Jan Well, here we have another example of how important it is to think about what the reader brings to the text. I loved the Van Gogh example because to me, the painting itself WAS the thinking...visual representations of his attempts to make sense of his world. I saw it as a way to try to work through or around his illness. I connected it to the journal I keep or the emails I send to colleagues (Like on the mosaic listserv) The process of writing helps me to understand. For Van Gogh, maybe it is the process of painting that helped him to make sense. I loved the Kevin example too, but it left me with a lot more questions. How did he really make that much meaning as a kindergartener from this very difficult text? Was it the process of creating his model that he made sense of it? Was he a reader at all? What or how much did he actually read and how much came from schema and reasoning it through? This was the one place in the entire book that I felt needed more detail, more investigation, more explanation. Do you think he was taught to investigate this way? Surely his class was set up for that and probably his teacher modeled...but I bet that a lot of it was the natural curiousity of the very young... Your students may have giggled and rolled their eyes, but I would keep it up. You probably made them feel uncomfortable because they don't yet see themselves as scholars. I bet you, with time, they'll get there. I am still working on this too. Let's talk about this some more during the school year...I didn't have too much time to try much before the school year ended... Jennifer n a message dated 7/17/2008 11:39:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Yes! There is a great sense of pride that comes from working through something difficult. I'm going to share some more of my struggles with To Understand right now. :) Tell me what you all make of the information about Van Gogh on page 48 that says, "He became a blind painting machine... He no longer thought about his painting." I felt as if the example of Van Gogh was counterproductive. I wanted to hear about a painter who did think about his painting. Van Gogh struggled, but I got the idea from To Understand that he struggled due to his mental illness. I wanted a clear cut example of someone who struggled to understand and think and try again. The example of the kindergartener, Kevin, a few pages later was more satisfying for me. I LOVED that kid. I wanted more insight into how Kevin was taught to investigate so deeply. What have you all done to help students learn to look deeply and work to understand what interests them? I teach 8th grade, and when I shared my enthusiasm with my students last year about half of them rolled their eyes or giggled. Whew! That was hard on me. Jan -------------- Original message from [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -------------- > So often... we protect kids from struggle and they never develop self esteem > because they have never had to work thing through for themselves. I think if > we set up a very supportive, risk free yet rigorous environment, we would > have far fewer drop outs and far stronger citizens. > It IS possible...we just have to start trying these ideas out for > ourselves...talking about our struggles here on the list...share ideas for > setting up > that environment. I think....no...I know...we can make such a difference for > our students. > Jennifer **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020) _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
