am left wondering at their substance – are they really going to benefit the students? This is a question I can’t help but going back to as I continue to read the text. I have tried to take a positive outlook and think about how I could use some of the strategies Bean suggests in my classroom. I could definitely see using a few, like Freerice for a warm-up activity or to fill a few minutes, and I tried to find a way to use Wordle, another of his suggestions, but upon further reflection and clarification from my discussion group as to what Wordle really is, I question what it’s purpose would be as far as vocabulary. I think Wordle would be a good tool to use to see the frequency of a students word use, but I question how it could build vocabulary besides helping students to recognize that they might have a limited vocabulary or use the same words too much. I know it is important for a person to see a word a certain number of times before they really know it, but I think for a student to take ownership of a vocabulary word they need to do more with it than see it; they need to be able to use it in context and recognize synonyms or antonyms.
Bean does provide a number of vocabulary websites that could be helpful, my only suggestion would be to check them out to see if they are really valid for the purpose you have in mind. In addition to vocabulary, Bean discussed comprehension strategies like Polar Opposites and Talking Drawings. I think both of these techniques could be beneficial and my group even discussed ways we could adapt the Polar Opposites to fit into vocabulary instruction.
The discussion protocol we used today was the 3 Levels of Text. I thought that this might be a good protocol to use in classes because it doesn’t only practice discussion techniques but oral fluency, as each participant is asked to read their selected passage aloud. This might be a time to allow the students to pick their own groups instead of choosing for them. By picking their own groups, they will be able to work with people they are comfortable with so that reading aloud shouldn’t create any traumatic situations.
The reading strategies I found myself using during this section of the reading was really questioning. I continually was asking myself questions about how I could use the strategies Bean included. I was questioning how they would look in my classroom or different ways I could modify and adapt them for my practice. I also used annotation and highlighting, which to me are just standard practices when I read something that isn’t for entertainment.
Reading Reflection #2
Katie Horne
Multimodal Learning for the 21st Century Adolescent
Chapters 2-3
The reading today introduced me to incorporate multimodal strategies for vocabulary development and reading comprehension. Overall there are a variety of websites teachers can use to support vocabulary development. As teachers though, we need to evaluate their authenticity and make sure they have a valid purpose for use in the classroom. Some of the websites include Freerice, VoyCabulary, Babel Fish, Wordle. Freerice would be a good website as a beginning of class or end of class activity. The teacher puts the website up and students chose the meaning of the word. For every right answer, 10 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program. Babel Fish will translate a website or block of text. This is a great resource for ESL students. Students need to be engaged in vocabulary learning in many ways: explicit teaching, vocabulary learning strategies, and wide reading. As this book is about "multimodal", vocabulary learning is not one-dimensional.
As for reading comprehension, this chapter introduced two new strategies that I can take into my classroom next year: talking drawings and polar opposites. Talking drawings is kind of similar to a KWL. Instead, students create an image related to a topic and write down information they know. Then they complete research and then redo their drawing with the new information they learned. Unlike a KWL, students recreate their drawing, not just add to it. The other strategy is polar opposites. Teachers create a statement that can be found on a continum and students put an X near the end that is closer to their views. Once a text is read, students learn the information and are able to synthesize the information. Unlike with the vocabulary chapter, there was less of a focus on websites for teachers to use.
The strategies I used were highlighting main ideas and important concepts; rereading; skimming; and annotations. After our discussion, we came to some of the same conclusions as the day before. While many of these websites, especially for vocabulary, are attractive, we as teachers need to evaluate their authenticity and purpose. We struggled to understand the purpose behind Wordle. Babel Fish is a great resource for all students--especially ESL students and students who are learning a new language. VoyCabulary allows students to link to a dictionary online and learn new words. Another website I enjoy using is a visu-dictionary where the words are related visually. One of the main concepts this book really drives at is presenting information in multiple ways; however, sometimes we need to step back and not overload our students. Their lives these days are in technological overload and while presenting information and activities in a variety of modes is good, we need to remember not to overload them!
