Week 7

Chapter 10 (Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection) of Strategies that Work:

The "big idea" of Chapter 10 really revolves around determining important parts of text, and how to go about doing so. Harvey and Goudvis mention that as teachers we often tell students to highlight the key ideas in a passage, but we never/rarely teach them how to find the key ideas! Immediately after reading that sentence, I thought back to my elementary and middle school days. My teachers would tell us what we should highlight, but they would not tell us why they chose that sentence/phrase. I have not encountered this in my placement classroom yet, but we are just now slowly getting into reading non-fiction for Social Studies. The chapter mentions pointing out to students that bolded, italicized, boxed, and different colored text often include important ideas; the writer of the piece is begging you to pay attention to that section! It is also important not only to highlight or underline the important ideas that the writer wants you to notice, but take notes or sketch a picture next to that important information: why do you think that idea is important, what were you thinking when you highlighted this section, make connections to other ideas?

Chapter 12 (Content Literacy: Reading for Understanding in Social Studies and Science) of Strategies that Work (STW):

The first big idea that caught my eye in this chapter is that in order to have more time spent on Social Studies and Science in the classroom, we MUST use it as content of literacy lessons. STW quotes a study done in 2006 that states, "Literacy clocked in at 750 minutes per week, math at 300 minutes per week, and science at sixty-five minutes per week." This fact broke my heart as a Social Studies major, it isn't even included in the study because the amount of time spent on the subject is so short. The chapter discusses how using these content areas within literacy would "spur curiosity" and "spark exploration." I could not agree more. It is extremely frustrating to me that Language Arts time in my classroom is dominated with fiction books instead of including rich, interesting pieces of nonfiction. Using these content texts would encourage thoughtful, higher levels of thinking. Literacy should be focused on reading to learn in order to promote in depth thinking and learning. Many of my students enjoy reading Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Series of Unfortunate Events, etc. but these texts hardly take a serious effort in terms of higher thinking. With non-fiction Social Studies and Science texts, students would be forced/encouraged to ask authentic questions, investigate their findings, and use many aspects of literacy to expand their knowledge base.

Poetry as a Bridge to Authentic Questions

When reading over the difference between authentic and assessment questions it’s easy to see that assessment ones are more prominent within many classrooms. Authentic questions prompt thinking and challenge us as individuals. As a teacher it’s hard to ask questions that we don’t necessarily know the answer to. With this being said when looking through the different strategies poetry seemed to be the perfect outlet to encourage authentic questions. Everyone reads and responds to poetry differently so it’s a perfect place to start in challenging students thinking. On pg 119 in Strategies that Work it gives an example poem that a teacher used to take students questions and guide them to inferential thinking. In the strategy example students questions ranged from vocabulary to themes to abstract thinking. This got me thinking…. How come poetry can challenge students’ to think outside the box? And why is this automatically what we (or at least I did) think of when we want to encourage students to ponder and question beyond the text?

To respond to these questions I would first look at students’ as a whole class and then begin to focus in on specific students. Many times there’s a clear divide between students loving and hating poetry with very few in the middle. I think this is because it isn’t something that they’ve had a lot of experience with and is somewhat uncharted territory. I think that to get students’ to be able to answer and eventually ask their own authentic questions they need to be shown how and not let an easy way out. They need to become comfortable with there not necessarily being a right or wrong answer and is why some love or hate poetry as a whole. Poetry can be interpreted and analyzed in numerous ways regardless of what the author wanted to portray. I think sometimes teachers overlook using poetry as a model for this thinking because they underestimate students’ ability to think critically.

As previously stated it is the easy way out to only ask questions that students can give a yes, no, or specific answer for. Students aren’t necessarily ready or have precious experience with authentic questions and if introduced to would need time to become better acquainted with. In the long run using these types of questions benefits the students because they get to not only challenge their own thinking but others as well. It allows for deeper connections to form and develop into understanding. While I think poetry would be a good place to start and introduce students to authentic questioning it’s something that could definitely be branched out into different forms of literacy and can bring forth meaningful discussions.

Assessments

I found myself connecting with a large amount of the assessment sites discussed within Book Club Plus. I have found these different assessments occurring frequently within my classroom. There were three main assessment sites I found myself connecting with the most in regards to my classroom. They were Reading Logs, from the idea of students being able to write and communicate ideas. Secondly, Guided reading groups, which focuses on reading in which students can make meaning from a variety of texts. Lastly, the assessment speedwriting is something that occurs within my classroom which focuses on students being able to write for different purposes and audiences.

To start off with, reading logs are an assessment that goes on in my classroom on a weekly basis. Students are expected to read 150 minutes from Monday to Monday of each week. Along with reading 150 minutes they also must answer comprehension questions to go along with their reading and are given guiding questions on the back of their reading log sheet. This stays consistent throughout the entire year, students are expected to complete this log each week as well as have it signed by a parent. Failure to do so results in staying in during recess as well as having to complete it along with the new one for the week. I find the reading log to be very important for some children because otherwise they simply would not read. It is important for the students to be held accountable to read each week no matter what. In regards to being a helpful assessment of my student’s literacy learning, I do not seeing it being incredibly beneficial and telling very much about my students. Students are only expected to write one sentence for each of the guided questions that go along with the book or books they are reading during that week’ s reading log. I do not find there to be much information I can take away or assess from these logs other than if a student is reading or not, what they are reading and a little bit on the side of if they are understanding what they are reading, Overall I think it is a very critical weekly routine, but as far as being a very beneficial tool for assessing, I do not believe it is that strong of an assessment.

Secondly, guided reading groups are another type of assessment that occurs in my classroom. This is an important part of reading workshop and something that happens on a daily basis. Each guided reading group is given a different book they are to read as well as worksheets, questions and writing prompts to work on while reading the book. We have not gotten very far into guided reading groups but I believe as it progresses it will be an incredible assessment tool for students’ literacy learning. This is a much more focuses and individualized way of assessing students progress in the specific aspect of literacy we are having them focus in on and working on in their reading group. I feel that this smaller group atmosphere and each group working on what they need specifically to better their literacy learning is a very efficient and productive form of literacy assessment. I look forward to see how guided reading groups progress throughout the year and how I am able to see growth in my students in the many different areas they are focusing on through these groups.

Lastly, speed writing is the other assessment tool I have experienced in my classroom. I believe it to be very beneficial as well in some aspects. It can be a great tool to see what students are able to write on the spot without a prompt or large amount of time to form thoughts and ideas. This is a way for the teacher to see what students need significant help and practice with their writing. Although quick writes do not necessarily focus on development of stories, details and focusing in on events, I believe it is a good assessment to see easily what students need more writing experience and practice. Although it does not weed out good writers and bad writers, it does allow the teacher/reader to see how easy it is for a student to be able to write for different purposes. This is a practiced skill and something that is easily accessed through speed writing. Therefore I believe it is a beneficial assessment for looking at student written work.