Kare zeroes in on these words from To Understand and this fascinates me.
First, because it really documents for me the connections that Debbie Miller
may have made when she herself read To Understand. She mentions TU in Reading
with Intention and so we know that influence was there. But, second, because
it takes me back to Debbie's Lesson Design and the process she teaches us for
planning and teaching "a theme."
I am reminded of what I once read about The Project Approach and theme studies
and integrated learning, etcetera which purports that if your "theme" can be
stated in a single word, it's probably a "motif" and not a "theme." That makes
me smile. Not that it's literally always true, of course, but we can all
remember the "apple"-themed math practice worksheets with problems inside apple
shapes. That has nothing to do with the substantive learning described in
either To Understand or Reading with Intention or, for that matter, Selma
Wasserman in Serious Players or Lilian Katz in her life's work.
Another brilliant feature of the way Reading with Intention is written is that
it takes the comprehension strategies described by both Keene and Miller and
SHOWS us what it looks like to teach/learn about any given content AS WE LEARN
how to apply the strategies and what difference in understanding the strategies
make. We just can't learn to think by reading about thinking. The content is
the vehicle by which we learn to comprehend or, contrasting to a different
model, to analyze, to synthesize, and to evaluate.
I think that's why "motifs" such as Sneakers or Apples or Butterflies really
insult the intelligence of our students. Now, if we want to elevate the
opportunities of these motifs, we can add in Nike's labor practices to
"sneakers," or know that where we're heading with butterflies is an
understanding also demonstrated with frogs, then that's another matter. For
ALL of us, no matter our age, it's the connections we make to prior learning or
the synthesizing we do when we compare/contrast multiple concepts or the
questioning we do when we read something which causes a bit of cognitive
dissonance that leads to understanding.
For me, the power of guiding our children To Understand is the opportunity to
present our children with the habits of mind they'll need to grow into the kind
of adults we desperately need in our world right now.
Bev
**********************************************************************
*On page 55, one of the characteristics of effective crafting sessions is,
"Teachers focus on a few important topics in depth, modeled in a variety of
texts and contexts over a long period of time." What is an important topic for
your grade level which could span a variety of texts and contexts over a long
period of time?*
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