Multimodal Learning for the 21st Century Adolescent
Chapters 2-3
The reading today introduced me to incorporate multimodal strategies for vocabulary development and reading comprehension. Overall there are a variety of websites teachers can use to support vocabulary development. As teachers though, we need to evaluate their authenticity and make sure they have a valid purpose for use in the classroom. Some of the websites include Freerice, VoyCabulary, Babel Fish, Wordle. Freerice would be a good website as a beginning of class or end of class activity. The teacher puts the website up and students chose the meaning of the word. For every right answer, 10 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program. Babel Fish will translate a website or block of text. This is a great resource for ESL students. Students need to be engaged in vocabulary learning in many ways: explicit teaching, vocabulary learning strategies, and wide reading. As this book is about "multimodal", vocabulary learning is not one-dimensional.
As for reading comprehension, this chapter introduced two new strategies that I can take into my classroom next year: talking drawings and polar opposites. Talking drawings is kind of similar to a KWL. Instead, students create an image related to a topic and write down information they know. Then they complete research and then redo their drawing with the new information they learned. Unlike a KWL, students recreate their drawing, not just add to it. The other strategy is polar opposites. Teachers create a statement that can be found on a continum and students put an X near the end that is closer to their views. Once a text is read, students learn the information and are able to synthesize the information. Unlike with the vocabulary chapter, there was less of a focus on websites for teachers to use.
The strategies I used were highlighting main ideas and important concepts; rereading; skimming; and annotations. After our discussion, we came to some of the same conclusions as the day before. While many of these websites, especially for vocabulary, are attractive, we as teachers need to evaluate their authenticity and purpose. We struggled to understand the purpose behind Wordle. Babel Fish is a great resource for all students--especially ESL students and students who are learning a new language. VoyCabulary allows students to link to a dictionary online and learn new words. Another website I enjoy using is a visu-dictionary where the words are related visually. One of the main concepts this book really drives at is presenting information in multiple ways; however, sometimes we need to step back and not overload our students. Their lives these days are in technological overload and while presenting information and activities in a variety of modes is good, we need to remember not to overload them!
Sage Rebuehr
Reading Reflection #2
Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry by Jeffrey Wilhelm
Chapter 3
This chapter about questions answered lots of my questions. This chapter focused on developing guiding questions for units. It was full of information and lots helpful ideas. Wilhelm suggests by starting with the standard and turning the standards into a guiding question. This seems so obvious to me now! For example, a common language arts standard is “Students will be able to identify the elements of a short story?” This can become the guiding question “What makes a good short story?” or “How can we write a good short story?” I also like how he talks about different types of guiding questions. All guiding questions don’t have to be application (like writing a short story); they can be conceptual (like discussing the qualities of a good short story). For some reason that makes it seem more manageable for me. He also stresses the importance of front-loading information at the beginning of a unit. This was a great chapter and explicitly outlined how to developed these inquiry units.
As a group we decided to do the text rendering strategies as we read this chapter. I was glad because I was hoping this would help me focus and pick out important information. As I was reading, I found myself highlighting all the example guiding questions he included that I thought I may be able to use in my curriculum. What worked really well for me was I just highlighted as I read. When time was just about up, then I went back through my highlights and chose my passage, sentence, and word to share in the discussion.
In our discussion, we really didn’t have any trouble talking about what we read as we were all excited to share what we learned. I did notice that we just kind of skipped around. We didn’t go around the circle and start by sharing our passage or sentence. We just jumped in and started sharing our ideas. When the conversations lagged, someone jumped in with one of their passages or sentences. This got me thinking about my students. I feel like they need a structure and an understanding of how to participate in a discussion. I could easily see my students complete their “discussion” in 5 minutes. “We all shared our stuff, miss!” My big question is how to I get them to respond to others and add on to their ideas. To get them to understand that what they bring to the discussion is just the beginning of it, not the end.
