Deeper Reading: Comprehending
Challenging Texts, 4-12
By: Kelly Gallagher
Nichole K. Enos & Amanda Hunt
Why Reading Is Like Baseball?
Baseball has different levels:
➢
Surface Level - You have a pitcher that throws the ball, batter that tries to hit the pitch, and if the
pitch is hit you run to as many bases as safely possible.
➢
Deeper Level - Watching for secret signs (Do I have permission to try to steal 2nd base? What type
of pitch should I throw?), these signs are changed before every pitch, and you may notice players
getting nervous as they become aware of another player about to steal base.
Your understanding can improve from a surface level to a deeper level as you are taught skills to
help you read. This skill is not acquired spontaneously or randomly, but must be learned.
You can assign a reading, give students an assessment, and students pass them. On the surface
everything looks fine: Students read the text and can answer the questions. But do they really
understand what they have read? If you ask them to evaluate, to analyze, to synthesize, they can't do it.
We want students to be able to read between the lines, we want our students to become readers who
can move beyond the literal and who can interpret the text.
Building
Scaffolds
As teachers we need to
provide the instructional
scaffolding, the guidance, for
our students.
An example is if we assign
writing instead of teaching
students how to write, we'll get
poor writing. If we assign
reading instead of teaching
students how to read, we'll get
poor reading.
Teaching Challenging Texts
Model for Teaching Challenging Texts
1.
Focus Your Reader
2.
Read Through the Text for the First Time
3.
Re-read the Text to Deepen Comprehension – In any well-crafted text there are often layers you do not
see on your initial reading.
4.
Collaborate – The richer the text, the harder it is for a single reader to uncover it all on a first reading. It is
important that you give your students time to discuss what they discovered while reading.We remember
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we both see and hear
70% of what we talk about with others
~Edgar Dale~
Collaboration itself raises the reading comprehension of each student in the class, that’s why it’s important for
meaningful collaboration time amongst students.
5.
Use Metaphor to Deepen Comprehension – An exercise you can do to introduce metaphors is to explain to
your students what “intangible” means. Brainstorm and create a list of intangible items. Ask students if they
can now infer what “tangible” means. Create a list. Have students complete the following sentence by
selecting on intangible item and on tangible item and then explore the relationship between the
two:(Intangible item) is like a (tangable item) because……
An example: Friendship is like a driver’s license because it will expire if you do not renew it.
6.
Lead Students to Meaningful Reflection – Have students reflect on the reading and answer what this book
says to them today. It’s important to get to what the story means to us now.
•
Why should you focus your readers?
When you start your car on a freezing morning, it’s best to let it warm up for a few minutes
before your drive. It is better for the car and provides a smoother ride. This is also true for
students when reading an article for the first time or even if they’re in the second week of
reading a novel. As class begins, they are thinking of other things.
•
Why first-draft reading?
Even students reading at or above grade level often need help, especially if the text is
unfamiliar or complex. Telling a student to read a text without giving them any other direction
or support can produce poor reading.
•
Why read a second time?
This introduces students to the idea that rich text is layered and that even expert readers
need more than one reading to help comprehend a story.
•
Why collaborate?
Students’ thinking improves when they share ideas.
•
Why use metaphor to deepen comprehension?
Metaphor enables readers to: Make much more complex connections when they read;
understand abstract material as well and as rapidly as literal language; enhance their thinking
processes by encouraging students to seek out associations and connections they would not
ordinarily make; and gain insight into relationships among ideas that help to forge a more
thorough understanding of new learning.
Focusing the Reader
• Cold Reading can often be a bad idea.
Before asking students to read an unfamiliar and complex text, consider
how much meaningful prior knowledge they have. The Educational
Research Service has published three types of prior knowledge that
are considered important for students as they read content-area texts:
(1) Knowledge about the topic
(2) knowledge about the structure and organization of the text
(3) knowledge about vocabulary.
There are two key points according to Sousa that can help our students make connections.Key
Point1→ If we expect students to find meaning, “we need to be certain that today’s curriculum contains
connections to their past experiences, not just ours.”Key Point 2 → “How a person feels about a
learning situation determines the amount of attention devoted to it.” Students need to care about what
they are reading and see the relevance of the assignment. If they ask themselves, “What’s in it for me?”
they need to be able to answer it.
Six Degree’s of Reading
What this means is that you follow a path that brings a book into your hands. Something in each book
sparks a readers interest and leads them to a book on a topic they read about in a previous book.
