Lesson Plan 24: Topic/Comment in Academic Writing (West)

     “In other words” is a  great resource for teachers...I love the idea of 15-minute grammar lessons, especially since a teacher can incorporate these lessons in the beginning of each period, without having to devote a whole period on grammar. Although grammar was taught up to 11^th grade in my high school and I definitely benefited from our weekly grammar lessons, my colleagues and I didn’t teach grammar at all this year. I feel that the reason we didn’t is because most of us felt that that’s something students work on in middle school.  However, as I was reading through the book I realized that a lot of these lesson plans would be helpful for high school students as well, especially if they were taught as students are working on a major writing assignment.

      West writes that “An important objective for these lessons is to give students some concrete strategies for improving their writing when, for example, a teacher comments that their argument “needs development”” (P72). West then explains that “the first step in building up these skills is helping students to recognize sine of the ways that sentences work” (P 72). Lesson 24 focuses on identifying the topic and comment of sentences, and it is one of those lessons that I would teach while students were working on a major writing assignment. Being able to break down sentences is really important, and having students identify the topic and comment in sample sentences will help students write sentences that are more organized, and a lot more structured. I would teach this lesson when we would start revising our writing assignment, so that after students completed the worksheet on page 84, they can work on organizing the sentences that needed to be improved in their own writing.

            Overall, I feel that the strategies in this book can easily be incorporated within a unit (especially in middle school, where most periods are 90 minutes), and they can be so helpful to our students. Lastly, the lesson plans are very thorough, which makes planning a lot easier than having to plan a grammar lesson from scratch. 


Brown, David West. In other words:  lessons on grammar, code-switching, and academic writing.Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2009. Print

Retellings Strategy (Beers)

I absolutely love the Retellings Strategy that Beers explains in Chapter 8. This after-reading strategy is extremely important, since it teaches students how to properly summarize a text. Beers suggest we use the retelling strategy to “move students past the “stuff happens” response” (P152). She then explains that a retelling is an “oral summary of a text based on a set of story elements, such as setting, main characters, and conflicts.” (152).

Although being able to summarize a text is considered to be a very basic skill, it is also extremely important since if students can’t summarize a story, they won’t be able to perform other higher order thinking skills (such as telling  the story from a different perspective, or making connections between the text and their lives).Through the retelling, students summarize all the important aspects of a text, which will then allow you to move on to more challenging activities.

 A retelling is also an excellent way to assess students’ understanding of concepts that you have taught. For instance, if you model how to identify conflict, you would want them to be able to identify conflict on their own, and through a retelling, you can make sure that students know how to do that. I always struggled with getting students to provide more details about the texts we were reading when summarizing, and I can now use this strategy to help teach them how to write summaries. 


Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Anticipation Guides (Beers)

According to Beers, an anticipation guide is “a set of generalizations related to the theme of a selection”(P74). I have used anticipation guides to introduce every single text my students and I read this year, and I absolutely love them. Anticipation guides are general statements that relate to the theme of a text; statements that are open to debate and spark students’ interest. Students have to say whether or not they agree with the statement, and then you discuss the various responses. In addition, Anticipation guides “activate students’ prior knowledge, encourage them to make a personal connection to what they will be reading, and give them a chance to become an active participant with the text before they begin reading” (P 75).

I have found that anticipation guides also increase student motivation in regards to reading a text that they initially thought of as boring or difficult to understand, and they also give students something meaningful (and relevant to the curriculum) to talk about. I have had students discuss answers to anticipation guides as a class and in small groups, but I found that this activity works best as a whole class activity, since everyone gets to hear each other’s perspective on a topic.

One tip for managing this activity: make sure to explain that just because you don’t agree with a statement, that doesn’t mean that the other person who does is wrong; be ready to model this before you start discussing. Also, Give students plenty of time to discuss…don’t just have students raise their hand if they agreed or disagreed; have a few students explain why they think so. 
                                                      
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do:  A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

The Role of Scales in Comprehension

The word comprehension denotes to me understanding.  I can recall writing many a book summary in high school – demonstrating my comprehension of a text in terms of identifying main characters, explaining the correct sequence of events, recognizing conflict and resolving this conflict in a conclusion.  While this kind of summarization of a text is one of the first steps in comprehension, I would argue that it falls short of having a full command of the text.  I think in order to do that you have to be able to analyze the text.  The use of scales as explained by Kylene Beers is one such way to get secondary students thinking about not only retelling the text but analyzing it as well.

Scales seem to me a perfect tool to be used by students once they grasp the basic summary of the text, and “need assistance organizing their thoughts” (Beers 139).  Therefore, I could see this strategy employed after students have already practiced retellings – and are ready to write an essay on the story.  I say this because the scales strategy seems to assume that the students already have an understanding of the main characters and how they function in the plot.  For example, in Figure 8.1 Kylene Beers provides a sample scale with the following statement, “You can do some bad things and still be a good person.  Consider Byron as you answer this” (140).  A student must be able to recall who Byron is and what his role was in the story.  Therefore, a scale advances a student’s knowledge from understanding Byron to analyzing Byron. 

However, I would argue that there is one key part missing from Beers’ scales worksheet.  Beers’ herself writes “not only must students respond by marking to what extent they agree or disagree, they must also explain their choice by citing evidence from the text, from personal experience, or from outside knowledge” (143).  By providing another line after each scales statement with a directive such as “Explain why you agree or disagree by giving an example from the text,” students would learn to go back to the text for clues or evidence as they make claims or inferences. 

