Quotes from Reading Reconsidered: A Practical Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction By Doug Lemov and others
If success in college demands of students the ability to read successfully above their comfort zone, then the importance of teaching students how to struggle with challenging text is another good argument both for reading more challenging texts and for “Close Reading,” which is, as we define it, the set of tools readers use to “solve” text when it is challenging and out of their comfort zone. It involves strategies of both rereading and analysis—ways of unlocking the densest, most challenging lines of text, and in so doing learning how language works. It is the study of the mechanics of meaning-making, a topic that will serve students well everywhere they go and, in addition, teach them to be poised and composed in the face of struggle” (Page 7).
“A systematic exposure to certain types of text experiences is at least as necessary in determining a student's ability to read widely and successfully as a systematic exposure to certain kinds of skill-based questions. Choosing harder texts, as we will discuss, is one element necessary to preparing students for success in college. But more than that, students need to wrestle with specific types of challenges posed by a rich array of challenging texts, systematically introduced starting in elementary school” (Page 17).
“Now firmly ensconced within the lingua franca of teachers, these systems are almost assured to increase in influence as the designers of the Common Core emphasize the importance of students' reading harder texts, measured explicitly via Lexiles. Generally, the emphasis on harder texts is beneficial and the need for a simple, quantifiable tool understandable, but there's a lot more to determining how difficult a text is than leveling …The Giver thus allows students to participate in discussions about storytelling—how it works and its relationship to society—more than other books. Text selection, then, means looking at more than just the quantitative aspects of language—the attributes of a text distilled … into a number. It means taking account of the importance of a text in other ways as it informs a student's interactions with literature … Another way of thinking about this is that a book like The Giver builds students' knowledge base about books and storytelling in a way that will be useful to them in understanding how texts work, throughout a lifetime of reading” (Page 25).
My comment: My comment: For me, I can look at the following: - lexile level (There are students with varying lexile levels, so hopefully this book addresses that) - hits TSWs (hits the substantive literary element part this book is talking about) - Thought provoking and engages students in discussions - Well known book/story to build the student’s cultural understanding
“In Defense of the Book One of the most important aspects of choosing texts is choosing the types of texts—most important, books, plenty of them, rather than a constant diet of excerpts, passages, and other selections. We are strong believers in “the power of the book,” of students building a sustained relationship with a text over time and coming to understand its perspective and mode(s) of narration—and how they shift. In fact, only by glimpsing these changes and variations as part of a sustained relationship between reader and text can students really learn to read. This was one of our first realizations when we began studying successful teachers. Even in an era of test-based accountability, the most successful schools and teachers consistently opt, in our observations, for books—and books of substance—as the core of their instructional choices. Of course, they include passages, articles, and other forms of texts as well, but the year is built around books—long and sustained engagements with an author, a set of characters, a perspective, and a voice” (Page 25).
My comment: I wonder if I could accomplish A-level TSWs (standards) in two subjects (literacy and cultural studies or literacy and science) with a book. The A-level students would then read a new book every unit with analysis. Just brainstorming, I could have all students working at their tables on pencil and paper B-level work. When they accomplish those B-level TSWs, they can move to the periphery at a couch/bean bag/arm chair and read the A-level book with its TSWs. I would still want to implement the area of awesomeness idea to have good motivation for completing assignments. So I could say that at a certain time everyone finished with B level assignments can have free time on the periphery- computers, board games, free reading, continue on assignments, etc. They just have to be quit so that everyone still working can continue to work in peace. This would also be more of an incentive/reward for finishing B level work and starting on A-level. I could then give more A-level work and feel okay about it and also challenge those students much more. Now what about those students who finished their B-level work and so could start on A-level work but they don’t have as much time to work on the A level TSWs because they spent the great majority of their time on B-level. I could give those students two options. First, those students probably have some missing B-level assignments from previous units, so they could work on those at their tables till area of awesomeness time. Another option is that they can read the book at home as well and then can get my help and possibly peers’ help while at school. The bulk of the A-level work is just reading the book, so that can easily be done at home without a teacher needed. They can then ask me questions in class, especially during enrichment and advisory. Another variation is that I don’t allow any technology in the classroom, not even during area of awesomeness time. During that time they can play a board game, read free reading, continue reading the A level book, etc. The students would still be able to be in the periphery area. I think that would be good for the top level students. Just not sure if that would be enough motivation for the lower level students. But it would be good for all of them to not associate the bad brain wave thinking associated with computers with the classroom. And then they could more fully concentrate on their assignments. And then at least the higher level students would maybe even use that area of awesomeness time for more reading.
“In this way, The Magician's Nephew serves a useful function to reading teachers. It's what we call a pre-complex text, a text that provides readers with practical experience with a simpler version of the ultimate challenges posed by complex texts. This prepares them to someday tackle books by the likes of Darwin and Dickens. In this case, our example addresses the issue of archaic language specifically, but as you will see, pre-complex texts can help prepare readers to be more familiar and comfortable with a variety of forms of complexity. … Growing Up Archaic The following are examples of pre-complex texts that introduce some degree of archaic diction and syntax and are likely to help prepare young readers for archaic texts when they get older. Because some of them are challenging, consider reading them aloud” (Page 32).
“a deep-lying haziness about plot elements—what exactly happened to whom, when—resulted in muddied analysis … If you can't grasp the plot, you can't start to discuss the big issues about what true love and free will are … But their effort to tame the complexity of the play's plot paid off. “The final essays were brilliant, totally unlike previous years.” Sophisticated analysis was grounded in the ability to track and unwind a complex plot” (Page 40)
“The use of symbolism is essentially a way to add a plot layer. And we're not just talking about pulling out and examining individual symbols that might be tangential to the plot. Often a network of symbols is foundational to understanding a story” (Page 41).
“With that said, some discipline is required because many of the incentives are stacked against seeking long-run benefits. To truly ensure our students' success, we must expose them to complex (or at least pre-complex) texts relatively early and relatively often, including during their elementary and middle school years, while there is time to steadily and gradually develop their comfort and skill with the various types of challenge these texts create. There is little immediate incentive to choose a tricky text with an unreliable narrator or archaic language, say, over something easier or more popular. The absence would likely go unnoticed and the short-term benefits—“ Hey, we're reading Hunger Games!”—would be obvious. It is quite possible that only years later, long after our students have passed on down the years, would they reap the deferred rewards of a decision by their teacher to teach complex texts” (Page 44).