An example is maybe you read a book on The Civil War
In this book you may read about the famous Battle of Gettysburg that was part of the Civil War. So now
you’ll look into a book on Gettysburg.
When reading about Gettysburg you will hear about General Ulysses S. Grant, so you’ll then go out and
get a book on him. This is your “Reading Path.”
Reading Branches
When you look up a book online at amazon.com you will get a section that reads, “Customers who bought
this book also bought…” Amazon.com understands the importance of prior knowledge when it comes to
selling books and it is in this way that Amazon appeals to its customers’ reading branches. A reading
branch shows the types of books a person likes to read. The more branches you grow, the easier it will be
to add new ones.
Here’s an example of a Reading Tree and it’s Reading Branches. Each branch shows the different types of
books a reader likes:
Mystery
History
Humor
Fiction
Sci-Fi
Teacher
Books
Poetry
* Everyone’s tree will
look different and have a
different amount of
branches.
How to consider what books to teach and which not to teach….
Carol Jago, in Classics in the Classroom (2004, p.47) suggests we choose books that:
•
Are written in language that is perfectly suited to the author’s purpose
•
Expose readers to complex human dilemmas
•
Include compelling, disconcerting characters
•
Explore universal themes that combine different periods and cultures
•
Challenge readers to reexamine their beliefs
•
Tell a good story with places for laughing and places for crying
Framing the Text
•
What you do, or don’t do, before your students read a literary work will determine their level of motivation
and interest.
•
Perils of Assumicide: Assumicide is the death of a book that occurs when it is assumed that students
possess enough prior knowledge, connections, and motivation to make higher-level reading possible.
•
Framing Activities to Use Before Reading:
–
Web Searches
–
Anticipation Guides → These can be used to frame major ideas and themes students will encounter in the book.
–
Theme Spotlights → This activity focuses students’ attention to one major theme to study.
–
Focus Poems → Read thematically related poems beforehand.
–
K-W-L-R Charts → Before reading have students identify what they know (“K”) about the topic. Write down
everything that is brainstormed, even if it is incorrect (Students will confirm facts through reading or find information
that shows what they believed is incorrect). Brainstorm what they want (“W’) to know by the time they are done
reading the book. Use “L” to list what was learned while reading. “R” is used for questions that were unanswered and
will become the basis for post-reading research.
•
Framing Activities to Use While Reading:
–
Daily Focus Questions → Text-dependent questions (They require students to have read the text before they can
answer it) and text-independent questions (Students consider an idea that will help them prepare for what will be
found in the reading that day).
–
The Word Game → Write a single word on the board and have students explain the significance of that word to the
chapter they read the day before.
–
Interrupted Summary → Choose a student at random and give them a starter sentence. After 1-2 sentences interrupt
him by calling out another student’s name. They pick up where the previous student left off. This keeps everyone
attentive because they don’t know who will be called on next to continue the summary.
–
One Question and One Comment → Students come to class with one question and one comment generated from
their reading assignment.
–
Word Scramble Prediction → Before reading a climactic chapter have students predict what will happen. Give them a
list of words they will find in the chapter they will read and then give them five minutes to write a prediction of what
will happen in the chapter.
First Draft Reading
•
Student anxiety can be lowered by telling them that the initial reading of a text is a “first-draft” reading. This
first draft reading can help students get the basics of the text down – familiarizing themselves with the
characters, recognizing significant plot points, getting used to the language and structure of the novel.
•
How can you help make the first-draft reading as meaningful as possible? Consider these four key
questions:
1. Do your students have a reading focus?
2. Are students willing and able to embrace confusion?
3. Can your students monitor their own comprehension?
4. Do your students know fix-it strategies to assist them when their comprehension begins
to falter?
Ways to create a reading focus:
•
Help students get an idea of what they are looking for in order to
reduce frustration. Students can create questions based on the
chapter title or heading. They will now be reading with a purpose,
hoping to find the answers to their questions.
•
The first chapter is usually the most confusing and a place where a
reader can lose focus. Have students generate questions after
reading the first chapter. This can teach them to read closely and
helps to focus students as they read the rest of the book.
•
Place students in groups and provide each group with a specific
focus.
•
Character Charts – This can help keep characters straight.
•
Shift Charts – Students write adjectives describing the character early
in the novel, providing passages from the text with page numbers as
evidence. After the character has undergone change students will
choose a new adjective to describe the character and provide
passages that not what caused the change.
