Leslie You are not in the Once you have signed up, the emails we all send to the list will show up in your mail box. You must be reading from the archives, which is GREAT! Please continue to read and respond to those posts...but the 'real time emails you are getting are from our current discussion on chapter six.
Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure. Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge. It is thinking that makes what we read ours. -John Locke From: Leslie Wright Sent: Wed 6/25/2008 1:34 PM To: Special Chat List for To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension Subject: Re: [Understand] dwelling in the reading I loved your idea of finding 3 things in a book on which to focus. what grade level do you teach? This is my 2nd post in this discussion forum. Please advise me. These e-mails just started to show up after I signed up. Previously, I had been reading from the Reading Lady web page and just systematically going through the discussions for each chapter. Have I landed in the wrong place? Sincerely, Leslie Wright 4th grade Riverside Elementary On 6/24/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On p. 147 I underlined "rereading is the hallmark of effective genre > > study". > > I admit I get going in a genre study and I want to expose the class to a > > wide variety of texts. > > I do not take time to slow down, reread in depth an excellent example of > > that genre. > > I realize this is a strong message from the book-teach a few important > > concepts in depth over a long period of time. > > Did I share about our genre studies? I had a big aha moment last year when > I started an adventure-survival genre study with a group of committed > fantasy enthusiasts. Their reading levels dropped instantly upon starting > the new genre. They had never been exposed to adventure books before and > they did not like reading them in the beginning. They had little schema, > and where, with fantasy, I could just release them, with adventure survival > I had to start with a teacher read aloud and work from there. I spent time > showing them wilderness photos and videos and talking about survival. Once > they had some schema they began to enjoy the genre more, a few even took > off, continuing many books in the survival genre thereafter. I realized by > teaching a number of genres in depth we accomplish many things: students > grow a larger vocabulary because many words seem to be genre driven, they > grow a larger schema for future reading because they are developing a > broader base, and they become more varied in their reading choices. IT was > such an aha moment when one of my students thanked me for "making" her read > something she did not think would be interesting (her mom thanked me too). I > suddenly remembered my own daughter telling me the best thing her sixth > grade teacher ever did was make her read a biography. She became a John > Muir affectionado and now talks of becoming an earth scientist as a result. > I love that Ellin is so supportive of genre studies and I plan to keep > developing those units of study. > > > > > I do not consider myself a writer so it is hard for me to "mine" the work > > for understanding and insight. > > You wrote here and communicated perfectly--you must be a writer:) > > > Lester Laminack has a book that shows his author craft. It gave me > insight > > but how do I get this without the author spelling it out for me? > > I do not want to keep flipping from one resource to another (Mentor > Texts, > > MOT) in order to get the most out of a text. > > How do others go about dwelling in the ideas in a text? > > How do you get students involved in the noticings? > > Three things have helped me in terms of book studies and getting students > to dwell deeper into the text--(and I am sure there are many more ideas than > mine out there): > 1. I pick the right text to work with. A book that has challenging ideas, > themes about struggle, friendship, family, power, love, etc...these books > help dwelling to occur by their very nature. I often pick an excellent read > aloud and use it for our full class discussions on themes and such--when > possible I try to have a full class set of the read aloud so they can follow > my reading if they like (or steal peeks ahead if they cannot stand the > suspense). > > 2. I make a wall ready for our observations. I use GATE icons which are > little symbols that help to cue student thinking (developed by Sandra Kaplan > at USC). I will usually start a genre with a great read aloud and we all > start thinking right away with standard strategies: connections, imagery, > questions, summarizing...and then we use icons to take our thinking deeper: > multiple perspectives, ethical issues, patterns, big ideas, messages from > the author, etc. All these thoughts are written on charts, usually by me, > but sometimes in groups by the students and then posted on that wall so we > keep thinking and see our thoughts as we read. Then as students move into > literature groups and independent reading within the same genre--we try to > find time to share and continue our wall chart recording. > > 3. I really like Gallagher's ideas for novel studies. He generally writes > for the secondary level, but his ideas have helped me. He advises picking > three main things about a book study: one reading thing, one writing thing, > and one grammar thing. So, I read the novel first and look for something > strong about reading, like if I were reading Because of Winn Dixie I might > want us to really think about character development and the tracking of a > multiple of characters. Then I look for something strong about the writing, > In BEcause of Winn Dixie the descriptions are priceless, so I decided to use > the text to study how to write good descriptions. Finally, in Winn Dixie > many sentences are dependent clause-types so I decided that would be a good > grammar focus. By staying with one main focus in each area, I find my > instruction tends to be better because I know what I am hoping students will > MOST get from the book and I can direct my instruction and my assessment > toward those things that I am focusing upon. > > Hope that offers some helpful ideas. > :)Bonita > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