“One of the greatest gifts a teacher can give students is a book they might never have considered or known, brought to life through great teaching. For example, Doug recently visited a school for elite athletes where the students chose their own books, and many were reading—surprise!—biographies of elite athletes. Why? Good intentions: the school wanted them to love what they read. But must we assume that what they know they already like (at age fourteen, say) is all they are capable of liking or learning valuable things from? We can each name a handful of texts we read against our better teenage judgment (infallible though it seemed at the time), but that turned out to be transformative—instantly in many cases, years later in others. The world of experience turned out to be slightly broader than our wizened teenage frameworks quite contemplated. We argue, therefore, for unrepentant teacher guidance on what to read—not necessarily on every book, but with frequency … Another loss, for those elite athletes reading their chosen books, was that they read their books in isolation. They never heard anyone else's interpretation of their books; they never were pushed to rethink what they first assumed. We see this trend frequently … There seem to us to be an increasing number of classrooms in which teachers let their students decide what to read, not just for independent reading but for their class work. “Read a book and respond to these questions about it.” “Read a book and write a journal entry about it.” In either case, the assumption is that the process of describing your own reflections is the primary work of the classroom, rather than refining ideas in discussion with others and making sense of different readings of a book. In fact, there is power in shared text, and there are a number of important factors to consider in choosing books. We look at these in the next several sections” (46 - 47).
“For weeks after, he had no idea that the novel ended with the protagonists' death or indeed that this was the point of the novel. Shared discussion mitigates the risk of misreading” (Page 48).
“I was in the bottom set. The head of English knocked on the door and said that a few people from the class were going to have to move from this class to the top set. The top set wasn't very full and this bottom set class was bursting at the seams. They asked for volunteers. I turned to a mate who was sat in my row: he nodded at me and we put our hands up. I think about 4 or 5 of us went. I don't know if anyone else volunteered, but we were pointed at, asked to grab our stuff and we left the lads to whatever it is those lads did for the next two years. We were going to the top set. What I really remember is the reading. We read texts from cover to cover. And we read lots. We read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’; we read ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’; we read ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge.’ And we talked about what we were reading. And something happened to me: I found out I loved reading. I didn't always understand everything that I was reading (I was lower ability) and I didn't always enjoy the texts that I was reading. But I enjoyed learning from them. And I learned lots. I can remember really disliking Hardy at the time, but I also can recall learning all about fate and determinism and how interesting it was. Years later, at university, it was this formative experience that allowed me to flourish in reading texts within a critical context” (Page 49).
My comment: An important point is that he voluntarily joined the higher level class and was willing to take on the challenge. That is the main factor needed: the will - even more than the student’s level. This is a good argument for choosing challenging and intellectually engaging texts for discussion for A-level work. This strategy wouldn’t work as well for those students just trying to get by with B-level work … and those students who do not even do the B-level work but are assigned it.
“The brain,” notes cognitive scientist Annie Murphy Paul in her piece “What Happens in Our Brains as We Read,” “does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.” 7 This is a fascinating observation—and one that Murphy Paul has followed up on to show a variety of applications. For example, in her article for Time called “Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer,” Murphy Paul explains that reading, it turns out, builds empathy in students who read frequently and deeply (for long, steady, uninterrupted periods—the opposite of how you read online, by the way). These readers act as if they had lived through the experiences they read about. The brain does not distinguish. 8 One further application of this idea is in the area of knowledge development. As cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham pointed out in his piece called “School Time, Knowledge, and Reading Comprehension,” one of the strongest drivers of reading ability is prior knowledge: Once kids are fluent decoders, much of the difference among readers is not due to whether you're a “good reader” or “bad reader” (meaning you have good or bad reading skills). Much of the difference among readers is due to how wide a range of knowledge they have. If you hand me a reading test and the text is on a subject I happen to know a bit about, I'll do better than if it happens to be on a subject I know nothing about… Teaching content IS teaching reading. Although it appears to be true that studying subjects like science and history, especially in a content-rich manner, results in stronger reading achievement, it is also true that one of the ways that students gain knowledge is by reading deeply and widely. Not all reading develops knowledge in readers at the same rate, because of both how we read (a topic we take up in our chapter on nonfiction) and what we read. Reading lots of historical fiction—good historical fiction, that is—builds knowledge, as does reading about cultures and settings unfamiliar to you. So ensuring that students read widely and read about things constructively unfamiliar to them is something teachers should take seriously. Consider, for example, this vignette about the principal of a school we knew with a population of almost entirely urban minority kids and unusually high reading results. When we visited her, she made a comment that seemed odd at first: “I won't stand for my teachers assigning books over and over with narrators who are minority kids living in the city,” she said. This was a surprise. She was passionate about the lives of urban and minority kids. She called developing minority scholars her family business. (Her mother had been the first Black school administrator in a major city.) What was she doing advocating for fewer protagonists who were instantly accessible to her students? She went on: “They know that world already. They live it every day. One or two books like that a year is enough. Then they need to read about the rest of the world. They need to read about protagonists who lived in Germany during the Holocaust. They need to read science fiction, just like other kids. They need to see themselves in the worlds of powerful narrators, not just disempowered ones. They need to read Greek myths.” Later that day, we observed her teaching a model lesson for her teachers. Her eighth graders were reading The Great Gatsby” (Pages 50 - 51).
“Alex wanted students to experience at least some of their texts each year in chronological order so that students could understand the historical context of each book—how it was developing or rejecting what came before” (Page 54).
My comment: An argument for matching the literacy book with cultural studies if it’s possible.
“Close Reading is the methodical breaking down of the language and structure of a complex passage to establish and analyze its meaning. Teaching students to do it requires layered reading and asking sequenced, text-dependent questions; and it should end whenever possible with mastery expressed through writing of a complex passage… Close Reading is a set of tools for unlocking complex texts. Challenge is a part of the formula. If the text being read closely isn't difficult, a primary rationale is missing. There is no reason to methodically break down an easy text, and trying will likely leave the endeavor appearing to be without value. The proof lies in the flash of insight gleaned from what once seemed a thicket of words, impenetrable like brambles” (Page 61).