This scales worksheet could then become an outline for an essay.  The thesis statement might assert:  “Actions don’t always speak louder than words.  The character Byron may do some bad things – but it doesn’t make him a bad person.”   The student would then have examples from the text that they previously recorded on their scales sheets.  In this process the scales strategy would do more than summarize a text – it would aid in analyzing it as well – and deepen a student’s comprehension of the text in the process.  

Works Cited

Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do:  A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

Say Something

Beers has excellent examples of strategies during all points of reading. "Say Something," a during-reading activity, really stuck out to me. "The purpose of Say Something is to help students comprehend what they are reading as they predict, question, clarify, connect, or comment" (Beers, 2003, p. 106). This strategy is most relevant for Dependent Readers. I also believe this strategy is useful because all of the things that students are guided to "say," are all characteristics of a "good reader." I believe that once students have familiarized themselves with this strategy, they will become comfortable making this a natural occurrence.  Because Beers pushes explicit instruction, the teacher will also be able to inform students that this strategy can be used in all content areas.

I think "Say Something" is a strategy I will definitely use in my future classroom. With the introduction, modeling, practice, and independent/partner work for all strategies, students will have the tools to complete this activity successfully. I also think who the students are partnered with is an important task of the teacher. Beers tries "to let friends work together" (Beers, 2003, p. 109) but she reminds the students "that this is work time, not visit time" (Beers, 2003,  p. 109). I think different types of grouping would be best and I would rotate grouping decisions for each activity. Sometimes the students can pick and sometimes I will choose homogeneous or heterogeneous groups based on the students, text, and assignment.

I like to imagine myself as a student participating in these strategies I might like my students to. This is certainly a strategy I would like to do. I think it is interesting and powerful to work with peers and discuss unique insights on text. I believe this activity will help students think outside of their normal ranges and learn many things from their partners.

During-Reading Strategies

        In When Kids Can't Read, Kylene Beers states, "I'd like to suggest that it is more critical for dependent readers to talk about texts during the reading experience than after it" (104).  Pre-reading strategies help students help students activate prior knowledge and post-reading strategies might prove that they made meaning out of what they just read, but during-reading strategies are the bulk of the effort that must happen for students to make meaning from their texts.
        The first big strategy Beers shares in this chapter, she calls "Say Something."  In my elementary school setting we have many units which focus on Partner Talk, which I had always thought of as a valuable activity, but not necessarily a reading strategy.  We also push a strategy called "Stop & Think."  The "Say Something" strategy adds Talk to that, so the pattern is more like, "Stop, Think, and Talk with a partner."  These activities make students more accountable to their texts because in order to have a conversation, you must be attending to the things you read.  Even if you don't understand all that you read, having a dialogue with a peer is a good chance for both parties to construct deeper (or even just literal) meaning from their texts.  We still have conversations about books as adults, and it's clear that it makes reading more powerful and meaningful.  All language is up for interpretation, after all, so why not give students chances to see other points of view.
        While reading this section, a wrote a note down that in primary grades we spend a long time teaching into these types of conversations, making them very concrete by giving students specific prompts for how to talk about their reading.  I was pleased to see that Beers also offered a whole list of prompts for conversation, what she called "stem starters" (108).  These stem starters are very, very useful for a classroom.  For a class of struggling readers, I can envision a whole unit's worth of lessons by just teaching into these prompts that would lead students to: 1) make predictions, 2) ask a question, 3) clarify something, 4) make a comment, 5) make a connection.  These talking prompts, or stem starters, could easily be charted around the classroom for reference.  Students would need a lot of opportunities to practice having conversations like this, every day.  They may be horrible at first, but the more modelling, practice, and feedback they receive, the better it gets.  It's a great way to get students to engage in their reading while also being social.

Tea Party Strategy

I really enjoyed chapter 6 of When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers. Chapter 6, "Frontloading Meaning: Pre-Reading Strategies," explains activities that can prepare and engage students in new reading material. This is extremely important since many teachers simply assign the first chapter of a book without providing students key background knowledge that they will need to be engaged with the new text. My favorite activity in chapter 6 is the Tea Party.

Beers introduces the Tea Party strategy on page 94. During the Tea Party, students are all given different quotes or words on a card from the text that they will read. Then, students walk around the room and share their quotes with one another. After all students have shared their the cards, students meet in small groups to discuss what they think the story is about and then write joint "we think this section is about..." statements. The last step before reading the text is for each small group to share their "we think" statements. Beers explains how this activity models what strong independent readers do when they start a new piece of reading: "This pre-reading strategy allows students to predict what they think will happen in the text as they make inferences, see causal relationships, compare and contrast, and draw on their prior experiences. " (Beers, 2003, p. 94-95).

I like the Tea Party strategy for a variety of reasons. First of all, it gets adolescents up and moving around the classroom, which they are often anxious to do, especially in middle school. I think it's important to remember the need to vary classroom activities and movement to keep adolescents from getting bored or disengaged. This is extremely important in schools when ELA is in 90 minute blocks. I also like the Tea Party strategy because dependent readers are able to work with their peers to make predictions and connections that will give them something to look for when they read. Dependent readers are not always able to make inferences on their own, so it is extremely important for them to practice this strategy with the help of their classmates. Further, dependent readers usually don't start reading with any idea of what the reading is about. This makes comprehension extremely difficult as the readers don't know what to keep an eye out for and aren't motivated to keep reading to see if their predictions are accurate.

I wanted to add a twist on the Tea Party strategy that I've seen described in Teaching for Joy and Justice by Linda Christensen. Christensen also uses the Tea Party as a pre-reading strategy to engage her students, but she gives each student a different character name and description on the card as opposed to a portion of the text. Students perform the Tea Party as a "meet and greet" where they need to introduce themselves based on the provided description and then figure out how everyone in the room is related. This is extremely helpful in introducing a novel with multiple characters. It can often take even a strong independent reader time to get all of the characters straight in a book, so students of all reading levels would benefit from this activity. After completing the character Tea Party, students begin the text having already been "introduced" to the characters. And finally, students will have visualized and made a personal connection to the characters based on how they chose to interpret and description and interact with their fellow characters.

