Jennifer
You are not off base at all. In fact you hit the nail right on the head. One
point of To Understand is that we want to intellectually challenge our
students. I believe she called it intellectual engagement. This is where
passion lies in many of us on the list. We are here because we seek to become
intellectually stimulated. Likely we came to find this list in a quest to gain
knowledge. We want to ignite that type of authentic drive to learn in our
students and not spend so much time taking apart the process of reading.
Children need to see the big picture and not just the small parts. Yes, we
need to teach the process, but do we have to teach it in segmented parts? Do
we always need to take things apart and then expect that they will go back
together again correctly? We are making a major shift at my school to teach an
integrated curriculum that will have children reading for inquiry. We want to
intellectually engage our students. If you have read The Knowledge Deficit by
E.D. Hirsch you will make major connections to this discussion.
Laura
readinglady.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sat, Jun 13, 2009 3:38 pm
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Do we really need to teach explicit strategies?
I also agree. This is one of the big points I got from Ellin's book To
Understand. By asking kids what the strategy helped them t
o understand about
the book, we send the message that the strategies are a vehicle, not the end
point.
One other thing that crossed my mind is this thought: What if we want more
for kids than just an ability to discuss and comprehend texts? What if, as
Ellin writes in To Understand, we want kids to also have an opportunity to
be scholarly...to understand more deeply how their own mind works? There
is a joy I find in deep intellectual engagement (like this discussion!). :-)
What if we need to give our kids that are the stronger readers the
strategy language and then help them to see HOW their mind comes to comprehend
in order to give them the chance to learn the joys of being scholarly? It
isn't that I don't value independent reading and student led discussion. It
is important...and may even be of primary importance. I just have this
nagging feeling that maybe there is more we can ask of these kids.
I haven't thought all of this through yet...and maybe I am way off base. I
would welcome everyone's input.
Jennifer
In a message dated 6/13/2009 1:05:09 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
I know that your statement is so true. Most of my students first
learn to say I have a connection. Which I really appreciate, because
this is an easy way to help them see how having a connection helps
them to understand what they read. Last year I had a child who had
visited a reservation, his sharing of his connections helped us all to
understand the story we were reading about a reservation. A real aha
moment for my class.
PatK.
On Jun 13, 2009, at 7:11 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> That being said, if the conversation that the children are having is
> centering on their strategies like, “I made a connection,” or “I
> could visualize this part,” we must push them to explain why that
> helped them to understand the story or text. Strategies serve the
> reader as a means to understand or deepen understanding of what we
> read. So “talking the talk” of strategies has to be linked to
> “walking the walk” of understanding what is being read.
>
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