“For example, take Colleen's Grapes of Wrath lesson. She used a line-by-line read after her contiguous read. Here are her notes on the beginning of the passage: Read: “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.” Questions: Last rains: What does this mean? Are the rains probably a good thing/ bad thing? “They did not cut the scarred earth.” Who or what is “they”? What does it mean that the rains did not “cut the scarred earth”? Why does Steinbeck describe the earth as scarred? Read: “The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks.” Questions: If a rivulet is a small stream, what might a rivulet mark be? What does the author show is not there? By the way, who's driving the plows? In other words, what's the hidden subject of this sentence? We will come back to this at the end of the passage, but for now think: Why would the author leave out the people driving the plows? Colleen didn't stop after every single line the whole way through as she does in this short segment, though you could if you wanted to. The idea here is to show that a text builds up meaning in intentional ways—ways that require focus and attention at the micro level. In a way, this is learning to read in a whole new way—learning to read deeply and attentively as if for the first time” (Page 66 - 67).
My comment: This is a great example that shows the level of focus that is needed to do close reading, and accordingly improve one’s reading. But now kids can get so distracted by technology that it would be difficult for many to read text like this and wrestle with the meaning-making questions. A student can be tempted to give up on making meaning out of the text, but the chances of giving up increase dramatically when a student has a phone that is readily available as well as a computer. The student could go by default to social media or YouTube instead of working to understand with very different brain waves required in contrast to the short attention span brain waves on social media and other silly things on devices.
“Although the process of asking TDQs can include questioning, writing, and discussion in a variety of combinations, the last part must focus on writing—on taking the analysis and hammering it into a clear argument. Not only is writing the format that will be required of students in college—and not only is writing an idea the most rigorous and demanding way to express it—but (1) writing also requires every student to independently complete the analysis that synthesizes the lesson, and (2) writing makes thinking permanent; it allows teachers to assess effectively—to Check for Understanding” (Page 97).
“I would often backstop soloing by adding one or two questions for students to answer after annotating the line, as a sort of accountability check for students and a tool for me to gather data. For this line I might ask, “Who is the speaker? How do you know?” and “Summarize the line.” As students experienced success, I would ask them to solo with more complex lines, subsections, or sets of paired lines. The questions I asked scaled back in explicitness as well. Oftentimes it would simply be “What do you make of this line?” or “Why is this important?” In their answers, students began to sort of Close Read aloud, explicating the meaning of a line in the course of their analysis. As students grew increasingly confident (and accurate), they began to identify lines worthy of Close Reading themselves and cultivated engaging, text-based discussions with less and less intervention from me” (Pages 110 - 111).
My comment: Good guidance and questions for your A-level book reading
“One reason why the fact that nonfiction texts both build and rely on background knowledge is so critical for teachers to consider is the tendency for its effects to compound over time. In reading, the more you know, the more you learn. Educators often refer to this as the Matthew Effect, in reference to a line in the Bible that details the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. In reading, it means that when you know a little about a topic going in, the text adds more knowledge and detail to your framework—easily and naturally deepening your understanding and building connections to existing knowledge while still leaving you enough processing capacity to be able to reflect on the nature of the ideas in the text” (Page 117).
“Research bears this out. Cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham notes that a student's background knowledge is among the strongest factors predicting his or her reading comprehension. As he wrote recently in his blog, “Once kids are fluent decoders, much of the difference among readers is not due to whether [they're] a ‘good reader’ or ‘bad reader’ (meaning [they] have good or bad reading skills). Much of the difference among readers is due to how wide a range of knowledge they have. If you hand me a reading test and the text is on a subject I happen to know a bit about, I'll do better than if it happens to be on a subject I know nothing about. Every passage that you read omits information,” Willingham writes. “All of this omitted information must be brought to the text by the reader. Otherwise the passage will be puzzling, or only partly understood.” And of course this is particularly obvious with passages about baseball, but it's just as true of passages about kangaroo rats in the deserts or about life in Colonial times or even Tuck Everlasting. Teachers often refer to the process of figuring out what's left unsaid as making inferences. We see colleagues practicing this “skill” to help students get good at it. But no amount of inferencing practice—no amount of asking students to combine what they know with a conjecture about what they don't—would have helped those high readers without baseball knowledge as they sought to grasp what they did not know was missing. In fact, as we will discuss in a moment, it may be that inferencing is not a skill. If it is, it is a skill that is also predicated on students having knowledge to enable it to take place” (Page 118).
My comment: Good argument for providing background knowledge as a corrective/scaffold
“But as important as reading more nonfiction is reading nonfiction more effectively—in a way that unlocks knowledge and increases engagement and appreciation. Fortunately, part of the solution involves the synergy between reading nonfiction and fiction. One simple change to increase absorption rate is to change what we read when. For example, teachers are often encouraged to teach nonfiction in isolation. In English or reading classes, that might mean a separate, stand-alone unit on nonfiction in which students read a series of articles, one after the other, studying their text features and structural elements. What do captions do? What are subheadings? The problem with this approach is that they cause students to encounter nonfiction texts devoid of context. One day it's an article about the naked mole rat, and the next it's another article with similar structural features, but this time about the American Revolution. The result is a situation where absorption rate is likely to be lowest—engagement too, possibly” (Page 121).
“If a person gathers more knowledge on a given topic when he or she knows more about it, then students will absorb more when they read their third article about topics related to desert ecosystems, for example. So it can often be useful to have students read multiple texts on a topic so that their reading will result in a crescendo of knowledge absorption. Or, even better, to have them read an article that gives context to or elaborates on ideas from a novel in which they are deeply engaged. If you are reading My Brother Sam Is Dead and encounter an article on the armaments used in the Revolution, you have more context to help you absorb the information—how heavy the rifles were, for example. And you have more motivation too. The article helps you understand Tim, whom presumably students have come to care about. We call this idea embedding nonfiction , and we will come back to it in a moment” (Page 121).
My comment: My comment: This is exactly what my A-level book reading idea does, which combines cultural studies and literacy. And it also has the added benefit of giving students time to read whole books which this book recommended. And it makes it workable in the classroom without students and parents complaining that it is too hard and gives homework because it’s just for A-level work. The others who do not have the will can just do the basic B-level work.
