I love this idea, and have added it to my file on making connections. I like the idea of not introducing "text-to-self" or "text-to-text" but letting the kids make the comparisons and going from there. Then it truly is their learning and not our teaching.
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 3/22/2008 1:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Understand] was: strategy instruction in the younger gradesnow: upper g... Peter says: "I think that sometimes it's better to ask students how they think we should organize the information so that they can remember it; let them try it to see if it works, and then try. As Ellin says, savor the struggle." I agree... this is so true... I think by using the simpler organizers, or asking the kids to create their own, we are doing less of the thinking for the kids and asking them to use their heads to find the patterns and make sense of what they are learning. I think it is extremely important to help kids realize that their connections can come from many places. What if, instead of us telling the kids what text to self or text to world connections are, that we model many kinds of connections and then let the KIDS notice the similarities and name the sources. It would be easy to record a variety of connections on post it notes and then let the kids move them around into groups that are similar. So what if kids group the thinking "text to movie" or "text to Mom" connections instead of text to world??? Letting the kids notice and name the kinds of connections might help kids see all the many places connections come from. THEN we as teachers model noticing and naming what we UNDERSTAND as a result of all these kinds of connections...what we know now that we didn't know before. Then we have to keep presenting that same question to our students as they begin to use the strategies. "What do you 'get' now...that you didn't 'get' before?" _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
