Now I think I'm finally catching on as to what the "disconnect/ambiguity" has been with this series of exchanges. I think most of it has been a semantic issue. The purists would, of course, say that reading a whole book is not part of a mini-lesson. HOWEVER, what is probably actully happening in some of these cases, is that the teacher is doing interactive read-aloud (as stated in her schedule) which is followed by readers workshop WHICH BEGINS with a mini-lesson. That's a whole different matter than using an interactive read-aloud as a mini-lesson, which would be problematic. In some of these cases, it's really all about what different pieces are named on the teacher's schedule.
It's probably not that unusual for teachers to schedule an interactive read-aloud (20 minutes or so) and then follow it with readers' workshop, which begins with a 10-minute mini-lesson. It might also be natural for the teacher to use something from the read-aloud as a mini-lesson which has been described so well by Kelly. I think the reason it's a bit dicey to communicate about the interactive read-aloud is because it is usually quite dissimilar to a traditional read-aloud where a teacher reads and the children sit and at least appear to be in a more passive role. If we haven't made that transition in our mind, we're visualizing a quite different experience than is usually recommended for interactive read-aloud. As usual, I think we probably agree more than we disagree and we may have fallen into a discussion in which a phrase meant one thing to one person and another thing to another; it's probably at least partly about semantics, what we've named something. On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 5:40 AM, Kelly Andrews-Babcock < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Great questions here! I think that there are times when an interactive read > aloud is a lesson and it's not usually a mini-lesson if you have students > sharing with each other. > > I'd love to share what one of our fourth grade teachers in my building is > doing with an interactive read aloud. She does the interactive read aloud > during one reading block with a focus question/objective in mind. The focus > question lines up with our CMT strands (state test). She clearly states what > the objective/focus is and explicitly models through think aloud and then > let's the students share their thinking. She then will follow with daily > mini-lessons that are related to the focus question. > > When she used the book "Stripes" it was the beginning of a unit on > character development. She focused on what were the character's feelings, > how did they change, at what event did they change etc. Then she furthered > their thinking by having them practice this in guided groups and finally > apply it to their independent reading books. > > She has set her purpose and purposefully planned how to transfer this > information and learning to independent learning. It has transformed her > teaching and her students can clearly see the connections. It's brilliant. > Kelly AB > > > > I think the only answer to > your dilemma are some other questions. What is your purpose? What do you > need to transfer? Is there something to be gained by reading an entire > read-aloud at that time which couldn't be gained another way? > > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