“Embedding nonfiction is the process of pairing secondary nonfiction texts (often NNNF) with a primary text in an intentional and strategic way. When it comes to embedding texts, there are two main categories: inside-the-bull's-eye secondary texts containing content necessary to support basic understanding of the primary text; outside-the-bull's-eye texts causing students to look at the primary text in a new and unexpected or more rigorous way. They deepen and expand rather than support meaning” (Page 122).
My comment: I am doing this with my correctives/scaffolds and enrichments. The enrichments are the A-level books that give a richer understanding of the cultural studies unit and the book itself and the literacy unit genre (outside the bullseye). The B-level correctives can provide background knowledge that provides the needed knowledge to attain a sufficient understanding of the text (inside the bullseye).
“The fact that the students had started the novel—and knew something about the setting in which they would be applying what they learned from the secondary text—made that learning stick more. Colleen's students already knew Lily, so what she was living through seemed more real to them—it mattered to them. The inferential leaps the novel required were still there, but the lengths were more achievable. Because of their nonfiction reading, the book was a richer experience and students could infer independently without Colleen's support; she didn't need to fill in the knowledge gaps” (Page 124).
My Comment: And I will have written assignments with questions to ensure that the students are doing and understanding the reading. And checking their answers will help me understand if they are fully understanding, making appropriate inferences, and if additional background knowledge and clarification is needed.
“But something else happened that surprised Colleen even more. She found that while the background article was helping her students better read the novel, having started the novel was in turn helping her students absorb more of the secondary nonfiction passage. Students got more out of the secondary text when they could apply it to people they were interested in and felt a connection to—even if they were fictional characters. Students realized that these events really affected the lives of people during World War II—they weren't just mundane, isolated facts in an article. They were parts of the experience of a “real” person like Lily. Reading some of the fiction first, then reading nonfiction, greatly increased their absorption rate of the nonfiction article” (Page 124).
My Comment: This is one of the reasons why it would be good for the A-level students to read their books throughout the unit while we are completing B-level assignments. The B level assignments are interspersed throughout and when the A-level students finish a B-level assignment, they can then read their book while the other students continue to work on their B-level assignment. This also helps to keep the class together and not have two separate classes and it allows the teacher to teach the whole class at once and put students of differing levels to work together in groups.
“Not only were the two texts on World War II (the novel and the article) mutually beneficial, but there was also synergy specifically in the difference of the genres. The connection to characters from the novel made the facts in the secondary text real; the facts from the nonfiction helped students understand the situations the characters encountered in the primary text. Reading across genres on the same topic created additional value” (Pages 124 - 125).
My Comment: This shows the value in providing these cross-disciplinary connections for the whole class and not just the A-level students with their book assignments. I am doing this with my current units of literacy: drama and cultural studies: Enlightenment by reading, viewing, and analyzing a section of the play: Hamilton (the three sections - the women talking about the revolution, the debate between Hamilton and the British loyalist, and King George’s break up speech)
“Colleen found an article from Smithsonian magazine describing research into male elephants—specifically, how younger male elephants learn their social behaviors by watching and modeling slightly older peers. This of course is a constant element in the story of The Outsiders, though students likely would not realize it without a bit of prompting. The article, Colleen realized, could do that. She read the article and asked questions that caused students to understand the author's interest in the hierarchy of male elephants in the wild. She then asked her classes to apply terms like hierarchy to The Outsiders as well—to find evidence that the social structures of the Greasers and Socs weren't necessarily unique to humans but were actually similar to those of the rest of the animal kingdom. In the end, the embedded text ended up performing a function different from what we usually ask it to do: instead of trying to make the unfamiliar familiar, it made the familiar more rigorous. It forced students to see interactions in the novel as part of the systems of behavior common to all social beings. They read much of the book through that framework, studying its hierarchies and using scientific descriptions of them to explain in a new way what was familiar. While reading about elephants certainly built background knowledge, it also elevated the rigor of the lesson, as one of Colleen's post reading questions revealed: “How are the social structures of the Greasers similar to those of the bull elephants? Be sure to include their typical interactions and a description of their actions before and after the ‘showdown.’” Not only that, but it probably gave her students a useful glimpse into the “why” behind scientific studies. Why would someone spend their days on the African savannah studying how elephants get along? Because it helps us see how people are like or unlike the rest of the natural world. And of course there was an additional benefit to Colleen's choice of the elephants article: they could use their newfound understanding of hierarchies not only to understand the characters in The Outsiders but also to discuss almost any text, which in fact they did as the read other novels throughout the year” (Pages 126 - 127).
“In another lesson, we observed Patrick embed an outside-the-bull's-eye secondary nonfiction text with his sixth-grade students as they read the novel The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. The novel itself, a mystery in which sixteen heirs are challenged to figure out the circumstances of the death of a newly deceased millionaire in order to win his fortune, did not pose a significant challenge for his students to comprehend. So Patrick embedded nonfiction that caused students to read the novel with a more rigorous lens. For homework, Patrick assigned an article from a psychology manual describing “histrionic personality disorder.” In class, Patrick asked his students several questions to ensure general understanding of the psychiatric disorder (for example, “What are the symptoms of histrionic personality disorder?” “How is it treated?”). Then Patrick turned the conversation back to the novel: “What heir from our book would most likely be diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder?” The question was simple but significant. It wasn't necessary for basic understanding of the novel, but it deepened students' understanding of the characters (especially Sydelle Pulaski, the character they decided would most likely be diagnosed with the disorder) by providing a lens for character analysis. In order to answer the question, students had to provide multiple pieces of evidence about Sydelle's actions and words to support their “diagnosis.” Was she just strange, or did she have a psychological condition? Never, perhaps, had sixth graders read so enthusiastically the pages of a dry psychology manual, absorbing as they did so the unique style and conventions of the sort of social science text they would be required to read again and again in college. Patrick broadened his students' knowledge base dramatically and, what's more, modeled for them new ways to think about analyzing characters in texts. Perhaps this was the first time they had considered that a person's actions could be the result not so much of their being “strange” but of mental illness. This, like Colleen's introduction of the idea of hierarchy, was a framework they could apply to text after text” (Page 130).
