Lisa, whether you call what you and your colleague did modeling or thinking aloud, it was a wonderful learning experience for your students, wasn't it? Thank you so much for including your kids' comments--so telling.
My friend/colleague and I do quite a few lessons together for our kids so they will see the interaction of learners. We demonstrate a literary conversation and ask our students to notice what we say and do during our discussion of text (yes, like you, we intentionally interrupt so they will see excitement AND what we do about it). We share a certain type of poem and then each of us reads one we have written about each other (we often get misty). Tomorrow we are showing kids a list of notes we took from a nonfiction text and we are each reading our own 'creative nonfiction' based on those notes; hers will be nonfiction narrative and mine will be in a letter format. These are but a few of the ways we model what readers and writers do. We have even taught an introductory session on MOT strategies to our collegues; we discussed how we inferred in the text "Patrol" and the teachers and our principal LOVED it. As much as I love conversation and am coming to believe it is the core of learning, so am I learning the value of true modeling, what Keene calls describing "how readers, writers and learners live." Although I think aloud daily in our shared reading minilesson, I want to model--and for me that goes beyond 'describing.' Most often I model simply by sharing my own reading (tomorrow I'll be telling my third graders who are learning nonfiction writing through a study of Australia that I just came across the word 'jackarooing' in the novel I'm reading, People of the Book). I really want to "be the reader" for my kids. Isn't that modeling? Judy ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 2:53 PM Subject: Re: [Understand] Understand Digest, Vol 2, Issue 24 > On page 68, Ellin writes: "To think aloud is to show how readers, > writers and learners think, but to model is to show and describe What is > your reaction to this thought? > > It's interesting that Jennifer says she's been struggling with this idea > as it has been in the forefront of my thinking as well. Last week another > teacher and I had a great conversation about the modeling/think aloud idea > and the differences in each. We decided to explore that with some 3rd > graders. We sat everyone in a circle and she and I sat across from one > another. We told the kids that we were both reading the same book and > asked them to watch us and observe what took place. We framed it > something like "notice what we do as readers and thinkers". We then > proceeded to talk about the book. To make a long story short the kiddos > noticed all kinds of things that we did, including a student who said, "I > noticed that you both said the book had some hard stuff in it, but you > both were laughing and having fun. I never thought about how hard work > can be fun, but now I'm thinking that happened to me when I was doing my > research project. " Another student said, " I noticed that sometimes > you interrupted each other when you were talking. Sometimes your ideas > just have to pop out and you know you should wait but you're too excited > and you can't keep that thinking bottled up till it's your turn." > Finally, one of our "lowest" kids ( by Dibels standards) said, " I noticed > that you used all those strategies we've been learning about. But I > thought it was cool that you bounced back and forth from one to another > all the time. They (strategies) are really working like a team." There > were lots of other exciting observations as well. We ended our time > together by asking kids to celebrate the quiet and think about what they > do as readers and thinkers and to jot their ideas down in their journals. > The teacher and I are looking at their thoughts and thinking about how we > can continue to "model" our literate lives to these kids. > Lisa > > _______________________________________________ > Understand mailing list > [email protected] > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
