Re: [MOSAIC] Common Core
I can see how one would get the impression that CCSS wants us to focus on excerpts. I think, though, you may be looking at the close reading that the standards are supporting which does use excerpts. This does not mean, however, that you don't read the rest of the novel. For example, if a group of students is reading To Kill a Mockingbird, you might plan a day where you do a close reading of the section where Scout disarms Mr. Cunningham and the others at the courthouse with her innocent conversation. You might explore the use of language on those few pages to see how the author created a sense of tension as well as a sense of revelation through the innocent words of a child. There's a fantastic book out there - Notice and Note - that talks about how to teach kids to read closely and how to incorporate these activities into our curricula rather than using them as stand-alone activities. In my own classroom, I use picture books to teach kids to think critically about authors' (and illustrators') choices. The visual aspect is a lot easier for them to discuss at first. After a while, they start to make the connections that authors make stylistic decisions for the same reasons illustrators do. Throughout the year, I raise the difficulty of the texts used in these activities until we are discussing small sections of the novels they read in their English classes. My focus during these discussions is on the theme of the book and the author's purpose in writing it - 2 things my students struggle with year after year. The close reading techniques simply offer me another way to teach them. I'm sure other states are putting together similar databases, but a good reference for how to weave the CCSS into actual unit plans is http://www.engageny.org/english-language-arts. You can pick a grade and see a few examples. Some are put together by teachers, others by outside agencies. Take each with a grain of salt - I haven't used any of these units; I've merely read over them to get a better understanding of what direction in which the state would like us to head. Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma Obietikponah STATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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
Re: [MOSAIC] Dyslexia
I think the issues brought up by this discussion are quite valid and kids with this type of learning profile frequently go unnoticed until they reach the secondary grades when efficiency counts just as much as the skills themselves. I am concerned by the thought that so long as a kid can comprehend at grade level, our job is done as there is no problem. Working in a high school, I run into at least a kid or two every year that fits a profile similar to this and has seemed to slip through the cracks. Yet, I realize that teachers in the lower grades have generally noticed the same weaknesses I see, but do not remediate them because of a child's overall academic performance at the time. Once these kids get to high school, it is VERY HARD to go back and fill these basic skill gaps. They've learned many coping strategies independently, which is great. Generally, however, what I find is that these skills are more so AVOIDANCE skills rather than coping skills - gathering everything you need to know about a novel through listening to classroom discussion, not actually reading, does not prepare a student for more rigorous reading requirements in the common core, in college, and on all those pesky tests, but it does help you pass . Their way of getting by is certainly more efficient than actually learning the skill, yet there's always a point at which it comes back to bite them and they need to nail down the skills. Doing so at the high school level has to be very much so more individualized than at lower grades because they have all found unique ways around skills so one must find unique ways to slide in appropriate strategies. Yet, in earlier grades, if these weak skills are identified but are not severely impacting a kid's success, I do wonder how we provide this preventative support in light of the fact that there are plenty of right now issues in any given classroom. Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma Obietikponah STATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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
Re: [MOSAIC] dyslexia
I think the issues brought up by this discussion are quite valid and kids with this type of learning profile frequently go unnoticed until they reach the secondary grades when efficiency counts just as much as the skills themselves. I am concerned by the thought that so long as a kid can comprehend at grade level, our job is done as there is no problem. Working in a high school, I run into at least a kid or two every year that fits a profile similar to this and has seemed to slip through the cracks. Yet, I realize that teachers in the lower grades have generally noticed the same weaknesses I see, but do not remediate them because of a child's overall academic performance at the time. Once these kids get to high school, it is VERY HARD to go back and fill these basic skill gaps. They've learned many coping strategies independently, which is great. Generally, however, what I find is that these skills are more so AVOIDANCE skills rather than coping skills - gathering everything you need to know about a novel through listening to classroom discussion, not actually reading, does not prepare a student for more rigorous reading requirements in the common core, in college, and on all those pesky tests, but it does help you pass . Their way of getting by is certainly more efficient than actually learning the skill, yet there's always a point at which it comes back to bite them and they need to nail down the skills. Doing so at the high school level has to be very much so more individualized than at lower grades because they have all found unique ways around skills so one must find unique ways to slide in appropriate strategies. Yet, in earlier grades, if these weak skills are identified but are not severely impacting a kid's success, I do wonder how we provide this preventative support in light of the fact that there are plenty of right now issues in any given classroom. Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma Obietikponah STATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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
Re: [MOSAIC] Texmapping