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Spelling for Reading?

In Chapter 12 of Beers' text she discusses the value of teaching and learning spelling in terms of improving reading comprehension. Spelling is important to be studied to aid comprehension because as Beers states (2003), "as children read, they connect sounds to letters; as they write, they connect letters to sounds. Understanding this relationship means that now, as we teach students how to spell, we recognize that we are helping them with the decoding process..." (p. 246). Beers encourages teaching spelling for reading improvement, and suggests strategies of word study rather than prescribing class-wide rote spelling tests.

I began thinking about practical applications of this approach, this word study, and right away thought of connecting it to foreign language classes. Students in high school are required to take foreign language classes, and could easily incorporate this study into their own study of spelling and English words. A teacher could find words that have similar patterns to foreign language words, and connect the meaning of the word to that of the foreign language word. Emphasizing the spelling of that word in English might doubly function to reinforce the spelling and meaning of not only the English word, but also differentiating it from the foreign language word. I wonder about partnering with Foreign Language teachers in this type of activity and what type of insight they would bring to the conversation.

Another practical application of teaching spelling might be to have students write down a list of words that most often confuse them, in terms of their spelling. This creates content driven by student needs, allowing the teacher insight into potential patterns that cause trouble or confusion. While similar to Beers' (2003) suggestion of a "Word Wall", this would be a more explicit discussion of the words and what about them might be confusing (p. 255). The teacher can take the opportunity to clarify the spelling of these words and explain why they are spelled a certain way. Providing a sense of logic or justification can help students remember spelling because they have a concrete reason as to why the word is spelled in that way, creating an association and understanding instead of just memorization.

Ultimately, I think the most important aspect of the inclusion of spelling in teaching reading would be explaining the purpose for doing so. Explaining to students that they are not only going to learn how to spell words, but that they are going to better understand words, to help them in their reading comprehension might make spelling more valuable to them. Again, this is an opportunity to use explicit instruction in reading, by equipping students with a tool that will help them enormously in their reading comprehension.

Thematic Spelling Word Walls

After reading our first assignment in When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers, I was especially interested in chapter 12: "Spelling: From Word Lists to How Words Work." As discussed in class, the connection between spelling and reading is often overlooked. Further, many of us shared that we had not been taught how to spell using sorting activities that reveal common spelling rules. Memorizing word lists is a popular way to teach spelling, but it doesn't help students to understand the process behind spelling. The more students know about how words are put together, the more knowledge they will have for decoding unfamiliar words when they are reading. As we know, successful decoding strategies are essential in developing independent readers. This is a new connection for me.

My favorite strategy that Beer discussed in chapter 12 is Thematic Spelling. Thematic Spelling, introduced on page 256, involves creating a word wall that corresponds to a specific theme, genre, or topic that the class is studying. (Beers, 2003) For example, if students are studying Night by Elie Wisel, the word wall could contain words like: Holocaust, prejudice, concentration camp, racism, propaganda, Judaism, etc. The idea is that students will learn how to spell words that they will need to write response papers and complete activities regarding the class novel.

I really like the strategy of Thematic Spelling because it connects spelling to the larger class unit. It was always my experience in school that we would be given a list of words that seemed (and sometimes was) completely random. With Thematic Spelling, however, students will see the relevance of the words that they need to learn how to spell. As they study the word wall list, the words will be reinforced in the class reading. They will also more readily practice using the words in context because the words will tie into class discussions and their own writing. Any time we can present information in a way that can be transfered to another activity, class, or the outside world, the better. The more connections that students can make to a lesson, the more they will learn and remember for the future.

The final aspect of Thematic Spelling that I appreciate is its usefulness for English Language Learner (ELLs). ELLs need as much practice as possible with learning new vocabulary. Thematic Spelling is an excellent way to tie language instruction into a specific class unit and to make sure that students have the necessary background knowledge to understand a text.

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Perpetual Literacy? (aka the 'Tipping Point')

The first chapter of Kylene Beers' book, When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do is a familiar story to anyone who has entered the field of education under difficult circumstances.  It paints a picture of a young teacher's struggles with disillusionment and inadequacy, as well as a student's silent pleas for the assistance of a teacher unqualified to help.  It is a moving story that sheds an illuminating light into the crux of so many problems in American public education: teachers who would like to do more but can't.  The story is well-written and compelling.  It is also wholly unoriginal.

The story of a young teacher's first year and the corresponding struggles is a story that has been told.  It does a good job to frame the rest of the book and personalize the author, but there is very little applicable information, save for a few clever analogies.  However, there is one line that I found absolutely fascinating, not so much for it's substance, but for its implications.

On page seven, Beers states that "when kids give up and drop out, they perpetuate the vicious cycle in which their offspring grow up in an alliterative environment and become the next generation of struggling readers."  Such a statement asks the reader to see illiteracy not as a collection of individual cases, but almost as a form of intellectual de-evolution in which illiteracy is passed almost like a generic trait to the next generation.  By this logic, if illiteracy can be seen as a trait transferrable to the next generation, then literacy can be seen in the same light.  Therefore, each teacher/school system that is able to bestow upon a student the ability to read and the love of reading sufficient to sustain that over the course of a lifetime positively impact not only the life of that child, but of generations of children whom that student may eventually produce.

In Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Gladwell defines a sociological tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."  He postulates that "[i]deas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do."  Beers' description of the process of increasing national literacy seems to suggest that proficiency in reading, while not as quick-moving as a virus, is capable of spreading in a similar fashion, albeit somewhat slower due to the fact that the act is only transmitted generationally.  Therefore, once we, as a nation reach our literacy 'tipping point,' it is possible that literacy will begin to perpetuate itself, rather than continue as a series of individual and unconnected struggles.

This is a fascinating concept, and something to consider when we look at how literacy has evolved in today's fast-paced world.  If 'alliterative environments' produce illiterate children and 'literate environments' do the opposite, what implications might our current societal move away from the relics physical texts and slow, deliberate research and towards multi-media communication and instantaneous answers have for the literacy of future generations.  Is there is similar technological 'tipping point' when the act of reading as we know it will be forever altered by our increasing use of technological substitutes?

Incidentally, Gladwell's text is placed on the 11-12th grade complexity band for informational texts accoeding to the CCSS, which one would assume means that students in all classroom across America will be exposed to the text starting in 2014 and continuing in perpetuity.  One wonders whether future readers will be reading that text, or watching it on YouTube.  Only time, and the 'tipping point' will tell.

Weekend Reading Purposes

Having taught in a TC-model classroom for a semester, I can tell you that it can sometimes feel like a bureaucratic nightmare.  The self-assessment work students must do for almost every assignment often rivals the length of the assignment itself and the planning work they must accomplish before moving forward with an assignment can seem painstaking.  I sympathized with my students; this bunch of eighth-graders was under a great deal of pressure on the homework front.  Still, based on the reading conferences I had with my students, I often wished that they would go into their independent reading, particularly over weekends when most of their reading got done, with more of a plan.  Tovani’s “Weekend Reading Purposes Review” and “Purposes Preview” from pages 53 and 55 were just what I didn’t know I had been looking for.

Tovani’s students are clearly trained to recognize that all reading is reading, not just the reading of books or magazines.  Their responses are interesting and, had I had such responses from my own students, would have painted a better picture of their reading processes and, thus, would have really helped inform my teaching.  “This weekend I read an article about a game online.  My purpose for reading this was to learn about upcoming events in an online game I play,” writes Steven (Tovani 53).  The idea that Steven kept track of his reading to that extent and thought about why he was doing it will help him in the future when he must do research.  He understands his process for accomplishing a mundane, everyday task so, naturally, this is a way of thinking about information use that has been instilled in him and which will now inform his work in the future.

Chris’s entry was also very interesting: “…I read the Applebee’s menu… I looked for things I liked, and if I didn’t like it, I didn’t read it” (53).  This is a great window into the mind of Chris, a discerning young Applebee’s diner who wants what he wants and to hell with the rest.  If this is his mentality towards food, might it also hold true in other areas?  Isn’t this information a teacher should want to know?

Page 55’s figure 5.2 is written out from the perspective of a teacher planning a Spanish lesson but it could just as easily be modified to help a student anticipate the struggles he or she will face in independent reading this weekend and to self-generate solutions to those problems.  If the solutions don’t work, here is a record of what was tried before so that future reading experiences can be better.

Understanding reading purposes, particularly for long reading assignments that take place over a weekend or for mundane reading situations can provide teachers with a great deal of useful information about their students.  It’s not what Chris got for dinner, it’s how he decided.

Performance Tasks and Assessments

        The introduction to the Common Core State Standards for ELA briefly mentions ways to assess all of these standards:  "While the Standards delineate specific expectations in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language, each standard need not be a separate focus for instruction and assessment.  Often, several standards can be addressed by a single rich task" (5).  Here, the document is introducing us to the idea of performance tasks and performance assessments, which I believe will start to play bigger and bigger roles in our instruction.
        I had my first, confusing encounter with these tasks and assessments this past year, as NYC schools were slowly starting to integrate aspects of the Common Core.  The assessments are used before a unit, basically to see how students currently perform on a given task.  The task is given after a unit (or units) to show how students have learned new skills.  Here is what I like and dislike about these performance tools:
        The task that we used for our third graders in reading and writing was designed by Teacher's College to align with our curriculum and reflect the new standards.  To describe it briefly, students had to read two informational texts on restaurants: an long-ish article about nutrition at Wendy's and a menu/advertisement from a healthy family restaurant.  After reading and taking notes on the two restaurants, students had to write a persuasive review about one of them.  This activity is a good example about how multiple standards can be assessed through a rather challenging task.  Students have to be able to read different kinds of texts, they need to draw specific types of information in their notes, and they need to synthesize some of that information into a specific genre of opinion writing.  I think doing a task like this is actually a much more logical and authentic way to see student's skill level, as opposed to multiple choice exams.
        One major issue that I had with the task was the time demands that we placed on doing it.  We bought into this task (apparently there were other choices we could use) because it was created by Teachers College and we figured it would be best aligned with our ELA curriculum.  I found it ironic that the task was created by Teachers College, however, because A.) the reading demands of the task were above most of our students level (where TC always preaches that students should read at their level) and B.) the writing part demanded that students produce a polished piece in one class period, while we normally spend a full month polishing writing pieces through the TC writing process.  A lot of the whole thing seemed to go against everything we had been teaching all year, and in the end the task proved very difficult for even our highest-performing students.
        I believe that these tasks and assessments will play a very large role in our curriculum planning and expectations as they become implemented more and more.  It will help to become more familiar with the demands and Standards, as I couldn't have been less prepared as they were thrown at me out of nowhere last year.  I remember feeling a lot of pressure to get these assessments right but in the end, I don't even think anyone collected them from us...perhaps it was just a trial run.