“Another opportunity to embed nonfiction is by reading it aloud. We all know that having a parent read aloud from an early age allows some students to assimilate knowledge very efficiently when they become readers. Nonfiction has a different rhythm, or cadence, than fiction. Students need to hear this aloud to be able to “hear it” when reading silently. While we often think of reading aloud as the sole purview of elementary school teachers (and as appropriate only for fiction), it can be a highly effective way to model nonfiction reading—not to mention accelerate the absorption of contextualizing background knowledge” (Pages 140 - 141).
“Again, we can increase absorption rate by reading nonfiction texts not in isolation but alongside primary texts or “grouped” in bunches—for example, three articles in a row on desert ecosystems with the understanding that by the third article on the topic, students will be absorbing at a faster rate than they were when reading the first article or articles on a variety of topics” (Page 141).
“Because Stop and Jots are quick, teachers can embed several into their daily plans. With regular practice, students are socialized to pause and reflect intentionally about the text in writing. They develop more refined ideas. Students begin to see themselves as active participants in the process of comprehension—a process that relies on writing and thinking, rather than something their teacher does for them. The simplicity of the Stop and Jot is also an important attribute. What you do every day is arguably more important than what you do on your most artfully planned day. Stop and Jots make it easy to build the constant habit of thinking in writing about the text” (Pages 167 - 168).
My Comment: This can also be a good way to gauge student understanding and differentiate - or offer as B-level assessment. Those complete can move on to their A-level assignment and those who didn’t get it can work more on revising and working with the teacher and correctives.
“Because the purpose of Stop and Jots is to use writing as a tool to think, it's important to communicate to students that the standards of quality might be different than those for other types of writing they'll do in class. You might explain, “During a Stop and Jot, your goal is to make sense of the text; pausing to write will help you do that. Grammar and spelling are important, but not as important as getting your ideas on paper. Sometimes I'll ask you to go back and make edits, but most of the time we'll get right back to the reading so we can do more polished writing later in class” (Page 168).
“In most cases, writings used to “think on paper” are designed to be imperfect, often used as a means to an end. They are intended to prepare students for more analytical writing at another point in class—the crawling before the walking, so to speak. They also allow students to listen better during subsequent discussions, as their ideas are already written down and they don't have to try to remember them while their peers are talking. Thus, although the teachers we've observed often glance at them to assess where students are as they write, they don't usually collect them” (Pages 168 - 169).
“Stop and Jots versus Open Responses Both Stop and Jots and Open Responses are designed to be formative as well as evaluative. By prompting students to write about the text, both types implicitly require students to think more carefully about what they've read and to prepare for quality discussions. Teachers can use writing from either type as data about what students do and do not understand. However, Open Responses are typically more evaluative than their quick-write counterparts because they're designed to be polished and analytical. This allows teachers to check for a deeper level of understanding. Stop and Jots allow students to gather and note their initial thoughts—thoughts that will be helpful later in forming a more developed argument. When Stop and Jots are used as CFUs, they are generally for checking students' understanding of literal or basic comprehension of the text” (Page 171).
“The first student Jessica called on shared a thorough and accurate response. The quality of his work reflected the time Jessica had given the class to refine their thoughts in writing. In fact, it was good enough that most teachers would have ended with that successful response. Instead, Jessica called on a second student, asking her to “discuss, paraphrase, push it even further.” Her student did exactly that, drawing on and extending her classmate's initial response. The causes of this are worth considering. Almost assuredly, one cause was this: because her answer was written down, she did not have to try to remember it while her classmate was talking. She could listen and use her processing capacity to analyze and compare the two answers rather than remember her own” (Page 177).
“Show Call is a powerful tool that we think can help. It is, more or less, a Cold Call of a student's written work (see TLaC 2.0 for a full description of both Show Call and Cold Call) in which, after a round of student writing, you take the written response of one student (or a pair of students) and display it on a document camera for the class to view as a group. This approach also enables you to deeply and efficiently analyze a piece of student writing (and, we note, to celebrate it as well as engage the process of improving it). Students can make direct and specific comments about one another's work. You can mark up the displayed response for the whole class to view so that you can record the group's feedback or model a particular revision. It's also powerful tool for accountability. When students are aware that their work might be shared publicly, they're more attentive to the quality of the
work they're producing. Or the quality of their revisions, as you could just as easily Show Call those (as in, “Great, let's see what verb Jonathan chose to make stronger”).
For maximum accountability, try Show Calling students' work to show revisions they have made. It's a great opportunity to spotlight students' efforts to revise, and to illustrate how writing improves because of revision instructions you've given. When the teacher displays the revised work in a Show Call, the revision efforts become concrete, tangible, and subject to positive reinforcement. In some cases, you might exclusively talk about what's so excellent about a piece of writing. In this way, Show Call can quickly become positive. In many classrooms we know, students eagerly ask if it can be their turn to be Show Called that day” (Pages 184 - 185).
“You could also ask permission to read the work yourself, Or, you might Show Call a piece of work to describe the beauty of its construction point by point. Blazoning one student's work gives students the opportunity to learn from their peers' writing. It also sends the message that your classroom is a place where quality work and the celebration of others are valued. It's not necessary to read or Show Call an entire essay; choosing particularly well-written excerpts can be just as powerful. Many teachers display exemplary work written by students. Consider posting a note by the work that specifically points out what's strong about it. In doing so, you honor the work by showing you've taken the time to read it carefully; you also provide replicable ideas for other students to use in their own future writing” (Page 199).
“Other chapters in this book describe steps you can take to make sure students read better, more perceptively, and across all formats of text. Still, we should also remember that quality reading requires quantity reading. Students must read not only well but also widely and extensively” (Page 210).
“you should strive for the lowest possible transaction cost in making corrections. Consider these two corrections of a student's decoding error: Teacher 1, student reading the word “inspection”: “You said in-SPEAK-tion. Can you go back to the beginning of the sentence and read that word again?” Teacher 2, student reading the word “inspection”: “In-SPEAK-tion?” Every extra word the first teacher says takes time and disrupts the flow of student concentration on the narrative. Thus every extra word potentially disrupts comprehension … If you used the second phrase to correct, you could make three or four interventions in the time you would spend on just one with the first phrase” (Page 234).
