Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested
teachers are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop
and other ideas about supporting young adolescent writers and
readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli also
posts a weekly journal entry from her reading/writing classroom.
This year, Juli will focus on her efforts to integrate subject
matter into her reading and writing workshop approach. In her
first journal of the year, she explains
the rationale behind this move and some of her thinking about
how she hopes to accomplish this goal.
Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing
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.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's
Journals, find out how here.
I sit with five kids in a guided reading group. We all have
the text and everyone is ready to begin. And then it happens.
"What do you know about beavers?" I ask, and no one
has anything to say. "Think about this again," I plead.
"The title is Beaver Engineers. Can anyone make a
connection?" Silence.
It seems that using prior knowledge to make personal connections
to text can fall flat on its face. It's definitely not a sure
thing. As we move forward with our second unit of study about
informational text, "Comprehension Strategies for Content
Literacy," we're exploring how to make connections to what
we are reading, and we're finding new ways to do it.
For our "Making Connections to Informational Text" activities,
I want kids to focus on text-to-text connections. To make text-to-text
connections as we read, we need to remember other things we've
read and see a connection. This makes a text (we are reading)
to text (we've already read) connection. Otherwise known as "t
to t."
Making text-to-text connections is becoming important for our
kids because that's one of the tasks they are asked to do on the
state standards assessment. Students are given two short selections
to read and then they are asked to think about those selections
and answer questions that look for connections between them. The
connections might be about the subject or the theme or an extension
of the content.
But whatever the question, it's important that our kids know how
to make meaningful text-to-text connections in their reading.
As independent learners, this is a comprehension strategy that
assists them as they make meaning from their reading, especially
with informational text.
I organize the instruction into several days. This helps kids
build schema (prior knowledge) so their connections are more meaningful.
To begin, I follow Janet Allen's advice in her book, On the
Same Page: Shared Reading Beyond the Primary Grades. On page
97, she suggests using multiple texts as a way of helping students
develop as independent learners.
some students can learn from a narrative format when they might have difficulty with expository texts. If a concept is introduced to those readers with a story, they are then able to take the character or story line into their expository reading to make the content information seem more real. In Student Centered Language Arts, K-12, Moffett and Wagner support the use of multiple texts as a way of helping students develop as independent learners: "Students learning to operate their language must learn to send and receive any sort of message, regardless of abstraction level or mode of discourse (such as fictional or factual). Furthermore, comparing one level or mode with another brings out the uniqueness of each. It is with subjects as with students: differences teach" (38).
For our informational topic, we focus on ways to save our world
-- the environment -- and help animals that are in danger. I look
for interesting and exciting texts to use. "In order for
readers to make connections between their existing background
knowledge and new learning," Janet Allen writes, "the
text building the bridge for that learning has to be meaningful
and memorable." P. 101
Ellen Berg, a sixth grade teacher in St. Louis, is a member of
the MiddleWeb Reading/Writing Project listserv. She agrees with
Janet Allen. In this email, she responds to a question about how
to help kids make connections to informational text.
I think when we initially begin teaching kids to make connections with informational text we need to start out with engaging texts rather than the dry, boring stuff they still *need* to make connections with at some point. One book I've been using for read alouds and which engages all sorts of connections for my students is _The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty_. I've read them passages about ancient medical practices, shrunken heads and spiders, and my students are fascinated. Everyone has a story to tell, a fact to share or something they've seen that relates. Students in my homeroom are begging to read it during SSR. I love it--humor, voice, great facts.
Another resource that my kids like is National Geographic for Kids online. The articles are full of information, but they aren't boring at all. Weeks after we read them, my students are still talking about the Amorphophallus Titanum (corpse flower) and a giant fish fossil found in England. I've watched them try to put what they've learned into context, and they are actively trying to make connections.
I think the key is starting out with high-interests texts, then showing them how connections can be made with less interesting texts as well.
My search is on for motivating text!
