Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are joining
together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas about supporting
young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli is also keeping
a weekly journal of her own Reading Workshop initiative. Find out more about
our project at our Reading Workshop homepage.
You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Week #16
Envisionments:
Helping Students Improve Literary Understanding
During November, when it was easy to be coasting and I was searching for
inspiration, a fascinating pamphlet arrived in the mail. Published by CELA
(the National Research Center
on English Learning & Achievement), "Improving Literary Understanding
Through Classroom Conversation" is based on the work of Judith Langer.
In it, she and her colleague, Elizabeth Close, give a thumbnail sketch of
the concept of envisionments and some strategies for classroom use
to improve literary understanding. (Download
this booklet free online.)
Since our instruction focuses on how reading is all about understanding,
I found this definition compelling.
"Envisionments are understandings -- the wealth
of ideas that people have in their minds at any point in time. Envisionments
include related ideas and images, questions, hunches, anticipations, arguments,
disagreements, and confusions that fill the mind during every reading, writing,
speaking, or thinking experience." p. 6
To see how our Reading Workshop measures up to these ideas, we used the
three "strategies that support struggling readers," listed on
page 12 of the booklet, as benchmarks. By reflecting on our teaching, we
discovered what we are and are not doing. The information we gathered will
improve our instruction and help us develop models of understanding for
our students.
1. Involve all students in all aspects of class discussion.
We reviewed what we do in our class discussions about Read Aloud books.
We ask students to make predictions before reading based on their prior
knowledge and experiences. Students share the connections they make to the
text with the whole group, as we read aloud. After we finish reading, we
ask students to retell the story and share their connections with their
reading partner. Then they use their post-its to list the connections they
made in their Reading Journals. But what evidence/student work do we have
that can tell us whether all students are involved in all aspects of the
class discussion?
2. Help students focus on ideas by providing guiding questions
that will deepen the discussion (avoid questions with yes, no, or one-word
answers).
-- What might you do in a similar situation?
-- Why do you think the character did it her way?
-- What is the character feeling? How might this affect his actions?
-- How does the setting help you understand the character's feelings?
-- If you were telling this story, how might you end it? Why?
-- How might this story be different if it happened in another time period?
After running records, we sit with students individually and ask them
to retell the section they just read. We also ask them 4 or 5 questions
such as "What will happen next?" "Who is telling the story?"
or "What is the problem?" We use their story retelling and their
answers to the questions to see if they comprehend what they read. But what
evidence/student work do we have to know that students focus on ideas by
using guiding questions that will deepen the discussion?
3. Provide direct instructional scaffolding with guided activities
that help students develop envisionments.
The authors mention six types of guided activities. "Design activities
to support students' ideas and questions" is the first suggestion.
We use paired readings on a daily basis. Students use note taking
while reading by writing on copies of text or using post-it notes. We
include journal writing every day. But we do not make use of quick
writes. This might be a good way to document if all students are involved
in all aspects of the class discussion.
"Provide alternative ways to access material" is next. We use
books on tape. Janet Allen's books, There's Room for Me Here
and Yellow Brick Roads, encourage their use with less proficient
readers.
"Asking questions that help students make connections with the full
text, with their own experiences and other readings" is one of our
strengths. Our work with Mosaic of Thought and Strategies That
Work has really helped us with making connections. However, we want
to do more about "encouraging students to listen to and respond to
the ideas of others." Questions like "Does anyone agree or
disagree? Why?" will help us get started.
We need to improve in providing "opportunities for students to engage
in related activities in multiple formats that make the thinking of their
peers visible and develop their understandings of the work." Of the
five suggestions listed (role-play, think-aloud, dramatic presentations,
fish bowls and art representations), we only include think alouds
on a regular basis. We want to find more opportunities for these activities.
The last suggestion is to "provide individual copies of guiding questions"
using bookmarks or sticky note reminders. We created bookmarks
that include the guiding questions (PDF file). These were laminated
and everyone has several copies in different colors. We're excited about
the possibilities for using them both in independent reading and partner
reading. But how will we know that students focus on ideas by using guiding
questions that will deepen the discussion? We'll need to develop some new
performance tasks that include questioning.
There is much work to do, especially involving all students in all aspects
of class discussion and using guiding questions. As we incorporate more
of these strategies into our Reading Workshop, I hope we will find that
"when less proficient readers engage in thought provoking literary
discussions, they perform more like proficient readers because the thinking
of their peers is visible to them and they have models for building understanding."
(p. 13)
Other sources for Judith Langer's work
1. "Conversations
in Literature", a program of Annenberg/CPB
2. Envisioning
Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction,
Judith Langer (Teachers College Press, 1995)
See Juli's January curriculum map
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Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
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