Se Hace Camino Al Andar

To Discover
Originally uploaded by NaniRolls.

One of the activities I taught today was the “Probable Passage” activity from Kylene Beers’ book. This is one of the products of that activity I did with the teachers.

I’m giving a workshop tomorrow to my colleagues for our Professional Development day. Here’s what I’m presenting:

Reading Comprehension: Two Adaptable Activities for the Classroom

Activity 1: Probable Passage

Kylene Beers uses “Probable Passage” as a way of “frontloading meaning”. This strategy helps students :
• Access their prior knowledge
• Interact with portions of the text prior to reading
• Practice sequencing, find cause-and-effect relationships, draw comparisons, make inferences and predict.
• Identify vocabulary that might be a problem
• Construct meaning before they begin reading the text.

Attached, you will find a Xerox of the Probable Passage strategy from Beers’ book. [Obviously, not you, dear readers but if you happen to have When Kids Can't Read, this activity is in the section starting on p. 74]

Activity 2: Threads of Discussion, a Reader Response technique (adapted from Alfred Guy at Yale University)

This activity is another reading comprehension tool that can be used with difficult text and also provides practice in peer response. I like this activity in particular because the non-verbal communication welcomes reluctant participants into the conversation. This activity works particularly well with texts that have unfamiliar language or style, such as a Shakespeare play or The Odyssey.

Planning the activity:
1. Select a passage from a text that you are currently reading or will read. It should be about 200 words, more or less. You may want to select a passage that students struggled with in a previous reading.
2. Make copies of the text, centering the text on the page and leaving wide margins for writing.
Executing Activity
1. Students should sit in large groups or in a circle, maybe 5-8 in a group.
2. Distribute copies of the passage to students. They should put their name at the top. This is important for later.
3. Read the passage aloud to the students once.
4. Begin by asking students to pick a line, a word or a phrase and writing a comment or question about it in the margin, near the selected text. It can be as simple as “I like this because…” or “ I don’t get this.” This is the beginning of a thread.
5. After writing that initial comment, students in the group will swap papers, in no particular order. One way to do this is to simply put the papers in the center of the table/desks and take a different one.
6. Once students have a different paper, they have two options. They can:
a. Respond to a comment or question written on the paper
b. They can start a new “thread”.
7. Continue to pass papers for 10 minutes, or until it looks like students have run out of papers to trade. Ask them to collect their own paper back and read the comments written on their paper.
8. From here, you can either initiate a class discussion about the activity and what meaning they made of the passage or you can ask them to write a written response to the passage in their journals, based on what the comments and/or questions they read. If the passage is one they struggled with previously, ask them if the meaning has changed or has been clarified.

It got the thumbs-up from Tamara. What about you?

Check out my new Audioscrobbler account. (via Electrolicious)

A mystery is brewing at work. A teacher, last year, used The Pigman by Paul ZIndel in her classes. We had 70 copies of this book, according to another English teacher, who is in charge of the book room. The teacher is gone and so are the books. We have searched high and low, every nook and cranny. They are nowhere to be found. This year, we got about 50 new copies of the book. Together, with the 70 older copies, we would have had 4 or 5 class sets. Without the 70 older copies, we barely have enough for two classes. Of course, I’m teaching The Pigman this term and I had planned to use it with my three regular English classes. There goes that plan. As it is, I’ll have to hit Barnes and Noble to buy some spare copies. For third class, I’m using The Contender by Robert Lipsyte. I read it on Friday and Saturday, found some teaching materials for the book online today and I’ll probably spend all day tomorrow writing the unit. The books in our school are worth thousands and thousands of dollars. You would think we’d have a better tracking system for the books, something library-quality. Instead, when new books come in, they are all hand-stamped with a number. Then, when the books are distributed, the students fill out a book reciept with their name, the title of the book and the number of the book. Then, the teachers just hope and pray that all the books get returned at the end of the unit. There’s really no consquences if they lose the book. It’s hard to keep track of all the book reciepts to verify that the book was returned, and it’s hard to collect payment for a lost or vandalized book.

books
Originally uploaded by NaniRolls.

When you are an English teacher and a grad student…

more books
Originally uploaded by NaniRolls.

your books tend to overflow

Wasted: I’d like to go see this show and on Thursday nights, it’s pay-as-you-wish. Even better!

Mr. Babylon is back and as pissed off as ever. Yahoo!

A Boston Globe editorial about the PBS cartoon that Spellings objected to, via Education at the Brink. It expresses my point, only so much better!