In her book, Wondrous Words, Katie Wood Ray has two poems
that were written by a 5th grader from North Carolina. My kids
are also in 5th grade and they love to read student work. I use
these poems as a Shared Reading to introduce this topic and encourage
text-to-text connections.
Dolphins, p. 302
Deep below the sea where there are
Many wonders lives the dolphin
The graceful dancers play together
The creatures are intelligent as well as beautiful
They are like us. Mammals.
Save Our Animals and the Earth, p. 304
Save our animals. They need us,
And we need them.
Venus has no life nor any other planet but Earth
Earth is our home. We need to save it.
The world will be nothing if we don't save it.
A Do-Do bird is an animal, and there are no more of them. Why?
Need I say?
It is we who are killers, all of us.
Mankind could come to an end soon
And this is because of cars, hunting, litter, and more.
Lucky we are! The earth has not come to an end already.
So if you were listening, earth is our home. We need to save it.
Anything can live now but we are on the edge of destruction.
Need I not remind you
Do not sit back. Earth is our home. We have little time to save it.
After I read the poems, we discuss our text-to-text connections.
"This dolphin poem reminds me of a book I have at home about
dolphins," Jose says.
Then Danny comments, "I read a book from the library about
dolphins and whales."
"When I went on the Internet at home, I was reading on a
website about dolphins," Vanessa chimes in.
"The poem about saving the earth reminds me of the book,
Just a Dream (by Chris Van Allsburg)," adds Orlando.
For the next few days in our study of Making Text to Text Connections
in Informational Text, I'll introduce several books as well as
Internet resources. Dolphins, a Level J informational text,
will be the first one we read. Working in pairs we'll share our
connections with each other. We'll also be reading a Smithsonian
book, Dolphin's First Day: The Story of a Bottlenose Dolphin,
which is an informational book written in narrative form about
the birth and first days of a bottlenose dolphin. After that we'll
go on to the Internet webquest, "Dolphin
Safe Tuna."
But how to make more meaningful connections? While they
are making some text-to-text connections, the kids need to get
more specific and refer to the particular section of the text
where they make the connection. If I do more modeling and "Thinking
Aloud" about my own text-to-text connections, I think it
will help them get better at more meaningful connections.
In this email from the MiddleWeb Projects listserv, Lori does
a great job of explaining how she helps kids make connections
by modeling her own.
I tried this with my children, who are second graders.
I took a book I have many genuine connections to--Great Aunt Flossie's Hats And Crabcakes Later--and carefully noted my connections on oversized (memo) stickies along with any number of erroneous connections.
I had a chart tablet lined off down the center and headed "Meaningful Connections" and "Surface Connections or Coincidences".
I explained that real connections take you deeper into the story but some connections were superficial or just coincidences. I pointed out that one of the children and I were wearing the same color shirts. We did not plan to do this, we didn't phone one another with a plan--it was a coincidence.
I asked them to help me sort my connections and proceeded to read and share. They were very quick to begin to actively sort them and when we were done we talked even more about them.
I am beginning to hear them using this language now, "I have a meaningful connection" and I use the prompt with them. The word coincidence is creeping into conversations as well, so I think maybe it helped.
My next step: I'll do some modeling and thinking aloud
about my own text to text connections. I think I'll start with
a line from the poem about saving the earth. "A Do-Do bird
is an animal, and there are no more of them. Why?" I've always
been fascinated by the Dodo bird. This will allow me to tie in
the section in Alice in Wonderland where Alice meets the
Dodo as well as some of the items I've read on the Internet about
the real "Alice Dodo" whose remains are in a British
museum.
So off I go. Modeling my own text-to-text connections for the
kids, I get out some chart paper and begin by saying:
"A Do-Do bird is an animal, and there are no more of them. Why?" When I read this line from the poem, "Save Our Animals and The Earth," it reminds me of....
A Reading Workshop Journal about Making Connections
Week #11 "Making Connections: Flash
Bulbs Go Off -- for the Teachers!"
SEE Juli's Curriculum Map for Content Literacy - Unit Two
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Read last week's journal
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
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