My eldest daughter just graduated high school this year. She was always a terrific reader--loved books enormously--but was never pushed in school to use any sort of strategies that she did not come by naturally. Her lack of skill became most apparent during the reading of science texts, where she was unaccustomed to pulling apart passages for all of the linking and important data that is hidden in every sentence of science. I helped her a bit there and that was enough to get her to eleventh grade.
In eleventh and twelfth she had an English teacher that demanded "annotations" of the text and when I saw what my daughter was doing it looked a whole lot like MOT--except it was often translated into some assignment that required processing the annotations in a formal way--debate, paper, oral report, etc. The first year she was introduced to this she wailed, "This ruins reading for me," and I found myself questioning whether the forced use of strategies could in fact "ruin reading" for lovers of reading. Then, my daughter continued with this teacher (Mrs. Cubbage--if you are out there , you are wonderful)and by the end of her senior year announced to me that she had never had a more important teacher and the act of annotation has brought such depth to her understanding that she no longer chooses to read much without annotation--too funny. I see her buy books I find to be somewhat light reading and I still see her annotating in the margins. I add this anecdote to the discussions because my daughter taught me that even the most proficient readers, who are good at answering the comprehension questions, benefit from the depth that can occur when using formal comprehension strategies. I also add this anecdote to our discussion because I read "Deeper Reading" this summer and Gallagher, too, offers the idea that grading the reading should come out of the use of strategies, but be a separate application --like a debate, report, literary explanation, etc. HE does a beautiful job of providing examples of his assessments at the end and how he links those assessments to his instruction and the student use of reading strategies (I am so surprised a high school teacher has so much about reading instruction to offer to us elementary folks!) Now, I am examining this year how to bring such grading applications into my reading instruction. I want applications that are not based solely upon teacher or text based comprehension questions, but rather a formal way to integrate the outcome of strategy use into a project that IS turned in (in some form) and graded--perhaps the discussion the children have will itself be the project ( I am imagining the use of tape recordings and a checklist/rubric--still working on it at the elementary level). Last year we used wonderful projects with our reading, but often when grading the particular projects I felt it was unrelated to the actual reading--the projects were more about integration of subjects. I want to create more directed stuff like Gallagher does in his senior classroom. I will be happy to talk more about this if folks are interested in ways Gallagher does it and ways I am trying to do it. -- Sincerely, Bonita DeAmicis California, Grade 5 _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