Day 2 Reflection
Sara Williams
Multimodal Learning for the 21st Century Adolescent
Chapters 2 & 3
Vocabulary. We all know how critical it is to developing reading skills and content knowledge, but how is it best taught? Chapter 2 of our book attempted to tackle this question multimodal-style. Bean discusses the idea of "insider knowledge" and what I found interesting about this phrase was the word "insider." I had never thought of myself as a reading insider before, but I guess I am. I know what to do to work through difficult texts, I use "insider" languge like "reading apprenticeship" and "metacognition," and I feel comfortable when I'm met with reading challenges. As Bean says, my "speech distinguishes [me] from outsiders." Bean asserts that "spending a little time explaining the insider's language of our respective content areas goes a long way toward increasing student comprehension." This made me think of tier I, II, & III vocabulary words we discussed in our ELL training. Some things just need to be made transparent and our teaching needs to be explicit. Another thread running through Bean's discussion is that learning new words is "labor intensive." Funny how we've been saying this over and over about reading - it is work and it doesn't just happen magically. I'm learning that this is something I need to say out loud to my kids. A lot.
In our group, we discussed the specific strategies Bean outlines in these chapters. I think our overall opinion is that the strategies were okay, but would need adapting to work in our classes.
I find myself struggling a little with this reading - it's not holding my interest. Maybe it is because it is a professional text and I'm in summer mode after having been on maternity leave for 8 weeks and it's tough to get in the flow. I'm trying to focus on my purpose for reading by rereading the guiding questions for the book study and also asking the person in my group in charge of facilitating for the day what we'll be doing in discussion so I can read with that in mind.
Multimodal Learning for the 21st Century Adolescent
Chapters 2 & 3
Vocabulary. We all know how critical it is to developing reading skills and content knowledge, but how is it best taught? Chapter 2 of our book attempted to tackle this question multimodal-style. Bean discusses the idea of "insider knowledge" and what I found interesting about this phrase was the word "insider." I had never thought of myself as a reading insider before, but I guess I am. I know what to do to work through difficult texts, I use "insider" languge like "reading apprenticeship" and "metacognition," and I feel comfortable when I'm met with reading challenges. As Bean says, my "speech distinguishes [me] from outsiders." Bean asserts that "spending a little time explaining the insider's language of our respective content areas goes a long way toward increasing student comprehension." This made me think of tier I, II, & III vocabulary words we discussed in our ELL training. Some things just need to be made transparent and our teaching needs to be explicit. Another thread running through Bean's discussion is that learning new words is "labor intensive." Funny how we've been saying this over and over about reading - it is work and it doesn't just happen magically. I'm learning that this is something I need to say out loud to my kids. A lot.
In our group, we discussed the specific strategies Bean outlines in these chapters. I think our overall opinion is that the strategies were okay, but would need adapting to work in our classes.
I find myself struggling a little with this reading - it's not holding my interest. Maybe it is because it is a professional text and I'm in summer mode after having been on maternity leave for 8 weeks and it's tough to get in the flow. I'm trying to focus on my purpose for reading by rereading the guiding questions for the book study and also asking the person in my group in charge of facilitating for the day what we'll be doing in discussion so I can read with that in mind.
Subjects Matter - Day 2
Christine Munzer
Subjects Matter
Chapters 4 -6
The Chapters
Chapter 4 spent a lot of time looking at how a teacher could incorporate reading into their everyday practice. It gave helpful hints for picking a type of text by breaking down the texts into genres, long vs. short, and hard vs. easy. Furthermore, it discussed the importance of building a classroom library. Although they made building a library sound so easy, I still can’t get past my own gut feeling telling me it’s not a great idea. I struggle with the fact that I share my classrooms (yes, I will have 3 rooms next year), it takes a lot of work to build and finally it will add one more thing to manage on top of my already jam packed day.
Chapter 5 offered the most amazing, easy to use activities for reading. It broke the activities down into the three categories of before, during and after reading. Beyond this, the book offers actual student work to show how some of the strategies should work (come on folks, don’t we all like to cook recipes that have pictures attached to them so that we can see what the final product should look like)!