How to help students embrace confusion:
•
Don’t hide your own reading difficulties from students. Let your struggles be visible so they can see that
reading can be hard for adult readers as well.
•
Get students to understand that confusion is natural.
•
Let students know learning begins when we encounter confusion.
How students can monitor their own comprehension:
•
When reading a challenging text, students can often tell that they are getting lost. They need to take action
before the situation turns hopeless.
•
If a student says they don’t understand a reading, ask them which part they didn’t understand. If they say
they don’t get any of it ask if they understood the first word, then if they understood the first sentence, and
then the first paragraph. Continue this process with the student until you find where their comprehension
begins to break down.
•
To help students get an idea of where they are struggling with comprehension, have them read an excerpt
from an article. Break the article into sections and as they read each section, ask them to score their level
of comprehension on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being no understanding, 10 meaning you thoroughly
understand). Students then focus on passages that received the lowest scores.
How students can monitor their own
comprehension continued…
•
Give students two highlighters. Use one color to highlight words, phrases,
sentences, or entire passages that they understand. Use the other color for
everything they don’t understand.Benefits of color-coding are:1. Provides readers with a focus.2. Motivates
readers to concentrate so that they can come up with as few
passages highlighted in the color that means they don’t understand.3. It shows the reader where to slow
their pace.4. It alerts readers to the importance of context in trying to make meaning.5. Encourages the
reader to revise their comprehension while reading.
•
Trouble slips → Cut scrap paper into bookmark sized strips. Students use these to make notes, flag words
and passages that are giving them the hardest time. Students should also use these for their homework.
Fix it strategies to assist students with their
comprehension when it falters…
•
There are two questions to ask:
1. Where exactly do you feel you do not understand?
2. How many times have you read it?
•
Search Prefixes/Suffixes/Roots for Partial Meanings → Ex. When asked to define the word malpractice
students know that mal means bad. This helps them to make an educated guess as to the correct answer.
Another example is the word unenviable. Un means not, able means able to. Once again, instead of
guessing or blindly selecting a choice, students have a better chance of answering the question correct.
•
Figure Out Sound-Alikes → Take the word patricide for example. Very few people are familiar with the
word but, they may be familiar with the suffix –cide. Ask where this suffix has been heard before. Words
that might come up are: suicide, homicide, and genocide. Once this connection is made, students can
derive at lease a partial meaning and make an educated guess to the actual meaning.
Second-Draft Reading
•
On your second read through take notice of what the text doe not say. Train your students to not just
notice what is said but to also infer what is left unsaid. Students should be able to look under the surface.
This is important because students are willing to accept whatever they read. They should know that this is
a dangerous way to read your way through life. “I want them to realize that every time something is
said, something remains unsaid, and that every time something is written, something remains
unwritten.” – Kelly Gallagher
An example is a table printed in a local newspaper in California that said: 10 Lowest Orange County API
Scores, 2002. The article is printed with the schools and their scores. What the table doesn’t say is:
- The schools have a high percentage of non-English-speaking students.
- Students come and go frequently
- Schools are located in low-income neighborhoods.
- The schools suffer from high absenteeism.
- Students come from print-poor home environments.
- Many of the students do not have a quiet place to study at home.
None of this information was given with the table that was printed in the paper to help readers accurately
infer as to why the scores were low.
Three Key Questions
•
There are three questions that need to be ask after students have read a text:1. What does it say?
Students should be able to support their statements by returning to the text and providing
strong textual evidence.2. What does it mean? 3. What does it matter?
Reading literature provides people with a practice ground to explore issues by asking them,
“What does it matter?” We help students see the relevance of the great themes found in
classic literature.
Strategies to Achieve Deeper
Comprehension…
•
Say/Mean Chart → This is a t-chart where students are asked on one side to write what the passage says
(Literal comprehension) and on the other side what they think the passage means (Inferential
comprehension).
•
Multi-Layered Time Lines → Develop a time line of events. This is especially useful for a novel or play
that has an intricate plot or many characters to keep track of.
•
Literary Dominoes → Plots of novels, plays, and stories are like dominoes. A happens, which causes B
to happen, which in turn causes C to happen.
An example is with the play “Romeo and Juliet.” Provide students with the last three dominoes in the chain.
You know the play ends in tragedy, but what specific actions lead to this conclusion? Students must
identify all the key events in the chain that led to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.
