Deb Bambino and Ellen Berg have agreed to help moderate the talk and
try to make sure that everyone's comments and questions receive a response.
Deb has suggested that we try a "loose structure" for this conversation.
What follows are some guidelines (not rules!) that we might follow:
PROPOSED STRUCTURE FOR CHAT
(We do not have to adhere strictly to this. It's a guide.)
Week One (Tuesday 4/17 through Monday 4/23):
"Fake Reading" (Chapter 1)
"The Realities of Reading" (Chapter.2)
"Access Tools/Purposes & Inner Voices" ( Chapter 3 & Part
3))
"Knowing When You're Stuck/Responsibility & Empowerment" (
Chapter 4)
Week Two (Tuesday 4/24 through Monday 4/30):
"Fix It" ( Chapter 5)
"Connections" ( Chapter 6)
"Wondering" ( Chapter 7)
"Supportable Inferences" ( Chapter 8)
Wrap Up (Tuesday 5/1 through Thursday 5/3):
Overall comments, additional conversation, loose ends.
We'll begin our Week One conversation by posting two or three "focus
questions" suggested by Ellen Berg and Deb. They might help us get
started. But feel free to pitch in with questions and comments drawn from
your own reading and/or experience at any point. And also feel free to reference
page numbers from the book to help make your points. If you haven't read
the book yet, you're still welcome to join the conversation. AND PLEASE,
don't feel that this conversation is limited to language arts/reading folks.
"Comprehension" is an issue that affects every middle grades teacher!
A few listservers' comments:
Hi - I received the book the other day and felt as if I wanted to buy it
for every middle-school reading teacher. I am completely hooked on the idea
of "fake reading" and Chris Tovani's ability to be so forthcoming
with her own inadquacies as a reader. Run, don't walk, to buy this book.
--Alexis Ducat
I just got the book, I Read It, But I Don't Get It , that Ellin Keene suggested
during our Mosaic conversation. WOW! I hope other folks read it too. She
starts out talking about the phenomenon of "fake reading" and
how widespread it is in our classrooms. I'm only on chater 2, but I'm hooked!
-- Deb Bambino
I wholeheartedly agree with Deborah about this book. Our principal gave
every Language Arts teacher a copy at our last literacy inservice and it
is definitely opening some eyes.
-- Rick Selby
I am so excited and have to tell. I have gone on and on at school about
Mosaic and then I got I Read It and couldn't stop talking about it too.
The principal agreed to let us have a book study group and offered to buy
the book for everyone.
-- Marsha Ratzel
I am in the middle of reading the book and am looking forward to a discussion
that might give me some strategies to use in my eighth grade science class.
-- Sue Sciuto
I would love to discuss "I Read It, But I Don't Get It"! I'm reading
it now and really enjoying it. I am currently teaching reading to special
ed. (learning disabled) Gr. 6 students and they are avid readers, who don't
comprehend well (does that sound weird ?). I am tearing my hair out trying
to find fun and interesting ways to address their needs.
--Laurie Wasserman
I'd like to have a book chat on _I Read It_ too. I picked up a copy (thanks
to the excellent comments about it from you, dear Listserv colleagues) at
the Texas Middle School Conference a couple of weeks ago. A scheduled, focused
book chat would be just the thing to prompt me to really get into it. "Mosaic
of Thought" has made such a profound impact on my science teaching
that I am eager to
learn more about middle school reading comprehension.
-- Nancy Long
Since Mosaic was published we have done much more work in middle
schools with great success -- much of which is captured in Cris Tovani's
new book, "I Read it, But I Don't Get It."
-- Ellin Keene, co-author of "Mosaic
of Thought" and author of the "I Read It" foreword.
From the "I Read It" foreword:
"I Read It, but I Don't Get It is going to sound very close
to home if you work with middle or high school kids.... And it's going to
equip you with a huge cache of new ways to approach and extend the kids'
comprehension, whether they are reading the lunch menu or Tolstoy....
"Cris...deeply understands and cares about adolescents and...understands
reading, inside out, upside down, and backwards. That's a powerful combination
in this era when so many students have applied their considerable intellecutal
capacity and energy to fake-read for the whole of their school lives."
-- Ellin Keene