Text Sets

A common refrain for teachers all over is “I don’t have enough time.”  It’s difficult enough to cover the skill-sets, canonical classics, contemporary works deemed “important” and different genres in a curriculum without throwing in the added wrench of trying cover those subjects well, in full, necessary detail.  Tovani argues throughout Do I really Have to Teach Reading? that curriculums should be slowed down and texts should be given the focus and time they deserve.  Text sets serve as a method of providing context and historical background to texts that struggling readers might otherwise have trouble understanding.

Text sets are, basically, packets containing additional information about the subject, time period or author of a text.  Tovani’s text set for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird serves as a good example: “To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book, but it is often wasted on the young… Interesting tidbits about the author, Harper Lee, are included as well as pictures and information about Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement” (Tovani 47).  This may seem like common sense, a strategy that is reflexive to most teachers.  Of course students need context and extra material to understand the nuances of the literature they read.  What Tovani has done, however, is normalize these extra pieces of information.  Again, she lifts the veil from her teaching in a way that makes students feel more at home, feel like text sets are a part of their reading routine and not just extra work the teacher has assigned.

The normalization of text set usage is described on pages 47 and 48 in detail, including how Tovani would design text sets for non-English subjects and how text sets work to explain more difficult English texts like those written by Shakespeare or Homer’s The Odyssey.  The Homer unit is a great example of turning material that’s too hard into a “just-right book” (49).  “The text set contains more readable versions of The Odyssey, including picture books, as well as books that have information about Greek gods, monsters, and heroes.  Information about the literary structure of the epic poem, maps of Ancient Greece, and related articles from nonfiction sources such as magazines and newspapers round out this set” (47). 

Tovani’s use of text sets to explicate the issues students encounter when attempting difficult texts work because she has made them part of the routine of the class, essentially making the text set a part of the text.  While she may cover fewer books in her class, she can rest assured that she has covered her texts more closely and thoroughly than teachers who rush through a smorgasbord of texts.

Troubleshooting Small Groups

Many teachers try to implement small group work in their classrooms, run into a few common roadblocks and decide the small group work is "not worth the effort," "too complicated" or something else to that effect.  On pages 92-93 of Do I Really Have to Teach Reading, Cris Tovani discusses three of the main issues teachers and students encounter when trying to implement good small group work and provides some possible solutions via a set of "norms" she discussed with the class prior to implementing her small group strategy.  It is important to note that she discussed these possible issues with the class before they happened, anticipating them so that they couldn't wreck an entire day's lesson.  "We talked about these norms as a class, tweaked a few parts, and then voted.  Everyone in the classroom had to either agree to the norms or make a suggestion to improve them" (Tovani, 92).  By making the process somewhat democratic, Tovani lifts the veil of teacher-inscrutability for her students, something she does often to get them on her side.

Tovani's first problem: "I hate being in a group without my friends" (91).  She sees this as being both a hinderance to learning (the student may spend much of the activity pouting about the groups instead of focusing on the work) and an unnecessary problem caused by the teacher.  Her solution is to "honor group requests as best I can, however... I get the final say about group composition."  In return, students are required to "tough it out and request a different group next time."  While this may seem practical, may seem like an authority figure being forced to explain simple common sense, the fact that this policy is explicit makes all the difference.  There is no whining about partnerships, just an appeal process later on.

The second problem is "I don't like being in a group in which some people slack off and don't do their share of the work."  The student response to this problem is a simple implementation of the honor system: the students are frequently made aware that refusal to do the work hurts only them.  Meanwhile, Tovani promises her students that she will not apply unfair group-grades to their group work efforts saying instead that she "will notice who is contributing and who isn't, and respond accordingly" (92).

Finally, "I don't like being in a group when I don't know what to do and no one will help me."  This is a dual pact between the students and the teachers; the students must promise to ask questions and remain engaged even when they are confused rather than falling off-task and the teacher, Tovani, pledges to "model how the group is supposed to do something.  I will also observe groups and share what is going well and what isn't working, in order to help groups run smoothly."  Teacher availability and consistant check-ins regarding the quality of the work being done in the groups are important for students to hold up their end of the bargain and remain engaged.

Small group work can be a great help in the classroom, both in terms of making difficult material clearer for students and democratizing the class so that the students have more stake in their own learning.  While these and other problems may arise, the best troubleshooting tactic is to anticipate and preemptively deal with these issues so that they don't ruin a great activity.

Creating Confidence and Setting Expectations

After I graduated college and had joined the work force for a bit, I realized something about myself as a worker and consequently as a student.  I always did what was expected.  As a youngster I got stellar grades and took pride in my report card.  As Beers (2003) puts it, “I love to visit first-grade classrooms. The energy there is contagious. In first grade, students don’t raise their hands to answer questions; instead, they shoot their hands into the air, wave them wildly back and forth, stand on one leg as they lean their bodies across their desks, and snap their fingers while blurting out either, “Miss! Miss! Miss!” or “I know! I know! I know!”” (p. 258-259)  That was me.  It was at some point in high school however, probably around the time when activities outside of school started to seem a lot more interesting than what was happening in the classroom, that I realized I could put a very minimal amount of effort into my school work and still pull at least a B in every class.  B’s were totally acceptable in my family, and in most circles a B student is a “good student”.  For the rest of high school and college, I was a B student (with a few exceptions in classes I absolutely loved, of course).  As an assistant at a small but extremely busy non-profit organization in DC, the expectations were high.  I was expected to do a great deal of juggling, and essentially teach myself anything I had not done before.  I was pushing myself, and I was excelling!  It made me think back on my college years and why I had not gotten more A’s.  In retrospect, it was clearly possible; the expectations, either internal or external, just weren’t there. 