“So it's important not just to read to kids but to choose complex texts, often above the level that they can access independently. The power is in having them hear syntax that would be slightly beyond their reach and allowing them to more easily construct meaning out of it on their own … In The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease outlined how the vocabulary that students are exposed to in books is far superior to vocabulary heard in conversation” (Page 241).
“When students have the opportunity to encounter the words themselves, they have already been exposed to a preview (or several previews) of the word. Consequently, students know words before they read them for first time, and are then able to decode them more effectively (“ Oh! Exemplary! I know that word”), because they are familiar with the word and how it sounds when read aloud. When students initially struggle to decode a word and then that lightbulb goes off—“ Ex … ex-OAT … ex-AH … exotic!”—it is because they know these words to begin with. Decoding a word you don't know is a much more challenging task than decoding one that you already know. The best way for students to learn lots of words is to be frequently read aloud to from a variety of complex texts. Exposure to complex texts builds their vocabulary for the long haul— not to mention being highly synergistic with decoding and early success with reading” (Page 242).
“Reading aloud from articles and texts that enable students to experience a world beyond their own is an effective way to address the background knowledge challenge. Reading aloud from scientific articles and primary sources is a great way to build background knowledge, vocabulary, and exposure to other types of complex syntax so often missing from the texts that students read independently. You might specifically consider selecting texts for Read-Aloud (either entire books or excerpts or articles) that serve as a way of building background knowledge for your primary text. This may allow you to read a text that is too far above your students' reading level, but that has important information to help build the background knowledge they need to access other texts” (Pages 242 - 243).
My comment: I did this with having students read a primary source of their Enlightenment philosopher that went along with their Enlightenment philosopher research and in which they needed to incorporate analysis and quotes.
“Getting our students to love to read can oftentimes be as simple as choosing a text about which we or our students are passionate, and taking the small risk of showing some of that passion in our reading of it” (Page 246).
“The last step in any successful vocab lesson—active practice—is the most important. As Beck et al. discuss, we learn words by using them and seeing them, over and over, in different settings. Vocabulary instruction becomes most rigorous when it puts students in situations where they must apply their nascent knowledge of a word in challenging ways, or even problem-solve ways to use words in new settings. Further, as Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel point out in Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, rigorous recall—remembering and problem solving at the same time—builds strong and lasting memory. 7 Doubly so when active practice causes students to say and hear a word—and its correct pronunciation—multiple times. Triply so when it's intellectually challenging” (Page 264).
“To better ensure that a vocab word will be remembered and used in the future, give students a myriad of quick exposures after introducing it. For each Explicit Vocabulary lesson, plan five to seven quick questions (both verbal and written) that provide students with opportunities to interact with the word. It's not simply about exposure. Active practice should give students opportunities to practice mastering both meaning and usage” (Page 265).
My Comment: My comment: Creating passages with new vocabulary has become easier with ChatGPT. This is also helpful for your own language learning.
“Active Practice to Master Meaning Mastering meaning involves students using a word to illustrate its degree of meaning with fluidity, expertise, and a depth of understanding. There are four different ways you can ask students to practice mastering meaning, both verbally and in writing. You can ask students: When a word would (and would not) apply: “Would it be accurate to say that Aunt Alexandra is acting like a tyrant in this scene? Explain.” To combine multiple new words: “Could a tyrant ever be humble? Tell me why or why not.” To narrate the story: “Can a group ever exert tyranny over another group? How? Explain how a group of people in To Kill a Mockingbird make decisions that are tyrannical.” To define a change: “How is it different to state that Aunt Alexandra is being tyrannical as opposed to, say, bossy?”
Many teachers tend to have consistent types of questions and prompts for their students (for vocabulary and otherwise), so this list is helpful in starting to expand your repertoire in planning active practice questions. When we shared (and practiced!) these questions with teachers and leaders in a recent workshop, several teachers gave the feedback that this variety of questions has not only improved students' mastery of meaning but has also made vocabulary instruction more interesting and engaging for them as teachers. Active Practice to Master Usage Asking students to practice accurately helps prevent misapplication of words. To build positive new habits (and avoid the need to unlearn bad ones), it's a good idea to have students practice a variety of uses. There are two ways to do this: Change the form: “In its adjective form, we would say ‘tyrannical.’ Would Atticus agree that Aunt Alexandra is tyrannical?” Create a sentence with the word and/ or other parameters: “Write a sentence in which you describe Aunt Alexandra looking ‘obliquely’ at Scout. Be sure to describe what Scout has done to earn such a glance.” It's quite a common practice to ask students to create sentences with new words. Using additional parameters adds rigor and helps ensure that students are learning to use a word correctly” (Page 266).
Three Keys to Active Practice When practicing, be sure that students are accurately applying the word. It is not uncommon for an eager student to lose the meaning of a word in her earnest attempts to apply it wherever the definition seems to fit. Whether it's to master meaning or usage, there are three important keys to getting the most out of active practice.
Say the Word The first key is to ensure that students actually use the new word in their answers (you would be surprised by how often we forget this!). Instead of using a new word, students will often describe it. For example, if a teacher asks a student to describe a time when he feels sentimental, the student might answer, “when I look at photo albums of my baby brother when he was little.” That may demonstrate an understanding of the word's meaning, but unless the teacher urges the student to use the word in his sentence—“ Looking at photo albums of my baby brother makes me feel sentimental”—the student doesn't actually practice using the word, and isn't as likely to be able to use it again. Push for Precision The second key to active practice is ensuring that student answers illustrate their understanding of the word. When asked to use the word detest, for example, we often hear students say something like “I detest broccoli.” Without further explanation, it's not clear whether they truly know what it means to detest. In this case, push students a bit further to expand their sentences to illustrate the meaning of the word, as in “I detest broccoli because it's bitter.” To ensure that students have to rigorously apply a word and its definition, avoid obvious or mundane questions. Using simple fill-in-the-blank questions or asking questions that require students only to use the word to describe their own experiences can have two negative outcomes. First, the degree of the word may not match the context or shade of meaning (for example, “I was irate when my sister got ice cream before I did”) because students have grown accustomed to a simple fill-in-the blank formula.