Finally, Chapter 6 offered six suggestions for how to incorporate using the textbook into your class. If you love your textbook then this chapter is a must read because it offers great strategies!
The Reading Process
Now that I have become more aware of how I am reading, I found myself using a lot of strategies to get through the text. First and foremost, I must share that our selected passage was 100 pages long and I had to try and read at least part of it while my two kids (ages 1 and 3) were still up and needing some type of attention. I saw this as an opportunity to figure out strategies that would work well under these conditions, as I know quite a few of my students are expected to work in similar ones as they try to complete homework at a job or within in their own loud homes. The strategy I found to work the best was coding the text. I found myself putting question marks next to passages that I could not focus enough to get through; so that I could go and revisit them in a quieter environment and marking with a sticky note other passages that I could use with our last word protocol. Once the kiddos were in bed, I could go back and look at the marks I made to clarify and reflect on key pieces that really struck me.
The Protocol
Today, we used the last word protocol. Within the protocol, we were to write about one sentence or passage that had an impact on us. On one side of the note card, the reader had to write the passage and on the other their own opinion that would be reported out to the group. I really loved the protocol because it made me really focus on what others were saying before I could input how I felt about the text. I personally feel it will work well with my students because they always like to have the last word and now I am giving them that opportunity. Like that other protocol we used, this is student ran, which gives me more time to check-in with all groups as the discussions are happening.
Subjects Matter
Chapters 4 -6
The Chapters
Chapter 4 spent a lot of time looking at how a teacher could incorporate reading into their everyday practice. It gave helpful hints for picking a type of text by breaking down the texts into genres, long vs. short, and hard vs. easy. Furthermore, it discussed the importance of building a classroom library. Although they made building a library sound so easy, I still can’t get past my own gut feeling telling me it’s not a great idea. I struggle with the fact that I share my classrooms (yes, I will have 3 rooms next year), it takes a lot of work to build and finally it will add one more thing to manage on top of my already jam packed day.
Chapter 5 offered the most amazing, easy to use activities for reading. It broke the activities down into the three categories of before, during and after reading. Beyond this, the book offers actual student work to show how some of the strategies should work (come on folks, don’t we all like to cook recipes that have pictures attached to them so that we can see what the final product should look like)!
Finally, Chapter 6 offered six suggestions for how to incorporate using the textbook into your class. If you love your textbook then this chapter is a must read because it offers great strategies!
The Reading Process
Now that I have become more aware of how I am reading, I found myself using a lot of strategies to get through the text. First and foremost, I must share that our selected passage was 100 pages long and I had to try and read at least part of it while my two kids (ages 1 and 3) were still up and needing some type of attention. I saw this as an opportunity to figure out strategies that would work well under these conditions, as I know quite a few of my students are expected to work in similar ones as they try to complete homework at a job or within in their own loud homes. The strategy I found to work the best was coding the text. I found myself putting question marks next to passages that I could not focus enough to get through; so that I could go and revisit them in a quieter environment and marking with a sticky note other passages that I could use with our last word protocol. Once the kiddos were in bed, I could go back and look at the marks I made to clarify and reflect on key pieces that really struck me.
The Protocol
Today, we used the last word protocol. Within the protocol, we were to write about one sentence or passage that had an impact on us. On one side of the note card, the reader had to write the passage and on the other their own opinion that would be reported out to the group. I really loved the protocol because it made me really focus on what others were saying before I could input how I felt about the text. I personally feel it will work well with my students because they always like to have the last word and now I am giving them that opportunity. Like that other protocol we used, this is student ran, which gives me more time to check-in with all groups as the discussions are happening.