            In Chapter 13 of When Kids Can’t Read, Kylene Beers discusses the importance of creating confidence and setting expectation for our students.  Just as I was in high school, adolescents are acutely aware of what is expected of them, and this directly affects their work ethic and behavior.  Beers (2003) says “You’re fooling yourself if you think middle and high school students don’t know when we’ve dumbed down the curriculum” (p. 261).  Low expectations hurt both confidence and motivation.  The question is, how do you maintain high expectations while creating accessible lesson plans that will boost confidence and participation?  It’s a tricky balance, but Beers clarifies that high expectations do not mean we should be giving students work that is far beyond their ability and expect that they figure it out.  Setting high expectations means finding ways to scaffold the work so that students have an opportunity to reach their own highest potential.  Beers gives the example of an eighth-grade class that asked why they couldn’t read the same books as the advanced language arts class.  Their teacher agreed to read Huckleberry Finn with them, warning that it would be difficult and that she expected them to work hard.  In turn, the teacher worked hard to make the text more accessible.  Beers (2003) said “Students read some aloud in paired reading; the teacher read aloud other chapters. Some students with word recognition problems listened to parts of it on tape” (p. 262).  After they finished the book, the students wanted to take the same test as the advanced class.  The only reasonable explanation I can think of for students wanting a more difficult test, is that they felt confidence and a sense of pride; confidence in their work and pride in their ability to meet such high expectations.  

 Reference List:

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Letting Students Set Their Own Goals

One form of assessment that Cris Tovani discusses involves allowing students to choose their own goals. She said, she and her students “begin in many classes with simple goal setting. At the beginning of the quarter, we brainstorm possible reading and writing goals, and each student chooses one” (104). While this might be a good way for an honest student to choose a realistic path for the quarter, wouldn’t most students err on the side of choosing easy goals in order to lighten their workload?

I remember a creative writing class I took in twelfth grade in which we were allowed to choose our own goals for the quarter.  Our grade was based on whether or not we met our goals. My friends and I all set extremely easy and vague goals, like “write a poem” or  “write some jokes.” It wasn’t because we didn’t like creative writing class; in fact it was my all time favorite class. We just wanted to safeguard ourselves and guarantee a good grade. Luckily the class proved to be really fun, and we all exceeded our easy goals. But there’s no penalty for that, so there no harm came from choosing super easy goals. So when the next quarter rolled around, we did the same thing. In my experience, I’d say there’s not much benefit to letting students set their own goals.

However, when Tovani let students chose their own goals she provides more structure than my creative writing teacher did. She said that, “throughout the quarter, we revisit the goals individually and collectively, adapting them where necessary” (104).  Perhaps having to face a teacher and discuss your goals would put some accountability on the student to choose realistic goals.

Tovani also provides some examples of student goals, including “Finishing a book more than 150 pages; reading a new genre; learning two new strategies to keep the mind from wandering while completing a dull text; learning how to pick out a good book; [and] figuring out what to do when encountering unknown words.” (106). Whlie some of these seem like great goals, I could see a student choosing the goal of “learning how to pick out a good book” simply because it will make his class easier. It’s hard to access whether or the student has met that goal, and it’s easy to fake.

If allowing students to choose their own goals is to be a meaningful practice, I would think the students and teacher would have to have a very trusting and honest relationship. 

“Teach them how to make an inference.” - Putting Thought into Action

As I continue exploring the texts for this class, I am finding myself reconsidering so many of my own thought processes that I once assumed were automatic.  In Chapter 5 of Kylene Beers’ When Kids Can’t Read (2003), she breaks down what it actually means to make an inference and illuminates the importance of teaching these steps to our students.  Beers (2003) once told her Principal “You can’t teach someone how to make an inference. It’s inferential. It’s just something you can or can’t do” (p. 62).  To be completely honest, I had never given much thought to my own inference making ability.  Inferences always seemed to happen on their own, pictures that completed themselves in my mind while I read.  I have met people who have a hard time making inferences; adults who have trouble connecting clues and painting pictures in their mind.  Subconsciously, like Beers, I guess I always assumed inferencing was something that happened for you or didn’t.  It never occurred to me that this was something that could be practiced. 

            In Beers’ quest to help her students be able to make inferences, she started analyzing the ways in which she made inferences while reading.  The truth is, our mind is moving at such an incredible pace to pull on a variety of past and present information to create these seamless images, that it does seem daunting when first asked to examine these steps.  It is much easier to assume that it is either automatic or it isn’t.  Self-reflection and analysis, especially about invisible strategies and skills we use daily, is a difficult task.  Embracing this challenge of self-reflection, however, provides the most direct route to much of our job as educators.  Have you ever tried to teach something you did not actually understand?  How much harder was that than teaching something you know really well?  If we understand our own thinking and questioning, we can much more easily teach these strategies to students who may have trouble coming upon them naturally.  For this reason, Beers (2003) also suggests that we model this practice for our students;  “At least once a day, read aloud a short passage and think aloud your inferences. Have students decide what types of inferences you are making” (p. 69).

            Beers (2003) says,“Instead of telling students something vague like “make an inference,” we can give students specific types of inferences to make” (p. 64).  By asking our students to look for specific information, an elusive piece of text may seem much less intimidating or overwhelming.  This goes back to Tovani’s (2004) emphasis on defining purpose for our students.  Beers gives some great suggestions for the types of comments teachers can make when prompting inference making.  I like the idea of giving students various inference prompts like these, asking them to read a passage and think about their prompt for a few minutes, and then leading a group discussion like the one Beers led with an eleventh-grade English class in an example on page 66.  The group discussion allowed students to build upon each other’s thoughts and inferences to create a very rich picture of what was happening in the text.  For students who are new or struggling with inference making, I think group work like this could serve as a great scaffold to independent inference making.  It seems much of our duty as literacy teachers will involve turning invisible thought and inquiry into action our students can see, hear, and practice.

