Graphic Organizer

Chapter 6

Picture This: Graphic Organizers in the Classroom

Inspiration: Concept Map

Read Alouds and Shared Readings

I really liked the fact that the chapter we read was based on read alouds and shared readings in the adolescent classroom, whereas, the article focused on the primary grades. I liked to see the similarities and differences (if there were any) between primary and high school grades using these strategies. The article, "Text Talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences for young children,"  focused on "Text Talk," which is basically just an approach to read-alouds in which a student's ability to construct meaning from text is enhanced. I don't think I would have understood what the authors meant by "Text Talk" if they had not mentioned that it is very similar to Questioning the Author.The major difference is that Text Talk is aimed at read-alouds in the primary grades instead of independent reading in the intermediate and upper grades. The most interesting part of the article was the fact that students will sometimes rely too much on the pictures of a story for comprehension. I found this so interesting because I am currently experiencing this with a student. I now know from reading this article that I should wait to show this student the picture until after the student has answered any questions about that particular part of the story. I gained and was reminded of a lot of information while reading the article. The one aspect I did not particularly care for was that the article seemed very repetitive. I enjoyed the chapter, "Well Read: Promoting comprehension through read-alouds and shared readings," probably more than the article because first of all it addressed read-alouds and shared readings in all subjects areas. Second, it was also aimed toward adolescents which is a nice change since our other classes aim toward primary and elementary grades.   My favorite part of the chapter was how to successfully implement read-alouds and shared readings in all of the subject areas. I am a little nervous that I will not be able to focus on subjects like social studies if I cannot integrate language arts and social studies together. This chapter, the other chapters and the other articles that we have read have helped to ease the nervousness by providing great ways to integrate important language arts skills with other subject areas. The other part I particularly liked was that the chapter listed steps on how to plan and successfully implement read-alouds and shared readings into secondary classrooms.

Questions:

1. Why is it that read-alouds and shared readings are only recently researched and seen as beneficial in secondary classrooms?

2. Where can I find more information on comprehension with read-alouds and shared readings? 

Standards

I needed to get to three pages on my standards paper for social studies and really wanted to end with a witty quote. I couldn't find one online, so I made one up. "Education without standards is like food without the plate it is still needed, but is a complete mess." I just thought I would share because I thought it was pretty witty if I do say so myself. 

Writing to Learn

“Writing to learn is a tool we can use to see how students are thinking and understanding what they are doing and learning in the classroom” (chapter 8 p. 155). I gained a great amount of information from the article, Writing to learn across the curriculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes by Knipper and Duggan and the chapter, Powerful Pens: Writing to learn with adolescents. Both of the readings dealt with writing to learn strategies. I really liked learning about the strategies that are available and ways to incorporate them into a classroom.

My favorite strategy from Knipper and Duggan’s article was the structured note taking. I don’t necessarily believe that all students need to be forced to take notes in this way; however, I think it is very important for students to learn an effective way to take notes. I do not remember any specific lesson in which I was specifically taught an effective note taking strategy. I believe this applies to many people in my generation.   Effective note taking not only benefits writing to learn, but also saves class time when students are taking notes.

Something else I wanted to mention was the biopoem. When we learned about this in class and while reading the article I realized that it looked really familiar. This weekend I was going through some storage bins and I found two pieces of writing that looked just like the biopoem. One of the writings I found was an actual biopoem. The other was actually an autobiography poem. Which I remembered doing in Junior High as an ice breaker one of the first days of class. I vividly remember loving this assignment because I was able to learn about my classmates. Without being overly outgoing, I was able to see what I might have in common with these peers that I didn’t know. I realized that my teacher had probably adapted the biopoem to an autobiography poem; this realization made me start thinking about how I might adapt some of the strategies to different students.

This brings me to chapter 8 from the book which talked a lot about strategies for adolescents. This chapter brought up that writing to learn is especially important for English Language learners because it allows them to order their ideas in written form. It made me think that it must also be very important for students with reading and writing difficultly, problems with comprehension, students with special needs and learners that learn better from writing their thoughts down. One of my favorite strategies from the book was the “I AM” poem. I remember writing one of these in seventh grade. After we got our rough drafts written we were grouped according to similar interests and were able to read our poems to our groups members. I also really liked using “admit slips” or “entry slips” as writing prompts. The topics the teacher can chose from are endless, from what they learned to what they hope to learn to what they already know.

All in all, I gained a lot from both the article and the book. I think I preferred reading the article better that the article. I really am not sure why except I found the article more interesting and was able to more easily read it than the chapter. I will definitely use the strategies from both the article and the chapter in my future classrooms.

Questions about this article and/or chapter:

What are some effective ways to adapt some of these strategies for different learners or adapt them to fit a different purpose?

Where can I find different ways to effectively take notes or teach effective note taking skills?