•
Flip Side Chart → Every positive has a negative. Everything has a flip side. This can help students
become critical readers, especially when reading nonfiction.
•
Positive-Negative Chart → A way for students to track specific literary elements in a novel or play.
- Positive vs. negative behavior by the character: Students chart both positive and negative
behaviors of the character.
- Positive or negative influence other characters have on the main character: Students pay
attention to and chart the influence other characters have on a given character.
- Highest or lowest point in the story: Students mark the high and low points of the story for a given
character.Positive-negative charting activities work best when students are able to share, discuss,
and argue about them.
•
Reading Symbols → Students write reflections in their reading logs. Some ideas are: Make predictions,
recognize when the author uses literary devices, make connections, make judgments, and challenge the
text. After writing their reflections students trade logs and look for evidence of the element. This gives them
a double dose of deeper reading reinforcement.
•
Responsibility Pie Charts → Students consider which characters or people are most responsible for the
book’s outcome. Ex. Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” a nonfictional account of the Holocaust. At the end of the unit
students brainstorm various people and groups who played a role in the genocide of World War II. It’s easy
for students to blame Hitler, but you want them to realize that he needed a lot of help to murder millions of
people. As a class brainstorm all the people and groups who played a role in the Holocaust and students
then create a pie chart to visually represent culpability. The higher the percentage on the chart, the more
responsible a person is. Students must then defend their charts.
The Importance of Collaboration
•
You can comprehend a text the first time you read it, but deeper
comprehension is more likely to occur when a reading is discussed
with others. An ex. Of how students can discuss a reading is Book
Club.
•
Collaboration plays an important role in raising levels of
comprehension.
•
Hitchhiking → Unfortunately, just putting students in groups and
giving them time to talk doesn’t automatically result in higher-level
thinking. Adolescents when given the chance will often “hitchhike” in
groups which means they’ll go along for the ride and not pay for the
gas.
Group students in a way that encourages meaningful discussion. Here
are two questions to consider for grouping:
1. What conditions are desirable to help create effective groups?
2. Once groups are created which strategies are most effective in
creating higher-level thinking.
Building Effective Groups
•
Size Matters → The smaller the size of the groups the better! A good number is three because that will
encourage participation from everyone in the group.
•
Ethnicity and Gender → Honor as many experiences your students bring to the discussion. You want
students to hear as many different perspectives as possible and this can be achieved by mixing both
gender and ethnicity when forming groups.
•
Time and Task → Students can be slow to get started. To prompt them to begin immediately, set a time
limit! If you’re not sure how long it will take students to complete a task, try to err on the side of not giving
them enough time. You can always adjust and give them extra time if they are working diligently. Trouble
occurs when students have too much time to complete the task at hand.
•
Specific Roles → Having a role provides each student with a focus and gives the group a framework.
•
Accountability → Can be applied to individuals and groups.
- Individual Accountability: Each student has to produce a product. Students can have the same
job.- Group Accountability: Everyone is required to share their group’s work and the person selected to
stand in front of the class to do so will be chosen at random.
Rules to Govern Collaboration
1.
No hitchhiking. Everyone participates.
2.
Be critical of ideas, not people. Disagreement is necessary.
3.
Everyone is in it together, we are a community of learners.
4.
Restate what someone said if it is not clear.
5.
If there are two sides to an issue, try to understand both sides.
6.
Listen to everyone’s ideas, even if you do not agree with them. It often takes more skill to listen than it
does to share.
7.
Let all ideas emerge.
Strategies to promote higher-level
thinking in small-group settings
•
Silent Exchange → Students read a passage or chapter and write a question at the top of the paper. The
question has to be open-ended. In groups of five, students pass the papers to one another and have two minutes
to write a response to that question. There is no talking and when the time is up students sign their name and
pass the paper to the next person. When the rotation is complete, each student has multiple responses to his or
her question.
•
Save the Last Word for Me → Students copy a passage they find thought-provoking. The other group members
try to guess why the passage was chosen, or they can discuss why it is important. The person who selected the
passage gets the last word.
•
Trouble Slips → Slips of bookmarked size papers are handed out. Students take notes of their trouble spots as
they read – places where comprehension falters. In groups students share these spots with peers.
•
Double-Entry Journals Plus → A t-chart where on the left side is a passage the student found compelling and
on the right they write a response to the passage.
