Phyllis
I think you are very much on the right track! I am beginning to think that all
of the language arts curriculum (the worthwhile stuff!) could just about fit
within the 3 deep and 3 surface structure systems. Your little first grader, I
think, was operating in his pragmatic system...revisiting the text in his
conversation with you and so developed a deepened understanding. (I KNOW these
bear books and kids do love them, but they aren't exactly fodder for deep
thinking. This kid did a great job!)
With your Coke example, I think semantics is part of it, but I also wonder
about syntactic. Ellin talks about the syntactic system...the mind's ear. It
doesn't sound right exactly to us because we expect it to say two pieces of
bacon...but it says two bacon and that doesn't sound right.
Jennifer
Jennifer Palmer
Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher
FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure.
"Children grow into the intellectual life around them."
-Vygotsky
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Phyllis Hinerman
Sent: Sat 8/2/2008 11:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Understand] More thinking about understanding
Ever since beginning Ellin's book, I've been thinking deeply about the 6
cognitive systems (is there anyone out there who isn't???). I've been looking
closely at 'thinking' or 'processing' and therefore I've found myself
'assigning' it to one of those systems - usually not out loud - and that has
led me to new levels of thinking. Guess I've been dwelling in these ideas.
Anyway, here are two examples.
First: in the spring I was working with a first grader who was considered at
risk of not learning to read in his first grade year. He had read several
books about a family of bears. The plot of the latest book involved the family
looking for a new place to live because Mother Bear had decided their house was
too small. When he finished his first reading of this book he looked at me and
said, "They all got something they wanted." When I asked what he meant he
explained, "Well, Baby Bear likes honey and there's honey at this house, Father
Bear likes to fish and there's the river, and Mother Bear wanted a bigger
house. So, they all got something they wanted."
To reach that conclusion he'd drawn on his memory of 2 previous books about
this family. One revolved around Baby Bear's search for honey and the other
about Father Bear going fishing. Before Ellin, I'd have recognized this as
insightful thinking, and now I believe he was operating in the pragmatic system
(and he was an at-risk first grader). If I'm on the right track, the pragmatic
system became a little more understandable for me.
The second example happened just this morning at breakfast. I read the
advertised specials on a board at the entrance of the restaurant: Farmer's
breakfast, 2 cokes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon. It didn't fit, so I reread looking more
closely. And I'm thinking, it wasn't the misspelling that stopped me, after
all, 'cokes' is a meaningful word, it was the semantic system - 'coke' didn't
fit the context.
So, I'm growing in my belief that if I can understand and use Ellin's cognitive
systems, my own teaching will be more focused. All those indicators and
benchmarks developed by the state will make more sense when viewed as part of
these cognitive systems.
Am I on the right track? What do others think?
Phyllis
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