Reflection 1 – Subjects Matters; Chapters 1-3
At some point it was explained to me that reading can be a game; or at least make the objective something to be done and won. Of course, this can minimize some of the other benefits to reading, but it can also be a strategy to get students’ attention and see the purpose to some reading tasks. That is how I approached reading Subjects Matter by H. Daniels and S. Zemelman. How much do I need to read and in what time? What am I suppose to do with the text? And how will I show I read and understood it?....What is my task?
Like too many of our students I strategized how to most quickly read the required text in the time allowed. In that vein, I read the chapter titles and flipped through the pages to peruse the subtitles. Because I was not certain I could read ALL the chapters in time, I started with the one that was most unfamiliar to me (I have to admit here that I had previously been assigned to read parts of this text in a previous class). At that point I began reading.
The text is an easy read, and the examples very applicable and congruent. The anecdotal student and adult reading behaviors are accurate and easy to relate to; therefore, being so business minded about my task was hard to do. Periodically I had to remind myself what my task was: to find words, phrases, sentences and passages that I found to be thought provoking for the purpose of sharing with the group. In my mind I kept telling myself, “Stay on task.” Sound familiar?
Other reading strategies that I used (and always use) are marking my text (A LOT), making connections, posing questions (one of my “markings”) and rereading for the purpose of completing my task. I asked myself, is that the word, phrase, sentence or passage I want to use? After rereading and giving it some thought, I either marked the page (again) or moved on.
As for the protocol, I was a bit familiar with it and had used it as a student in previous classes; however, I have never used it with students. Why? Precisely why I am in this class….to get more familiar with and build an arsenal of tools to use with literature in my classes. This one is relatively easy to follow and can just as easily be altered to meet students’ and my needs. As a group we did surprisingly well following the protocol and sustaining a meaningful dialog about the chapters we decided on.
As for the text, Daniels and Zemelman get to the “what” students should read, and how teachers can make it understood and even enjoyable. As previously identified it is easy to read and not filled with theory or pedagogical talk. Future chapters will have very specific pre-, during and post- reading activities that teachers can possibly modify and incorporate.
There will always be texts that are not yours or your students’ first choice to read. However, if they are carefully chosen, and meaningful practices and tasks are aligned with the text, students can read with intent, understand and learn, and they just might enjoy themselves along the way.
Like too many of our students I strategized how to most quickly read the required text in the time allowed. In that vein, I read the chapter titles and flipped through the pages to peruse the subtitles. Because I was not certain I could read ALL the chapters in time, I started with the one that was most unfamiliar to me (I have to admit here that I had previously been assigned to read parts of this text in a previous class). At that point I began reading.
The text is an easy read, and the examples very applicable and congruent. The anecdotal student and adult reading behaviors are accurate and easy to relate to; therefore, being so business minded about my task was hard to do. Periodically I had to remind myself what my task was: to find words, phrases, sentences and passages that I found to be thought provoking for the purpose of sharing with the group. In my mind I kept telling myself, “Stay on task.” Sound familiar?
Other reading strategies that I used (and always use) are marking my text (A LOT), making connections, posing questions (one of my “markings”) and rereading for the purpose of completing my task. I asked myself, is that the word, phrase, sentence or passage I want to use? After rereading and giving it some thought, I either marked the page (again) or moved on.
As for the protocol, I was a bit familiar with it and had used it as a student in previous classes; however, I have never used it with students. Why? Precisely why I am in this class….to get more familiar with and build an arsenal of tools to use with literature in my classes. This one is relatively easy to follow and can just as easily be altered to meet students’ and my needs. As a group we did surprisingly well following the protocol and sustaining a meaningful dialog about the chapters we decided on.
As for the text, Daniels and Zemelman get to the “what” students should read, and how teachers can make it understood and even enjoyable. As previously identified it is easy to read and not filled with theory or pedagogical talk. Future chapters will have very specific pre-, during and post- reading activities that teachers can possibly modify and incorporate.
There will always be texts that are not yours or your students’ first choice to read. However, if they are carefully chosen, and meaningful practices and tasks are aligned with the text, students can read with intent, understand and learn, and they just might enjoy themselves along the way.
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