I appreciate your thought filler post. It is wonderful to hear your thinking. I too am a thinker and am always running developmental ideas through my mind on how learners' learn. These days I am working on how to help my students get a focus for compare and contrast as we become thinkers about what we read. Second graders are learning to think about their reading and support their stance through these lessons. Our 6 second grade teachers are developing an ongoing series of gradual release lessons for this thinking.
I look forward to more of your posts. Kim On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 8:21 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, I'm Judy in Northern California. I belonged to this list years and > years ago when I first started teaching with the brilliant MOT comprehension > strategies, but became overwhelmed with the number of off-topic posts and > dropped my membership. I'm back now, hoping you're as dedicated to strategy > instruction as I am. I've taught for many years (grades 1,2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8); > this year is my first in 5th and I love it! So, about strategy > instruction... > > 1. We spent the first month on monitoring for meaning. I used lessons from > STW and made up my own. My favorite thing to do is take a bullet from the > end of the chapter and develop it into one or more lessons. For example: > p. 65 "Proficient readers use text management strategies. They pause, > reread, skim, scan, consider the meaning of the text, and reflect on their > understanding with others." This became a series of lessons moving through > gradual release of responsibility. I modeled, kids turned/talked, kids > 'tried it' in their journals as I read aloud, kids 'tried it' with shared > text, kids did it with their own text (noting in their reading journal to > share later). > p. 64 (this was my FAVORITE) "Proficient readers are able to assume > different 'stances' toward a text, For example, a child can read a book from > the point of view of different characters, of a book reviewer, or of a > writer seeking new techniques for his/her work." This genius idea made for a > week of lessons where we again followed gradual release. At the end, I > polled my kids by asking what stance they most frequently take in their IR > and I was amazed to see it was a pretty even 3-way split. > > 2. We just finished our first week on Connections. Because of 27,000 > interruptions, it will take us almost a month to get through the 8 lessons I > planned for this strategy. Last week was spent on t<-->s and it was so much > fun (for me!) taking 5th graders to deeper thinking with a familiar > strategy. Perhaps my favorite connection was when a darling girl explained > that she could feel the plane give when Brian punched it (in Hatchet, our > shared novel) because she knows what it's like to squish a Coke can. > > 3. Finally, I should confess that I worship at the feet of Ellin Keene. > While I'm having trouble buying into everything in her newest thinking, I > revere MOT and it makes my classroom what it is. Thankfully, there has been > a resurgence of interest in MOT at my school (after years of idiocy with > NCLB and publishers' "programs"). This coming Wednesday, MOT will be the > focus of our first hour and a half Learning Community meeting. We're really > trying to revive MOT and entice untrained teachers to come on board. Since > the most powerful inducement for me was seeing Keene (3 times) take a group > of unknown students and demonstrate a think aloud and strategy instruction > with them, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and try becoming > Ellin Keene on Wednesday. I'll have a group of kids grades 2-5; I'll do a > read aloud/think aloud and then discuss the strategy with them. This could > be an enormous failure, of course, but I'm hoping that my colleagues will > begin to buy in--as I did the moment I first saw Ellin Keene. (I am going to > school this morning to choose the text and write my notes for think > alouds--I alwaysalwaysalways plan ahead). > > Sorry this is so long, > judy5ca > _______________________________________________ > 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.