•
SOAPS → Much like a literature circle, students are provided with roles to help them discuss texts.
Subject(s): Identifies the subject and main idea(s)
Occasion: Discusses context of text (Setting, circumstances, events, era, historical or
cultural context.
Audience: Identifies intended audience and discusses why they were targeted.
Purpose: Analyzes author’s purpose for composing the piece.
Speaker: Determines the tone of voice and why this tone was used.
•
Mystery Envelopes→ Each group gets a “mystery envelop” with an index card with a question for the
group to answer. Here are a few examples of some questions:
- What lesson(s) have we learned from a specific character?
- This chapter doesn’t have a title. What should the title be? Why?
- Which character is most (least) believable? Why?
•
Group “Exams” → Gauge students’ understand by having them produce essays or responses to openended question. Multiple-choice exams can be useful review tools in group settings to help students
prepare for the “real” assessment essay.
•
Group Open Minds → Students are grouped and asked to analyze a character using an open mind. They
are directed to draw metaphorical representations to illustrate what is going on in the characters head. If
there are multiple characters, each group can have a different character.
•
Conversation Log Exchanges → Logs are provided for each student. This method could be used with
students in middle school and up. Students write anything they want in the log and do not sign their
names. During second period class, students pick up the notebook
that corresponds with their number and they write back to the person
anonymously. This is repeated again for third period class. After the book
is done students can reveal their identity.
Using Metaphor to Deepen
Comprehension...
●
●
●
●
●
●
By developing your students ability to think metaphorically, you help them to reach deeper levels of
comprehension.
Bringing metaphorical thinking into the teacher of literature has two benefits:
1. Students are more readily able to reach deeper levels of comprehension when they understand
metaphor in challenging text.
2. Repeated practice recognizing and analyzing metaphor enables students to generate their own
metaphorical connections to the text and to the world. This in turn can sharpen their higherlevel
thinking skills.
The OWL (Online Writing Lab) recommends students be taught the value of metaphorical thinking for
three reasons:
1. Metaphors enliven ordinary language
2. Metaphors require interpretation (Higher-level thinking)
3. Metaphors create new meanings.
Strong metaphors bring writing alive.
Interpreting rich metaphor usually requires second-draft reading.
Metaphors create new meanings
An iceberg is a good metaphor to use when studying a specific character. Like
an iceberg, part of a character is easily visible; but at the same time there
might be a part, sometimes a large part, of the character that remains unseen.
Metaphorical Graphic Organizers to
Analyze Characters
•
•
•
•
•
Square Peg, Round Hole → Students should consider both society’s expectations on a character (the round hole) and
the character’s needs (square peg).
Brake Pedal, Accelerator Pedal → Consider the forces (people, places, things) that slow a character down as well as
the forces that accelerate a character’s thinking or behavior.
Ingredients Listing → Students list the character’s “ingredients” (traits), with the most important first and the leaset
important last.
Archery target → Students determine how close a character came to reaching his or her goal (hitting his or her target).
Wallet/Purse → You can learn a great deal about a person if you were permitted to examine the contents of her purse or
the contents of his wallet. Assuming the character did have one, what would be in it? What could we learn about a given
character from the items found in that character’s wallet or purse?
Metaphorical Graphic Organizers to
Analyze Plot, Structure, and Setting
•
•
•
•
Pencil, Eraser → A pencil has two ends, one for writing and the other for erasing. On the writing end of the pencil,
students note the actions that character wishes he or she had done. On the eraser end, students consider what actions
the character wishes he or she could erase.
Snow Globe → Capture the setting in a five inch sphere. This represents a challenge because a setting can be vast so
students need to pick and chose what they want to incorporate.
Time Capsule → If you were to fill a time capsule to give a reader a sense of that time period and place for a specific
novel, what would go in it?
Backdrop, Props → Carefully consider what you would use as a backdrop for the staging of a scene.
Five Considerations...
Metaphorical graphic organizes need to be used with careful consideration. To achieve maximum effectiveness, consider the
following:
1. Use Metaphor to Interpret Metaphor → Make sure a metaphorical graphic organizer is completed in metaphorical
terms.
2. Don’t Turn Graphic Organizers into Worksheets → Use it for a specific complex character, don’t use it repeatedly for
any and all characters.
3. Keep the “Newness Factor” in Mind When Assigning Metaphorical Graphic Organizers → Don’t use the same
organizers, create new ones as you go through the school year.
