Are determining importance and finding the author's main idea the same thing? If they are not, are they related? How? HELP!
Evelia Sent from my Windows Phone -----Original Message----- From: Palmer, Jennifer Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 9:23 AM To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Determining Importance It's the testing culture Renee. We test low level and that drives instruction. Think about main idea ... And it's relationship to what we are talking about. Determining importance becomes a game to guess what test authors feel is important... Sent from my iPhone On Feb 19, 2012, at 12:01 PM, "Renee" <phoenix...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > I wonder what would happen if we just asked a student, "Why is this > important?" I'm thinking in a context, for example, of my own lesson, when > the student asked how Washington's face got on Mount Rushmore. These were > third graders. I can easily imagine a student ansswering, "it isn't" and I > could also easily imagine a student giving a reason, maybe something like, > "well, because he was so important that they put him on a mountain so how did > that happen?" > > I think it's a good question: Why is this important? It has that lovely > open-endedness that helps us learn what's going on the mind of a student. > > And by the way.... in my substituting travels to various classrooms, I am > finding every year that it's harder and harder to get kids to answer > open-ended questions with any kind of confidence. That frightens me. > > Renee > > On Feb 18, 2012, at 1:49 PM, Palmer, Jennifer wrote: > >> I agree Renee. What I often do is spend a little time talking about our >> purpose for reading first and letting that guide the discussion ... I think >> it was Kylie Beers that uses the example of a text that is a description of >> a beautiful home. An interior decorator, a real estate agent and a thief, >> all would find different things in the text to be important because their >> purposes for reading would be quite different. > > It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely > uneducated. > ~ Alec Bourne > > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