Reference List:

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

           

Using Mnemonics to Improve Spelling

Kylene Beers’ description of a tried and [not necessarily?] true spelling instruction method brought back memories of my own elementary days in the classroom learning how to spell.  “Get the list of words on Monday.  During the week, alphabetize the words and write them three to five times.  Write them in sentences.  Then, take the spelling test on Friday” (Beers 245).  Although not my teaching method of choice, I wondered before reading Beers’ book if I would sometimes have to resort back to this arguably dry approach.  Although I very much like the idea of word sorts to “discover a particular spelling pattern” – what about differentiating the spelling of homophones (Beers 251)?  What happens when words don’t fit neatly into a pattern or grouping?  How will I find more engaging ways to teach these words?

Beers’ suggestion to look for helpful mnemonics when talking about homonyms seems like at least one way to start thinking outside of the box.  Beers explains, “…many a student has remembered to spell the head of a school as principal because the last three letters spell pal” (256).   I think this memory trick is effective because it highlights the spelling of principal by linking it to another word with a similar spelling, in this case pal, and forming a bridge between the two – your principal is your pal.  I would take it one step further.  Saying the mnemonic aloud will make the connection in an auditory way – but I think it could also be beneficial to make explicit the image associated with a mnemonic device. 

I was talking with some classmates on Thursday about their use of PowerPoint in the classroom.  It was suggested that PowerPoint’s animations could help inject life in an otherwise dull topic.  Perhaps when talking about the mnemonic device for the spelling of principal you can incorporate some sort of animated cartoon of a principal high-fiving a student.  Or better yet, a funny picture of the principal of your school high-fiving a student might animate onto the screen.  This might help brand the mnemonic device onto a student’s memory – especially one who relies on more visual methods to learn.

  

Works Cited

Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do:  A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print. 

Defining Purpose: Objectives and Super Objectives

In Chapter 5 of Cris Tovani’s Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? (2004) we are introduced to the idea of using purpose as a reading strategy.  Whether as a student or an educator, we have all likely been in a classroom when a student asks why they are reading the current assignment.  In my own high school experience, it was something the English teachers heard daily.  Rarely, however, did they provide any sort of answer or response.  It was a “because I said so” kind of situation.  For most students, it was assumed that we were required to read certain texts so that we could pass certain exams.  The goal was being able to regurgitate character names and key plot points, and so that is what we read for.  

Tovani explains that the goal, or purpose, readers have while reading affects both the speed at which they read, as well as what information they retain.  When thinking about my own reading, this makes perfect sense.  I read at a completely different pace with attention to different elements depending upon the type of text I am reading and what my overall purpose with the text is.  With that being said, it is a wonder to me that my teachers never communicated the idea of purpose while reading in high school.  As Tovani (2004) says, “teachers have to be clear in their reasons for assigning the reading. Students need to know what those reasons are so they can better determine what is important” (p. 52). 

As an actor, you develop both objectives and super-objectives.  Objectives may be your character’s purpose for a single action or scene, while a super objective would be an overarching motivator throughout the play or film.  Tovani discusses in great detail the importance of narrowing down very precise purposes for reading specific texts.  These would be our students’ objectives.  What I cannot help but think about, however, is the super objective.  Defining purpose for our students should also be considered on the content level.  If we are to motivate our students to read, but also to want to read, they must first understand the significant role written communication will play in their lives outside of school.  In this way, I see a connection between Tovani’s idea of setting purpose, and Alfred W. Tatum’s (2012) call for an awareness of historical literacy roles.  If students classify their English class as unimportant, they are unlikely to devote much mental energy to the class and the work.  For this reason, I believe it is imperative to communicate the powerful role literacy plays outside of the classroom as well.  

These readings on purpose and motivation have given me a lot to think about.  I look forward to finding ways of implementing the role of purpose as both a reading strategy and an overall engagement strategy with my future students.

Reference List:

 

Tatum, A. W. (2012). Literacy Practices for African-American Male Adolescents. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Examining 'Living Language' in the Classroom?

A few years back, I watched a series of video lectures on the history of language.  Call me an English dork if you will, but I found it fascinating.  I loved the concept of language as a living, evolving entity rather than a set of iron-clas rules.  It gave me such a better understanding of the development of alternate forms of Standard English such a African American Vernacular.

I was therefore very excited when David West Brown references the evolution Standard English in his book In Other Words: Lessons on Grammar, Code-Switching and Academic Writing.  The fact that there was a period of time when scholars found Standard English to be "insufficient to communicate the profound ideas of the day" (xvii) was fascinating.  Introducing this concept of language as an adaptive, evolving entity cold possibly help them avoid feelings of inferiority surrounding their own natural vernaculars when making corrections to Standard English.

My excitement was slightly dampened by a line of thinking that occurred in today's class, though.  Would the fact that the CCSS are so focused on products and skills rather than mental and developmental exercises would make it difficult to justify a study of outdated and irrelevant forms of the language.

Upon taking a closer look at the Standards, I searched for a standard that could be used to justify such an examination of linguistic history.  The closest I was able to come was Language standard 3, which states:
3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Then, when taking a look at the more specific tasks, it did not seem to relate at all.  The 9-10 grade level band states that the standard is:
a. Write and edit work so that it conforms to the guidelines in a style manual (e.g., MLA Handbook, Turabian’s Manual for Writers) appropriate for the discipline and writing type.

