OK--now that I am home from work and really reread this email, (using the pragmatic system...I am re-experiencing it... LOL!) I think the word "re-experiencing" was key for me to get this, Ellin. Thanks. Before, I just kept getting stuck on how one would effectively use the pragmatic system by oneself...I was trying to decide how often I use the pragmatic system when I read a not-so-challenging "trashy" summer novel. You know the kind of book I am talking about...one or two days on the beach and it is over! I think the answer is, I don't really use the pragmatic system very much for that kind of reading and I suppose I am not really understanding it to any depth...nor do I need to. No need to re-experience...in one ear and out the other...and I also suppose that's why I look at that same book later and can't remember if I have read it before or not! LOL! That kind of book is totally different from what we are doing here on the list with To Understand. We keep coming back to ideas, rereading, writing emails and responding to each other's posts... In thinking about Bev's question...can you use the pragmatic system to decode??? I don't know Bev...pragmatics are a deep structure system. So doesn't that mean it has more to do with comprehension?Don't the surface structure systems provide a gateway of sorts for us to interact with the deep structure systems? I know children use semantics and syntax along with visual cues to decode...and the pragmatic system might support self-correcting. I am just thinking, at this moment, that the systems support each other and overlap a bit, but that the pragmatic system has to do more with what happens in your mind before, during and after reading to comprehend. Maybe I am misinterpreting your question Bev and maybe I am totally wrong here, and I DEFINITELY want to be corrected if I am! I do think you can use the pragmatic system before reading. I have seen kids preview a new text together and share schema that helps each other to make some great, insightful predictions before reading. Wouldn't that be use of the pragmatic system too? Jennifer
<<I think of the pragmatic system as "re-experiencing" text in order to understand it more deeply. It could be as simple as a rereading or it can take the form of a conversation in a book club, writing through some of the ideas to clarify what you're thinking (basically what I did in writing To Understand) or even capturing key ideas from what you've read through art or drama. The pragmatic system - the opportunity to work through the ideas that you have read - increases the likelihood that we're going to retain and reapply what we've understood. The pragmatic system is the application and a sort of "working through" of ideas that we've learned whether we've read them or learned them in another context. Think of when you go to your own book club and walk away thinking about the book you've all read in a very different way - you understand it better because of other's perspectives. When you plan for how to teach a concept and you work to express it in the clearest, most precise terms so that kids can get it, that's you using the pragmatic system. In both examples, you rework what you know in order to make the ideas clearer. I do think of the Dimensions of Understanding (including, but not limited to dwelling in ideas) are a way of looking at the pragmatic system. I see them as a way to share language with and model for children what we do in our own lives in order to understand more deeply. That's the pragmatic system. Hope that sheds a bit more light on it! **************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001) _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