Second, students may generate a surface level of understanding of a word (“ I adore my teddy bear”) without understanding its deeper meanings or connotations. To avoid these outcomes, provide prompts that support students' precise use of the word (for example, “Write a sentence about why a mouse would likely despise a snake” rather than “Write a sentence using despise”) or that require combining similar words with slightly different meanings (for example, “Write a sentence in which you describe something you dislike and something you detest.”). Asking rigorous application questions increases the quality of student practice, as it is important, however, to choose a basic sequence and use it consistently. The predictability of the format of your daily vocabulary rollout will both maximize your instructional time and increase student ownership. You'll spend less time explaining what to do and how to do it. Habits lead to efficiency and, in this case, optimizing the focus on studying words” (Pages 267 - 268).
“Define the word and give its part of speech (30 seconds to 1 minute). Give a familiar example (30 seconds to 1 minute). Give a picture/ and or a motion (30 seconds to 1 minute). Describe parameters of use (common use, word partners, other forms, similar to/ different from) (1–2 minutes). Engage in active practice: six to eight practice questions in which students use the word both verbally and in writing (4 minutes)” (Page 269).
“At a certain point, the legwork of defining difficult terms needs to shift from the teacher to the student. When college rolls around, nobody will be sitting with your students, making sure they've understood all the new words they encounter in the text they've been assigned to read. For this reason, implicit instruction—whereby students take on much of the work of learning new words—is especially important. As much as possible, but especially in the older grades, students should begin to take responsibility for tracking the vocabulary words they come across during the course of reading. To best prepare students for independent word study, teach strategies that they can use beyond the classroom. Here's one possible plan. Each night for homework, students Write a quick description of the context in which they encountered the word. Write a new example sentence that includes and demonstrates the meaning of the word” (Page 280).
My Comment: My comment: Good for A level reading students who are doing the assigned independent reading. Just assign them to find some unknown vocabulary as they read and then do certain exercises with the vocab like which were described in 3 and 4.
“Implicit in this approach is another technique from Teach Like a Champion 2.0, Tracking, Not Watching. The idea is that rather than circulating while students are reading to check for basic engagement and follow-through—Are they concentrating and reading?—you are able with IR to go a step beyond and check for specific and important academic actions: for example, a teacher might ask students to “star” lines of dialogue that suggest rising tension between two characters or to circle verbs that contribute to the mood. Their success in doing that tells you not just whether they are busy but whether they are mastering ideas. The great basketball coach John Wooden once advised teachers, “Never mistake activity for achievement.” Busy, in short, is not enough. Tracking student completion of specific IR tasks let you look not just for activity but for achievement and possibly even make informed decisions about how best to adjust instruction. Did they spot the clues that tension was rising? To support comprehension, a teacher might decide to reteach or reread a section with the class or particular individuals, or ask fewer, more, or different questions after reading. She might ask students to circle words they didn't know and derive her vocabulary list from that information. When students interact repeatedly with a text, in short, and make their thinking visible, then teachers can monitor the reading process more efficiently. Discussion, writing, and comprehension are all better off for it. In the next module, we'll look at the main ways teachers can implement IR in a classroom” (Page 293).
“No matter what form of Reader's Response journals you use, or indeed whether you use them at all, the key is having a consistent place for your students to practice writing. That way, when you ask them to respond to any writing prompt, they already know what to do and how. Taking out their journal and getting stared is a matter of habit. They can be writing within seconds. Every additional second of efficiency in beginning or ending the writing is another second for thinking independently in writing. Keeping a record of written responses in one place also communicates a sense of permanence, which correlates positively with both quality of responses and cementing of ideas. This record of insights is powerful for students. Looking back at all of their reflections during the reading of a novel lets students see how they've changed since its beginning, how their understanding has deepened over the course of reading an entire work, and how they've progressed as readers and writers. It also provides a record of how they've applied one or more frameworks. Journals That Support Greater Autonomy We've described the benefits of writing in consistent and permanent places in fostering autonomy. Reader's Response journals are one way to do that, but there are plenty of other ways to write that allow students to build consistent habits and record their reflections efficiently in one place. Because so many of them build an archive of ideas and thinking, they are especially useful in supporting students' autonomy. Here are a few of the most useful types: Double-entry quotation journals. In double-entry quotation journals, students analyze powerful quotes, selected by the teacher, from the texts they read. This prepares them to assemble evidence as they write papers. Students can be taught to analyze by making inferences, connections, and judgments. Common-place journals. In common-place journals, students gather quotations from the reading that are important or fascinating, and reflect on them. This can support students in the transition from answering teacher questions (“ Find quotes or evidence to prove X”) to framing their own questions (“ This quote from the text struck me as important. Why did the author choose this dialogue to develop his characterization of the protagonist?”). This type of journal is similar to the double-entry journal, but supports even greater autonomy because the quotes analyzed in it are determined entirely by individual students. Essential question trackers. In essential question trackers, students keep a handout with the novel unit or yearlong essential question. While reading, students should record quotes and observations that apply to the essential question. This helps them make connections across scenes and books and draw together the threads of a larger argument. Hypothesis tracker. As students develop more autonomy, you can ask them to formulate their own hypothesis about a book instead of giving them an essential question. This allows students to start tracing an idea when it's still unformed” (Page 351).
“As they read, they test, adapt, and develop their hypothesis. For example, a student reading the first page of Lord of the Flies might notice the creeping vines and broken trees and recall that this is similar to the way the Garden of Eden is described in the book of Genesis. They might hypothesize that biblical allusions will recur throughout the book to develop a theme. In the course of reading, they'd look for more of these images (“ I've seen this image, and now I'm going to look for similar images”) with the understanding that their ideas and understandings will change as they read. Theme or motif trackers. Students can also keep journals that track evidence of specific themes or motifs. At Uncommon Schools' North Star Academy, seventh-grade teachers will name for students some of the themes of the novel they are about to read, and then have the students identify moments in the text when those themes become evident. By eighth grade, students identify the themes on their own as they read, and annotate (and record) excerpts that reveal the theme they've selected. Similarly, students might use this type of journal to trace a motif, key image, or idea that recurs throughout a text. During a recent campus visit, a professor gave advice to a group of Uncommon Schools students on preparing for college English classes. He explained that developing a piece of writing over a long period of time and refining that writing diligently is key to developing as critical thinkers. Formulating a unique and complex argument and developing it over time, he said, have more impact than completing a high volume of less reflective writing. Students' journals can support this type of thinking and writing—both of which will be important for their college success. The last element of autonomy relates to discussion. We'll look at this topic in the last module” (Pages 354 - 355).