The 11-12 grade level band describes the standard as the following:

a. Vary syntax for effect, consulting references (e.g., Tufte’s Artful Sentences) for guidance as needed; apply an understanding of syntax to the study of complex texts when reading.


Both specific standards are clearly geared toward the production of a writing component, rather than an understanding of language.  Indeed, the focus of the CCSS on production rather than understanding, while admirable in many ways, does limit certain academic pursuits such as a study of the history of language, if only be not placing a clear priority on the matter.  This does not mean that the Standards movement has not improved Reading and Writing Instruction overall, but it is something to consider that while prioritizing essential skills, certain non-essential knowledge that is valuable nonetheless will inevitably fall by the wayside.

Morphology

According to What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy, “Morphology is the study of word structure. Morphology describes how words are formed from morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word” (8). Morphology is very important in literacy, when students don’t recognize the meanings or how morphemes work they have difficulties with reading and writing. In order to be a good reader students must, “…use their knowledge of morphological structure to recognize complex words…Struggling adolescent readers who lack the knowledge of morphological structure will have more difficulty in recognizing and learning words,” (8).

There are many suggested strategies for teaching morphology. One strategy is teaching students frequently used morphemes, doing this improves students’ spelling, “…provides strategies for decoding and for building vocabulary,” (8). Another strategy is teaching different morpheme patterns. “When teaching new words, teachers should not only consider the spelling of the word, but also should explain the morphemes role in changing word meaning,” (8). For example, you have the word “work” when you add an “s” or “-ed” to the word the tense changes, but when you add an “-er” to the word the entire meaning changes. This is important to teach students so that when they are wrting and reading they can successful understand everything. Other suggested strategies are the use of speed drills, teaching different syllabl types, there are six an teaching morphemes in the context of a sentence.

Conversation Calendars

One of Tovani’s strategies that I found very interesting was the conversation calendars. According to Tovani,

“Conversation calendars help me learn about my students’ lives outside the classroom. I then have the background knowledge I need for conversations that allow me to discover their strengths and passions. Once I know what they are about, I can help them see how the work we are doing in class is purposeful and connects to their lives,” (106).

I really liked this strategy because as Tovani said it helps you get to know your students. In a classroom with 30 students and only 40 minutes it’s hard to try to get to know all your students, especially the quieter ones. Conversation calendars allow you to do what can take the entire school year in a few minutes every day. Not only do conversation calendars help you learn more about your students but it also helps your students get to know you better. This strategy can be used as a way to help builds trust among student and teacher. Other than getting to know one another, conversation calendars can help you better plan and differentiate your lesson plans. In my opinion, when you know your students you are better able to focus your lessons on topics that will capture their attention, because you’ll have a better idea of what they’re interested in or how it can relate to their lives

Read Aloud Explorations

Our discussion in class today led us to the topic of reading aloud and the benefits of doing so even with older children and adolescents. In my experience teaching in high school we did not have enough books and were forced to do all reading aloud as a class. I worked with Freshman and Seniors and felt frustrated by this, mostly because I was worried that they were not active participants in the reading, and rather just listening to my presentation. I was worried that I would give too much away with my readings (admittedly, I took advantage of the opportunity to perform a bit). Would they be missing out on important interpretive reading skills by just hearing my version of dialogue, or my interpretation of how the text should be read?

However, Beers (2003) answered a lot of my questions by explaining that when combined with silent reading, reading aloud can be quite beneficial. She further states "if students need to read a text that is far above their instructional level, hearing the story aloud, either from the teacher or on tape, will provide a way to improve reading skills and give them access to content" (p.199).
As I have thought about reading aloud more I can see that there are a lot of useful strategies I can use with reading aloud. One strategy could be planning out points during the read aloud in which I want to stop and think about what we've read. This could function to break up the reading as well as model good strategies for reading comprehension. During these breaks in the reading students could do a variety of things, such as; write about a connection they have to the text, write about a question they have, they could turn to a partner and make a prediction about the text, they could draw a picture of the scene depicted thus far, etc.

I wonder how this strategy looks over time, and how I could transition my students from read aloud activities to independent reading, or if that is possible to accomplish in one period a day over a year. It seems that this would be most effective if teachers within a grade-level were all on board with this strategy and incorporated varying levels of reading aloud in their classrooms as well.

Word Sorts (Beers)

"I find that word sorts are an effective strategy for helping students discover a particular spelling pattern" (Beers, 2003,  p. 251). Word sorts are helpful because students first analyze the individual words to find similarities and group them together, then analyze the different groupings of words and analyze their differences further. Although this may seem like a solely elementary task, it can be used in upper grades, as well. But how?

Because I have been working with three students with reading difficulties recently, I have used word sorts with them. They each have their own needs and are in different spelling stages, but regardless of their ages, I am using sorts. The pacing and delivery of these sorts are much different than what they would receive in the classroom because their age and maturing levels far exceed their current academic levels. I follow Words Their Way (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2012, 5th edition) Scope and Sequence for their respective levels. (I know this is the second time I have mentioned this text, but it is worth reading!) Many of the activities are geared toward younger students, even at higher levels, but it is fairly simple to adjust them to fit the maturity level and age of your student, even if it is just changing the theme. For example, one of these students loves the subway. It was the only way I could motivate him. Therefore, I changed all the activities and game themes to deal with the subway.

An interesting thing about word sorts is that even though some students may know the correct way to pronounce certain words relatively accurately, they do not know how to apply those patterns to other words. They don't even know spelling patterns exist! This is similar to struggling readers not knowing that reading strategies exist. Therefore, explicit and purposeful instruction must be apparent in classrooms and reading interventions. I always like to point out to my students how well they have done finding the patten and then explaining the "rule."