In Chapter 6 Tovani talks about setting a very specific purpose for instruction and outcomes. How do you do this with your students? What role does purpose take in your planning and teaching of lessons? How do you determine purpose?
In Chapter 7 Tovani talks about holding one's thinking. What are some strategies you have used to "hold" the thinking of your students?
With the way DGR is organized, it helps me set the purpose for the text we are reading. It lays out which standard we are supposed to be teaching. Before we start a lesson, I usually share with my students what our focus is. I do find though, that as we read, I tend to drift into other strategies/purposes, and I guess I need to be aware when that happens and try to stay focused. When students are to respond about their own reading, I try to have them read before they start to respond, in the hopes that I have set the purpose for that block of reading time.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed some of the strategies that Tovani shares about holding the thinking. I pretty much use the standard strategies that she mentioned in the beginning - whiteboard for whole class texts, and journals and the occasional sticky note for independent responses. When students can mark a text or fill in the speech bubbles, I find that their responses are much more thoughtful and faster for me to access. Again, it takes me back to this continous thought I have after each reading and class - that you can do more with less. This year I have been striving to find smaller text samples so we can go deeper into reading them. This chapter was a reinforcement of that.
I am a huge fan of sticky notes. I use them often in Language Arts class so students can interact with text. I have used them to hold thinking and to save places for writing that touches them in some way. I have also used double –entry journals in similar fashion. My Language Arts lessons are clear with clear purposes (What can we infer about setting? What characteristics do you find in the protagonist etc.) I have no problem modeling these strategies in this setting.
ReplyDeleteI started questioning my teaching reading in Social Studies. I realize I do not use these same strategies that would work so well for this content. I realize that I so often think students will not comprehend text that I don’t trust them to read independently. How much more powerful learning would be if I set a purpose and showed them how to think through the text, holding knowledge, having them asking questions. I am excited to try some of these strategies with my Social Studies classes.
In my reading intervention class, I start by asking them if they know why they are here. Most say “because I don’t read well”. I go through and explain to them that they have a goal in their IEP’s and most of the time I have to explain to them what that means as well. We discuss the goal and then after a few sessions of reading together we go over their goal again and then together we discuss if they think that is a reasonable goal, then we tweak it if necessary. They need to buy into the whole program and see their success. If they do not they will become flat and unproductive. Corrective Reading is a direct instruction phonics program that promotes word and sound recognition, involves student repetition of words in a “call and response” format, and requires the teacher to follow a scripted lesson plan. The whole idea of these scripted lessons goes against the very nature of myself as a teacher. I tend to take a more organic approach to my teaching
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, when I’m teaching my math intervention class we discuss why they are there and set daily or weekly goals on what we are going to accomplish. In the math class, how they do on skills drives my planning for the class. I am constantly reviewing basic skills with them, trying to move that information form short term memory to long term memory.
I set purpose by naming the skill we will be working on. As a class, we discuss, brainstorm, read about, and demonstrate uses of that skill. If the skill of the day is organization, we might first decide what "organization" actually means. What can be organized? How? The outcome of the lesson would be that students understand how organization or the lack of it can affect their lives. Mostly I determine purpose by planning. I have a set of skills to cover, and I work on them in order. Occasionally purpose is set by classroom need. Students might need a lesson on time management or a review on scanning. If I'm given a heads up by a classroom teacher that a research project is coming up for which good note taking or highlighting skills are necessary, that sets my purpose.
ReplyDeleteStudents in my class begin holding their thinking by taking notes. Sometimes it's on lined paper; sometimes it's on index cards. They're asked to write down what skills they think would be important to pass on to a younger sibling. Fifth graders create a word document using their notes. Sixth graders make a power point presentation. This year I've gone a bit further and asked some 6th grade classes to choose one skill and teach a lesson on it. They are facing the same problems we teachers do and are asking themselves, "What do I keep in, and what do I leave out?" If they try to cover too much, a classroom activity (part of the requirement) becomes cumbersome. We're learning together about that.
I set specific purposes when I begin teaching a unit. The first thing I try to do is recognize the essential elements that need to be taught. I find these elements by looking at the state and district standards, but also by looking at the material and making a personal decision as to what I feel is most important. I try to select material that can be related to student’s lives, or that capture student’s interests because of the nature of the subject.
ReplyDeleteNext, I make sure that each lesson I teach is related to the prior lesson, and students are able to make this connection. I usually start off class by having students answer a few warm-up questions. These questions either ask about the prior day’s lesson, or ask general questions that student’s use their personal opinions to answer. These questions will somehow tie into that day’s lesson. These warm-up questions focus students, but also give them an idea at the direction of the classroom that day.
I also will give students a task while reading assignments, such as asking them to look for certain things and take notes, or write the main ideas in the margins. I also have used the “thought bubble” lesson we discussed in this class many times this year. Assigning a task while reading forces students to slow down and focus on the essential elements of the reading.
To “hold student’s thinking” I have created lessons, similar to one Tovani referred to, where we created whole-class charts to make their thinking public. I like reviewing concepts with this method, by placing one word or phrase on poster paper around the room. Students then revolve around the room making “graffiti” comments on the papers that are related to the word or phrases. This makes students recall what we learned about, and refreshes the memories of students who may have “forgotten” certain information.
I think that setting a purpose for reading helps my students, but it also helps me. I often write the students’ “job” for the period on the board. I guess that is really the purpose for their reading or class work. I also try to end a class with a question or idea for students to think about for the next day. I don’t think it always needs to have a written assignment tied to it. This will give students something to think and /or reflect on before our next class. Hopefully, it will help them to already be engaged in our next topic. For example, last week in science, we were studying soil conservation and erosion. I ended the period with this thought, “Tonight, think about where dirt comes from”. The next day I had a number of students who had thought about it and they were able to help kick off our discussion and reading on the topic. For all students, it gave our reading and class work for the day a bit more meaning. I think that setting a purpose for reading is a great strategy for all grade levels.
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