4. Have Students Create and Draw Their Own Metaphorical Graphic Organizers →(Character name) is like a
_______________ because __________________________ .
This sentence can be worded in multiple different ways:
The chain of events in this novel is like a ____________________ because _____________________ .
The mood in this novel is like a _________________ because _____________________ .
The writing style in this novel is like a _______________________ because ______________________ .
The novel is built (put together) like a _________________________ because ______________________ .
5. Use Metaphorical Graphic Organizers as a Springboard to Writing
•
Meaningful Reflections…
Reading is rewarding.
•
Reading builds a mature vocabulary.
•
Reading makes you a better writer.
•
Reading is hard, and “hard” is necessary.
•
Reading prepares you for the world of work.
•
Reading well is financially rewarding.
•
Reading opens the door to college and beyond.
•
Reading arms you against oppression.
•
Reading makes you smarter.
•
Reading develops a moral compass
•
Mini-lessons are motivational for students to reach reading goals.
•
When students are aware of the reasons that they should be a good reader, help them to develop
positive reading behaviors
Students should analyze texts
by means of the following…
•
Characterization: How does the author develop the characters? What is the difference between “flat” and
“round” characters? Which minor characters play important roles? How do the characters advance the plot
and the conflicts?
•
Time and Sequence: How does the author develop time and sequence? Is foreshadowing used?
Flashbacks? How does the author craft these time shifts? How do these time shifts advance the telling of
the story?
•
Themes: Which themes emerge from the book? Is there an overriding theme? Do minor themes emerge?
How are these themes developed?
•
Author’s purpose: Why do you think the author wrote this book? What did he or she really want to say?
What was the historical context in which this book was written, and how did this influence the author? Who
is/was the author’s intended audience?
•
Diction: How does the author’s choice of words advance the story? Is dialogue used effectively? Does the
diction ring true? Does the author effectively use figurative language—metaphor, simile, and allegory?
•
Symbolism: How does the author effectively use symbolism to advance the story? How do these symbols
enrich the novel?
•
Voice: Who is telling the story? Which point of view has the author used? How are the other literary
elements revealed through the use of narration, dialogue, dramatic monologue, or soliloquy?
•
Setting: Where is the story set? How does this setting affect the story’s development?
•
Conflict: What are the central conflicts in the work? How does the author develop these conflicts? Are the
conflicts primarily internal or external?
•
Irony: How is irony used in the story? What kinds of irony (verbal, situational, dramatic) are used? How
does the use of irony advance our understanding of the characters?
•
Tone: What is the author’s attitude in this work? How and where is it revealed?
Reflection begins with the self. First students think about what this book means for themselves,
and then once they are aware of the answer, they can then dive into the meaning of the book itself and
reflect upon it in means of others.
Strategies to encourage reflection…
1.
Three degrees of:
This strategy incorporates having students think about a central theme within the text and then break that theme
up into three degrees in relation to the contemporary world. For example, degrees of Racism.
1.
The most valuable idea:
This strategy has students come up with what the most valuable idea was from the text.
- At the top of the paper, students write what they think is the single most important idea
found in the book. This idea must be written in a complete sentence.
- In the left-hand column, students find an example in the real world that illustrates this
idea.
- In the right-hand column, students explain the connection between the idea found in
the book and the real-world example.
3.
4.
5.
Theme notebooks
Hunt for authors purpose
Casting Calls
- Role play
Reading the World
Critical Thinking Skills•
Give students more exposure to a curriculum that, when taught with rigor, provides them with richer opportunities to think critically.
•
Students should be able to analyze literature in the class, but the bigger goal is that they develop these cognitive skills to a level where they
may be transferred beyond the classroom.
“Loaded” Language•
•
•
•
•
•
Euphemism: the use of a mild or indirect expression instead of one that is harsh or unpleasantly direct—from the World Book Dictionary)
Euphemisms can be used by giving students a list of euphemisms and having them think of what the actual word might be
Be sure to discuss and reflect on the purpose of euphemisms with students
Another example of “Loaded” Language is how people manipulate words to benefit themselves
This idea of manipulation of language can be taught by using Personal Want Ad’s, specifically the dating section.
Discuss with students how someone might manipulate language in a dating ad to make them more interesting or attractive to the reader. For
example the word affectionate might really mean needy.