“Of course, you don't always have to set regimented times to give feedback. In one of Mike Taubman's senior English classes at Northstar Academy, for example, he said almost nothing. His students were doing all the talking. They were having a “college-style seminar” on King Lear. The expectation was that they would talk to each other about the text using evidence and strong arguments and that they would focus on developing one another's ideas. He evaluated their discipline, focus, insight, and evidence, and used a specific rubric (one developed by Uncommon Schools' Matthew McCluskey, Sean Gavin, Laura Palumbo, and Rose Bierce) for scoring their comments. (See “College-Style Seminar: Grading Scale.”) College-Style Seminar: Grading Scale A comment earns a … 10% if a student offers an idea without evidence. 20% if a student offers a new idea too soon and analyzes evidence to support the idea. 30% if a student responds to a peer's idea by analyzing new evidence. 40% if a student responds to a peer's idea by providing an alternative analysis of the peer's original evidence OR offers an idea with supporting evidence after the previous idea has been discussed three times. 50% if a student leads the discussion using one of the moves previously reviewed and supports his or her move with analysis of evidence. Students need to make at least two comments in the discussion. Students will get two grades for the discussion: their own individual grade and the overall class average. During the discussion, Mike never gave his opinion about Lear. He gave students feedback on their discussion to help them stay “inside the box.” “Here's what Tanesha just did,” he said at one point. “She took two potentially opposing definitions of the idea of truth from the text, and she asked us to
define truth or clarify which one we were talking about. That's an outstanding move. So… what's the answer to her question?” (Page 361).
“Entry Tickets You're probably familiar with Exit Tickets, but one of Doug's English professors in college required every student to complete an entry ticket before class. Students were asked to write a short reflection on the assigned reading—something they'd observed as particularly interesting—and to end it with a question for potential discussion. At the beginning of class, the professor would choose one or two to discuss during class. A classmate once noticed the prevalence of questionable medicinal practices in a given reading (Doug thinks it might have been a Ben Jonson play, but his memory is hazy at best), which prompted a discussion on the topic that was so interesting that Doug ultimately chose that as the topic for one of his papers” (Page 362).
“Through entry tickets, Doug's professor modeled asking students to identify topics that were “worthy of further analysis” and to support their thinking. This application of entry tickets could be used or adapted for middle and high school students. To ensure quality questions, the first few lessons might involve reading and studying examples of just the questions students had written, with a reflection on how to write them well (and probably lots of revision). Then the first few questions you pick for actual discussion might be exemplars of question quality, which you might analyze explicitly with the class before engaging the discussion. Explaining to the class why you chose certain topics or questions over others also helps them understand what kinds of observations are worthy of deeper analysis” (Page 363).
“Sample Vocabulary Rollout Script A note to school leaders: We recommend using a script such as the one here (or one of your own creation) and modeling this rollout live with your teachers as though they were your students. Seeing the vocabulary rollout in action and experiencing it as though they are your students will help teachers understand how to apply this in their own classroom. We also recommend that teachers draft their own rollouts, practice the rollouts with their peers, get feedback on their practice, and then practice again incorporating the feedback. Practicing these techniques is the best way to ensure that teachers bring them effectively into the classroom. Step 1: Select Word: Gullible Step 2: Provide Accurate and Student-Friendly Definition Say: Today's word is gullible . Everyone, say gullible . When you are gullible, it means that you are easily tricked and that you should probably know better. Jot that down in your notes. Model use: So let me give you an example: On a warm, sunny day in the middle of May, my gullible sister believed me when I told her that I had just seen the weather forecast and that it was going to snow that afternoon. Ask: Why is this something that a gullible person would believe? Ask: When I informed my sister of this weather prediction, she gullibly said, “Oh really? I had better get my boots out of the attic.” How would a person who is not gullible have reacted? Use a visual (you may opt to move this step to follow “Supply other forms”): In this picture, the fortune teller is taking advantage of the man's gullibility. In one sentence in your notes [or taking hands/ in discussion], explain why this man may be described as gullible. Be sure to use the word gullible , gullibility , or gullibly in your sentence. Act it out (optional): Show me what your face might look like if you were gullible and I told you that you had just won an outrageous fortune in the lottery. Show me what your face would look like if you were not gullible and I told you that; say, “I am not that gullible.” (Pages 375 - 377).
“Step 3: Describe Parameters of Use Supply other forms: Gullible has several forms. Its adjective form is gullible , and it is often used to describe a person who is easily tricked. You might say that “the gullible man believed everything that the fortune teller said” or that “the man is very gullible because he believed everything she said.” To use it as an adverb, you would use gullibly , as in “He gullibly believed everything the woman told him about his future.” And if you want to use it to as a noun, you might use a possessive pronoun—for example, “His gullibility led him to believe everything she said.” Give example: Because of my sister's gullibility, my father is very cautious about the friends that she hangs out with. Ask: Why would my father be cautious about my gullible sister's friends? Offer similar to/ different from comparison: Gullible is similar to trusting because both describe people who easily believe the words or actions of others. BUT trusting describes someone who is likely to trust, have confidence in, or rely on others (believe in the “goodness” of people); gullible suggests that the person believes others without thinking about whether their words or actions make sense—the person accepts information that is not logical. Ask: One of these words has a more negative connotation: gullible or trusting. Which one? Step 4: Engage in Active Practice Ask: Is a two-year-old child who believes in the Easter Bunny trusting or gullible? Why? Ask: Think of another example of someone who is trusting but not gullible. Turn and Talk with a partner. Ask: In your notes, jot down some of the consequences of being gullible. When people act gullibly, how might they feel afterwards? Why? Explain using this sentence starter: “After acting gullibly, one might feel …” (Page 377).
“Ask: (pick one or two of these; italicized words are review) Which character in our novel could be described as gullible? Why? Give one example of his or her gullibility. What is something that a gullible person might be persuaded to do or believe? Is an oblivious person more or less likely to be gullible than others? Why? How might someone intimidate a gullible person? Is it difficult or easy to boast to a gullible person? Why?” (Page 378).