I think that this is a very interesting question! Perhaps we could add the question of "author's purpose" to the discussion?! This is an area of similar struggle for me as teaching it in a way that helps children succeed on standardized tests implies that an author writes only for one purpose. To me it seems that in the land of standardized tests, fiction is written "to entertain", expository writing is "to teach or inform" and the purpose of narrative writing is "to tell". Not only untrue, but totally confusing to kids because, as teachers, we often use the same trade book to teach different lessons (some, even dealing with author's purpose!!) It is so hard to teach the linear thinking of the test while trying to nurture the deep thinking of ideas and understanding, isn't it? Jennifer J.
-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > I am going to back us up just a little before beginning discussion on the > last chapter. I had the pleasure of getting to hear Ellin speak in person in > Pennsylvania last week and one point she made was that there is no such thing > as > "main idea". She teaches children that main idea is a construct test makers > made up and that students, when faced with a main idea question must try to > figure out what the test maker thinks is important. She explains to children > that there are important ideas...but these might vary based on the readers' > reason for reading. > > The question that immediately popped into my mind was related to expository > text structures. Isn't there a text structure that is organized main idea > detail? Isn't that newspaper writing where we get the most important idea > first? > I know lots of simple nonfiction for primary children seems to be organized > main idea detail---just think of Scholastic News, Weekly Reader and Time for > Kids. > > So---when I came home I picked up my copy of To Understand and backed up to > chapter seven. Figure 7.2, page 182 does not have "main idea detail" listed > as > a text structure, but the description of the descriptive text structure > seems to me to BE "main idea-detail". I thought of descriptive text > structure > to > be narrative in style but each idea to be of relatively equal importance. > So...what I want to know is this: > Do you think we need to teach main idea as a text structure? Especially > since lots of school and test reading seems to be organized in a narrative > style > with the most important ideas first. Or is this misleading to kids who will > think that there is only one important idea to be learned from a particular > text? > What do all of you make of this? > Jennifer > > > > **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for > FanHouse Fantasy Football today. > (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) > _______________________________________________ > 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