Reading Political Cartoons•
•
•
•
Analyzing political cartoons takes a lot of work and thought from students
It is important to conduct a very close first read by examining the cartoon and listing everything they see. (Who, What, When, Where , How)
After that, asking students deeper questions about the cartoon can be conducted, such as, what is the subject? What is the context? What is
the purpose? Who is the audience? What is not said or what is left unsaid in the cartoon?
The next step into deeper reading of political cartoons is to show opposing cartoons that contain two opposing views.
Cradle-to-Grave Consumerism•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The common goal: to get you to identify with their brand from an early age so that you develop a sense of nostalgia for the brand—nostalgia
that will keep you coming back as a lifelong customer.
“According to Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, 96 percent of American school children can identify Ronald McDonald, and the
Golden Arches now have a higher degree of recognition than the Christian cross”
Children begin distinguishing brands during their preschool years. Six-month-old babies can recognize corporate logos and mascots.
Brand loyalty begins as early as age two.
The average three-year-old recognizes 100 different brand logos.
Toddlers cannot distinguish a commercial from a television show.
It isn’t until age eight that kids begin to realize that advertising can be untruthful and misleading
Explaining this consumerism communication and dialogue to students will allow for them to become aware of this propaganda, how it is used
and how language plays a big role in it.
Read All About It•
•
•
•
The younger you are, the less likely you are to read the newspaper
Reading the newspaper is crucial in students reading the world and preparing for adulthood
Students should become informed members of society
3 Activities to get students interested in reading the newspaper
– Its a Wacky World- Find old newspapers that you have laying around and find hot topics or events from way back when. Anything
interesting, crazy, unbelievable, tragic, happy, that will catch students attention.
– Scavenger Hunt- Help students get an idea and become familiarized with how the newspaper is sectioned and how to read the
newspaper in such ways.
– Newspaper Reading Minute- Spend the first minute of every day (for one month) sharing an interesting newspaper article that the
student has found. Assign one student for each day of the month to do so. Challenge students to find and bring in the MOST
interesting article
Overall:
•
Provide students with real world practice:
– Identifying euphemisms
– Critically read advertisements
– Newspaper Articles
– Political Cartoons
– Statistics
●
Make the time to incorporate Reading the World into the curriculum
○ It prepares students for college and career readiness and the common core is pushing this concept for students to
be prepared and ready for the demands of the world beyond the classroom.
Teaching Deep Reading
Questions to consider…
• How can we design classroom lessons that help our students reach deeper meaning when they read???
• Without my assistance, what will my students take from this reading?
• With my assistance, what do I want my students to take from this reading?
• What can I do to bridge the gap between what my students would learn on their own and what I want them to learn?
• How will I know if my students “got it”?
Assessment methods: Use the backwards design
• The assessment should drive the teaching.
• When teacher and students know the assessment beforehand, more focused teaching and learning result.We should
start every unit with a “backwards design” approach in mind (Wiggins and McTighe 1998).
*Writing tests after the reading is completed creates a guessing game and should be avoided.
What you test is what you get
•
•
•
•
When considering a reading assessment, it helps to remember an acronym coined by Jim
Cox, formerly the director of assessment in my school district: WYTIWYG (pronounced “wittywig”), which stands for “What you test is what you get.”
measure students thinking through assessments that require deeper thinking, and receive
deeper thinking from them
The multiple-choice questions value shallow thinking, and so they inspire surface-level
thinking.
The essay questions value deeper thinking, and when they are used in assessment, they
move students to a deeper level of comprehension.
Dangers! Key thoughts to keep in mind when
implementing Deep Reading strategies
Danger 1: Overteaching the Book
Danger 2: The student becomes over reliant on the teacher
How we felt about the book…
Pros
Cons
•
•
•
•
•
•
Multiple activities are discussed to help with
comprehension. There are also images and
charts visually show you what is being discussed
at times.
The book has multiple headings and
subheadings that easily help you locate
information you are interested in.
It can help open your eye’s to perspectives you
may not previously have thought of.
Can help to encourage higher critical thinking
with your students through uses of the strategies
and activities it discusses.
On Amazon.com the book is rated 4.9 out of 5
stars (out of 34 votes). You can read feedback
from other teachers that discuss how useful the
book was in their classroom.
•
Repetition → An element may be discussed
briefly in a section, but later in the book it will
have an entire section to itself. It would be
helpful if the two were near each other instead of
separate.
Almost all of the activities were well explained,
there were occasionally a few that could be hard
to understand and may require re-reading.