This is my second time to try and post this I don't know if it is going through or not? If I am duplicating I apologize!
Hi Everyone I have to tell you I am in awe of what Ellin has achieved with this book and I've only read the first few chapters. I am excited to be sharing my thoughts and reading your thoughts as we work through this book. I teach 6th grade LA/SS and I have truly been affirmed by much of this reading so far and challenged by other parts. I've begun the past two years with two novels *Eggs *and *Loser* by Jerry Spinelli. I tell my student that I secretly have a crush on Mr. Spinnelli and I've never met a book he has written that I didn't like. Spinelli does such an outstanding job with quirky characters that my students are hooked right away. I read these stories to the students as they sit in a grand conversation circle on the floor with me and I intentionally spend the first nine weeks with these two novels. It is an opportunity for me to model strategies as I read to them. Students learn what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to be a part of a group. After all the first few weeks of school we are building community within our classrooms and this fits like a glove. I want students to know that reading is a social act where we can be influenced by others ideas and influence others when we discuss books. Conversations about books can clear up misunderstandings and add to the clarity of our understandings. Students have their response folders right there in front of them and I give them four topics to focus on each time I read. These topics revolve around strategies, and author intent etc. As I read aloud they can add to their sticky notes and I share my inner thinking throughout. I am there to encourage them and support them in their efforts to apply strategies and understanding. They learn the art of listening and expanding on an idea, how to disagree and its ok, how to acknowledge each others thinking, how to be respectful, how discussions lead to clarification and what Ellin says *dwell in ideas*. This structure I use the first nine weeks then I begin the gradual release and the second nine weeks they begin book clubs. I find there is an ebb and flow to this process. Some students I hold closer than others. I am always monitoring their work and discussions. This book coming out has been so important to me. I am ready for it and yet I have to read it and step away from it because Ellin has given me so much to think about. I absolutely love the tables created in chapter 2. For me it was the OMG (remember I teach 6th graders) moment! It was and is what I was looking for. If I could sit across the table from Ellin I'd have to thank her for going through all the research for us. While I want to be operating from best practice and research based teaching I do not have the time or inclination to read research! I have poured over these tables and tried to inject some of these ideas into those grand conversation circles with our novel studies and with our Ancient Culture studies in Social Studies. I love the outcomes of understanding it is what I have looked for in my students and recognized in them but I don't know if they have always seen it in themselves. I have several students that have read certain authors all their books and many of them several times. I am conversing with them to try to get them to nail down why? Why read these books over and over? These students have become our resident experts on their author or genre because they are well versed and they are articulating what they feel about the author or genre. I also find that the four major categories that Ellin defines page 30-31 and the table that follows are part of front loading at the beginning of the year with the gradual release model. My team mate and I really work hard to build a sense of community, sticking to a schedule, have the same expectations for "being prepared for class", letting our students know that we are there for them when meaning breaks down, recognizing and reminding them of what good character traits are and what we see shining through in them. Which go a long way to a climate of rigor, inquiry, and intimacy. On the subject of text structure I have found by using book clubs (which is what we start the second nine weeks) just as I did in the first nine weeks I can control the focus of what I want students to think about. So I guide them through text structure which of course runs into writing workshop. It is a symphony in the making! The reflection piece is powerful as well. I read an article called Reflection Friday, or something like that, and it along with this book got me thinking about taking time to do this with my students. I have used this in my Social Studies where we learn about an ancient culture, currently Mesopotamia, and we read from a variety of resources and then I am having them reflect and categorize the information. We have created a web on Inspiration and it revolves around these topics: Key People, Major Events, Inventions/Accomplishments, Religion/Philosophy, Laws/Politics, and Arts & Architecture. So as we digest the information we are pausing to reflect together and on our own and figure out where does this all fit into our web and the bigger questions we think about as we read explore and try to gain deeper understanding are: · What is there to be learned from it? · What is its enduring significance? So what? · Why are we still learning about this today? · What is the influential message, universal truth or common understanding? · How does this understanding influence your understanding? · What does this new learning mean to you and your understanding of the world? This idea of reflection is powerful in book clubs as well. I have had the students stop and talk at three different junctures about their thinking in terms of characters, themes, etc. These are holding spots for their thinking and they write in their response folders and date each entry and before they write the next reflection I have them go back and reread the previous one(s) to see how their thinking is changing and can they tell why it is changing or not changing. Susan Cronk M.S. & NBCT 6th Grade LA/SS _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
