Reading Strategies: A How-To for Teachers

At Thinkport you'll find a pretty awesome series of online guides, videos, and tutorials aimed at making you a more effective teacher of reading strategies. What's most amazing is that this site is actually aimed at middle school teachers, that oft-forgotten cadre of souls wedged between elementary and high school.

So what's Thinkport? From the site:

Thinkport is the product of an on-going partnership between Maryland Public Television (MPT) and Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education (CTE), two of the most trusted names in Maryland education.

Thinkport aims to help teachers teach more effectively, inspire students to learn, build bridges between schools and homes, and fulfill Maryland Content Standards for education. We're focused on harnessing technology in the service of education.

Well, I'm not from Maryland, but I absolutely love the Reading Strategies resources offered here. You first investigate discrete reading strategies through videos, interviews, and examples, and you're then given printable aids to help incorporate those strategies in your classroom.

You then see these strategies in action, assisted by a teacher's guide.

Finally, you see how reading skills can best be implemented using a number of online virtual field trips available from this site. Although many relate specifically to Maryland's history, others can absolutely be used by anyone.

Lots to see here for both novices and pros!

(Go to this blog's original home at Wordpress to read two comments on this post).

Unpacking Passages

If you dug the idea of using Quote Analysis, or if you teach The Great Gatsby, you'll want to see the Unpacking Passages pages over at TeachEng.us.

What I like about Ben Davis' approach is that he created an acronym which would better help students remember the steps. Even this, however, needed some fine tuning and some scaffolding, which Ben describes in an earlier post.

Okay, if you still haven't clicked onto that blog, one more thing you'll dig is the presentation of the documents there, as facilitated by Issuu. If you're a blogger, or if you have a classroom site, you'll appreciate the cool format provided by this free application.

Interested in more ways to organize student note taking? Check out my recent post on Graphic Organizers over at Teaching that Sticks.

Teaching Novels Thematically

For a novel to be compelling now and memorable later, it most work at a thematic level. That is, it must address a universal concept to which students can relate. Is the book about a dog that pulls a sled? No; it is about Determination, and Loyalty, and Overcoming Challenges. Those are ideas to which students can relate. Is it simply a tale about a pig and a spider? No; it’s a story of Compassion, and Sacrifice, and Identity.

In order to make literature meaningful, teachers must find a way to help students connect it to their own lives. Universal Themes and their accompanying Guiding Questions are one way of doing this. Regardless of the novel you choose and its innate merits, you must ask yourself, “What makes this story accessible to everyone? For the kid who couldn’t care less about spiders and pigs, what does this story say to him about experiences which we all share in common?” That’s getting to the theme, or the universality, of the novel.

Houghton Mifflin has an excellent article on Thematic Instruction which lists several major advantages to using themes. One that I feel is especially important is theme's ability to build connections and relationships:

Thematic organization helps to account for the concepts of schema theory and prior knowledge. By having related, focused literature, students are able to build connections and relationships about a given theme, which is how one develops prior knowledge and uses it to construct meaning (Anderson & Pearson, 1984).

But which comes first: the novel or the theme? That’s entirely up to you. Many teachers have strong allegiances to certain novels, so they let the novel “lead” the curriculum. Other teachers prefer to select several themes for the year (often one per marking period) and then build a collection of novels, picture books (aka Mentor Texts, Wisdom Books), poetry, drama, and accompanying activities around that theme.

Another consideration is how far a theme will extend into other curriculum areas. This is where Universal Themes (Balance, Change, Patterns) prove to be somewhat more authentic than Topics (Spiders, Autumn, Tall Tales). Themes more naturally tie disciplines together.

If you’re crazy for a topic such as penguins, ask yourself, “What is it about penguins that gives them universal appeal? Why would anyone care to learn about them?”

Penguins live in cooperatively in groups, so community, relationships, and collaboration could be themes; the role of the penguins in relationship to their polar neighbors introduces the themes of cycles, survival, and balance; and their very unique bodies and behaviors can relate to themes of adaptation, identity, and uniqueness.

Consider the theme of Identity, which was selected from many possible themes related to the novel Because of Winn-Dixie. This penguin-free chart illustrates how the universal theme of Identity can easily be incorporated into the four major subject areas. I also suggest you download my famous Universal Themes list. While not meant to be exhaustive, this list provides dozens of possible themes for your consideration. Have more to add? I'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or drop me a line.

Reading Strategy: Quote Analysis

Grade 5 teacher Jan emailed to say, "My students want to read and read and read, and it seems that they're rarely slowing down to think about what they're actually reading. Is there one simple thing I can try (immediately!) to get them to think more about what they're reading?"

I'll assume that we're talking about fiction, and for starters I would recommend using quote analysis. Quote analysis is certainly nothing new; I used it informally for years before seeing it in a Resource Room lesson plan for Holes a few years back. I like the format presented there; it makes sense, and it's readily internalized by students. (Click on that link above to check out Susan Jones' four steps for yourself).

The activity doesn't end there, of course. This analysis leads to discussion about the character:

• What does this quote tell us about this character's traits?
• Is this behavior consistent with what we've seen so far, or is this a change?
• If the character is changing, what factors or variables are bringing on these changes?
• Think of the audience for this quote. What might be their reaction?
• How does this quote advance the plot?
• What future actions might occur as a result of these words?
• Say the words aloud. Can we "hear" different interpretations of the message depending upon how it's said? (Have students alternately emphasize one word over the others).

You can download a recent quote analysis sheet I used for Swindle and adapt it for use with your own novel. Again, I take no credit for this strategy or format, but recommend it whole-heartedly.

Have another idea for Jan's speedy readers? Leave a comment or drop me a line.