Dave - Thanks for the info on textmapping - I use it in my classroom ALL THE TIME! I will admit that I do even use it in preparation for the ELA exam more as a thinkmapping and the kids follow their thoughts as they write an essay based on provided texts. They compare their scrolls to each others and to mine and see just how many times people go back into the text to pull out details, how we scan for those details, how taking notes the first time through can help us scan for relevant details more efficiently, etc. It works GREAT! I've also used it in poetry lessons helping kids learn how the structure of a poem impacts its meaning. I take a short poem and make a scroll out of it with a lot of white space. Kids try to make sense of it in one line, mapping out their process as they do. I then give them fresh scrolls and a pair of scissors. They chop it up into meaningful chunks, glue it onto a new sheet of paper, and repeat the process. It's not about recreating the original, but about working with words and structure to make the poem make sense. You'd be surprised at the sophisticated structures my struggling readers can put together. A lot of times, it is just as informative for me, as I can learn so much about a kid's reading process by seeing it mapped out. Of course, I've used textmapping in its traditional sense as well - teaching the features of a textbook. It's a teaching strategy I absolutely love to use and do recommend that everyone else try it in their classrooms at least once. Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma Obietikponah -Mosaic mosaic-bounces+heather_waymouth=hflcsd@literacyworkshop.org wrote: - To: mosaic@literacyworkshop.org From: mosaic-requ...@literacyworkshop.org Sent by: Mosaic Date: 02/03/2013 03:49PM Subject: Mosaic Digest, Vol 78, Issue 2 Send Mosaic mailing list submissions to mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to mosaic-requ...@literacyworkshop.org You can reach the person managing the list at mosaic-ow...@literacyworkshop.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Mosaic digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Good book to model the think aloud strategy to students with disabilities (Dave Middlebrook) -- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:03:17 -0500 From: Dave Middlebrook dmiddlebr...@textmapping.org To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group mosaic@literacyworkshop.org Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Good book to model the think aloud strategy to students with disabilities Message-ID: 07A033F7E9754C2A841B999A0AD95B9B@DESKTOP Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original To both Heather and Loretta, You might want to look into using scrolls and textmapping: www.textmapping.org For Loretta, this approach is an excellent fit for think alouds. For Heather, this will not help with the ELA exam, but it will help in class -- less so for passages than for more substantial texts such as chapters and whole books. As an ADHD/LD adult, I can identify with the notetaking problems -- with the anxiety caused by not being able to write and listen, of not having time to process before I write, of not knowing what to do at the moment when, as it always does, the structures that I've planned for structured notetaking break down. The larger issue here is that the current methods don't work so well for disabled learners. New, out-of-the-box approaches are needed -- and scrolls and textmapping are one such approach. It's a simple idea, but it really does work very well. More information: * http://www.textmapping.org/whWorkshopNotes.html * http://www.textmapping.org/comments.html Dave Middlebrook The Textmapping Project A resource for teachers improving reading comprehension skills instruction. www.textmapping.org | Please share this site with your colleagues! USA: (609) 771-1781 email: dmiddlebr...@textmapping.org facebook: http://www.facebook.com/textmapping linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davemiddlebrook twitter: http://twitter.com/davemiddlebrook pinterest: http://pinterest.com/source/textmapping.org/ - Original Message - From: loretta kelly lorettalke...@hotmail.com To: mosaic@literacyworkshop.org Sent: Friday, February 01, 2013 6:32 PM Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Good book to model the think aloud strategy to students with disabilities Dear everyone,I am currently taking the class Methods of Teaching Students with Disabilities. Also, I teach junior high students with autism and other
[MOSAIC] Listening Comprehension
I've got a high school student that I'm struggling to find appropriate strategies for. On our 11th grade state ELA exam students must listen to a passage read orally twice. They are given 5 minutes between readings where they may look at the questions. They may take notes at any point in time. Students then answer a few multiple choice questions. This student LOOKS like an excellent listener - eyes and ears on the speaker, pen in hand taking notes, and focused in all regards. Yet, the student then misses the majority of the comprehension questions. I've noticed the same thing while doing listening activities in my class. We've tried not taking notes, as she has expressed that she misses important information because she's focusing on writing her notes. We've tried structured notes - thinking about what type of information is generally presented in these passages and creating a quick visual plan of what to listen for. However, I'm still not seeing improvement. Ideas? Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma Obietikponah STATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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] Urban America
Soul Talk: Urban Youth Poetry is a book of poetry written by urban students in Syracuse, NY - not all of the poems are appropriate for all ages. There are quite a few good ones I use frequently with a high school intervention population that would be perfect for an 8th grade unit. Here's the Amazon link - http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Talk-Featuring-Syracuse-District/dp/0971299684/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8qid=1350511293sr=8-1keywords=soul+talk+poetry+syracuse Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma ObietikponahSTATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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] Book selection
Help!!! I need help finding books to put into the hands of one of my students. He's a high school senior who reads at about a lexile level of 900, but does not mind challenging himself a bit. He enjoys Stephen E Ambrose books - especially his WWII books. He just read The Hunger Games - the first novel I've ever known him to read - and wants more. However, he's not so tempted to read the other 2 books in the series because of the whole love story element of the plot. Any ideas?! Heather Waymouth High School Literacy Specialist Honeoye Falls - Lima High School heather_waymo...@hflcsd.org (585)-624-7050 Always show the you in you that makes you who you are. - Chidinma ObietikponahSTATEMENT OF CONFIDENTIALITY This email message and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are prohibited from using the information in any way, including but not limited to disclosure of, copying, forwarding or acting in reliance on the contents. If you have received this email by error, please immediately notify me by return email and delete it from your email system. ___ 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
