- Divide students into small groups (between 4 and 6).
- Pass out complex text with enough room around text for students to annotate notes and write questions. Students write name in upper right corner.
- Read text multiple times out loud with different voices reading. Teacher reads final time.
- Direct students to circle any words that are confusing or new.
- Direct students to underline any words or phrases that stand out to them for any reason.
- Explain that this is a silent activity and only teacher cue questions and prompts are heard.
- Begin Read Around by directing students to respond to the text by writing down any notes, questions, interpretations, analysis, etc. in the margins.
- After approximately one minute, say "Pass to the right" and direct students to read any notes on the new paper. Students then continue their note taking process on the new paper.
- Teacher may give cue prompts with specific questions to inspire student note taking.
- Continue to pass to the right making new notes or building off of group member's questions or thoughts until students receive original paper back.
KWL Chart
This chart tracks what a student knows (K), wants to know (W), and has learned (L) about a topic.
- Direct students to look at any pictures that are part of the text.
- In small groups, have them try to relate the pictures to their everyday lives.
- Explain that it helps us understand what we read if we begin by thinking about what we already know about a topic.
- Have students fill out the first 2 sections of the chart in pairs or table groups.
- Once the lesson, text, and/or lecture is finished, students fill out the last column in the KWL Chart.
Key Word Outlines are an effective way for students to analyze and summarize a piece of text without plagiarizing. This strategy should be done as a whole group first, then later in table groups and finally, when students are ready, they can be done individually.
- Read the text and discuss the meaning and/or main idea
- Highlight 3 important words or phrases for a short piece of text. Highlight 3 important words or phrases per paragraph for a longer piece of text.
- Put the original text aside and summarize it's meaning using the 3 words that were highlighted
- Must use all 3 words
- May use them in any order
- May add any other words
- Discuss key words and orally share possible sentences
- Have students respond to shared sentences... "I think that sentence is strong/interesting/awkward/humorous because..."
- Remember to use random calling
Close Reading
Closed reading is a carful and purposeful rereading
of the text. Essentially, close
reading means reading to uncover layers of meaning that lead to deep
comprehension of text.
Introduce
complex vocabulary: At most,
we’ll explicitly teach/introduce 10 vocabulary words in a given document. We
usually choose these words based on how crucial they are to understanding the
piece and/or how difficult or unfamiliar we think they’ll be to our average
students.
Establish
a purpose: This is where we try to hook our kids into the text.
We might give background information, read an interesting section, or connect
it to prior learning. We then seek to give students a clear, legitimate task or
purpose.
Model
higher-order reading/thinking: Here, we just read aloud a portion of the
text, “showing” our thinking as we go through a paragraph or two. We try to
show students how we stay focused on a reading purpose, how we appreciate
craft, how we grapple with unfamiliar vocabulary, and how we annotate.
Partner
practice: After
modeling, we set the students loose on a paragraph or two, but instead of
having them read independently we may ask them to read aloud in pairs,
annotating as they go. When finished, we have them share something they
annotated. This forces them to stop and think while they are reading.
Check for
understanding: When our students are working in pairs or
independently, we walk around, monitoring their work. Are they creating useful
annotations? Are they slowing down enough to record their thinking in response
to the text?
Independent
practice: Finally,
the students are cut loose. Our goal is to give them at least two shots at this
every week.
Close reading in isolation makes no sense at all. After all,
at no point when we naturally learned to close read did we simply do it
“because.” We did it to help us own intellectual, text-based tasks like
discussion and argument, both written and spoken.
Close reading always ends with one of
the following cool intellectual activities:
Discussion Debate or Argumentative writing
5 Close Reading Strategies to Support Common Core
1.
Number the paragraphs
The
Common Core asks students to be able to cite and refer to the text. One simple way to do this is by
numbering each paragraph, section or stanza in the left hand margin. When students refer to the text, many
teachers require them to state which paragraph they are referring to. The rest of the class will be able to
quickly find the line being referred to.
2.
Chunk the text
When
faced with a full page of text, reading it can quickly become overwhelming for
students. Breaking up the text
into smaller sections (or chunks) makes the page much more manageable for
students. Students do this by
drawing a horizontal line between paragraphs to divide the page into smaller
sections. At the beginning of the
year, group the paragraphs into chunks before handing out he assignment. In the directions say, “Chunk
paragraphs 1-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12.”
and be sure to look at the paragraphs to see where the natural chunks
occur. Paragraphs 1-3 may be the
hook and the thesis statement, while 6-8 may be the paragraphs where the author
addresses the opposition. It is
important to understand that there is no right or wrong way to chunk the text,
as long as you can justify why you grouped certain paragraphs together. By the end of the year, begin to let go
of that responsibility and ask students to chunk the text on their own. They number the paragraphs and then
make decisions about what paragraphs will be grouped together. Usually, most of the class is very
similar in the way they chunked the text.
3.
Underline and circle… with purpose
Telling
students to simply underline “the important stuff” is too vague. “Stuff” is not a concrete thing that
students can identify. Instead,
direct students to underline and circle specific things. Think about what information you want
students to take from the text, and ask them to look for those elements. What you have students circle and
underline may change depending on the text type. For example, when studying an argument, ask students to
underline “claims”. We indentify
as belief that the author is making.
Students will quickly discover that the author is makes multiple claims
throughout the argument. When
studying poetry, students could underline the imagery they find throughout the
poem. Circling specific items is
also as effective close reading strategy.
It is also a good idea to have students circle “key terms” in the
text.
Define key terms as…
·
Are
defined
·
Are
repeated throughout the text
·
If
you only circled five key terms in the entire text, you would have a pretty
good idea about what the entire text is about
Also
ask students to circle the names of sources, power verbs, or figurative
language. Providing students with
specific things you want them to underline or circle will focus their attention
on that area much better than “underlining important information”.
4.
Left margin: What is the author SAYING?
It
isn’t enough to ask students to “write in the margins”. We must be very specific and give
students a game plan for what they will write. This is where the chunking comes into play. In the left margin, ask the students to
look at the text in smaller segments, and summarize what the author is saying
in just that small, specific chunk.
5.
Right margin: Dig deeper into the text
In
the right-hand margin, direct the students to complete a specific task for each
chunk. This may include:
- Use a power verb to describe what the author is DOING. (For example: Describing, illustrating, arguing, etc..) Note: It isn’t enough for students to write, “comparing” and be done. What is the author comparing? A better answer might be: “Comparing the character of Montag to Captain Beatty”.
- Represent the information with a picture. This is a good way for students to be creative and visually represent the chunk with a drawing.
- Ask questions. This can be a struggle for many students, as they often say they don’t have any questions to ask. When modeled, students can begin to learn how to ask questions that dig deeper into the text.
Text Reconstruction
Directions:
- Teacher reads the text out loud 3 times
- During the 3rd read students take notes
- Partners discuss their notes
- Partners reconstruct the text from their notes
Mnemonic Story Process for Vocabulary and Complex Concepts
Directions: Have the students follow the following steps in order to create a mnemonic story centered on the definition of a new concept or term.
- I must get familiar from the unfamiliar word ________________ to the target definition ______________________________________________________________________ .
- When I think of [inset unfamiliar term]
- ... I think of [insert the first related idea
- When I think of [the first idea], I think of [the second idea].
- When I think of [second idea], I imagine [third idea].
- When I think of [third idea[, I think of [last idea], which leads me to the definition ________________________________________________________________ .
- The term ___________ means _____________ .
- It is a/an [insert part of speech].
- A sample sentence is _____________________ .
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