So, Dana if you are looking at the structure of the text are you really looking at the main idea? I am a voracious reader and writer and I have always struggled with the concept of main idea on a test. I can justify my answers orally until the cows come home, but on a test...problems. I remember reading Shakespeare in high school and my teacher telling me that I was not understanding it the way that Shakespeare meant it to be. My question was how did she know how he meant it to be understood? Obviuosly there is usually a surface main idea, but upon further readings comprehension grows, which often clouds the "exact" main idea. I find it easier to identify in non-fiction informational text, but then it depends on the way the author writes. So, when we don't neccessarily agree with the author's main idea (or what the test claims that to be) what are we to do? Will teaching text structure help people like me? There seems to be many ways that an author can write the main idea. I am not sure how to best teach my kiddos. I still maintain that they have to be flexible in their thinking.
Nancy >>> Dana Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/30/08 12:39 PM >>> I do think we need to teach main idea as a text structure. I know from my own reading of my grad school text books that there is often a main idea of the text. Perhaps it takes the forms of a central idea with examples to follow or maybe a series of ideas where the reader has to infer a bigger idea from it. But I do recognize main idea as a form of text structure often in my own reading. It sounds to me that this is different from the strategy of determining importance. At one of Stephanie Harvey's workshops, she spoke of an activity were the kids read a short nonfiction article and afterwards wrote what THEY thought was most important to remember and then what did they think the AUTHOR wanted them to remember. I think this addresses Ellin's point that we, as readers, might not always agree with the author's "main idea" because of what we bring to the text. In my mind, these are 2 separate issues. One is looking at the structure of the text and the other is looking at the meaning of the text. Dana ----- Original Message ---- From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]><~!B*+R^&>To: understand@literacyworkshop.org Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 5:21:00 PM Subject: [Understand] Main idea.... I am going to back us up just a little before beginning discussion on the last chapter. I had the pleasure of getting to hear Ellin speak in person in Pennsylvania last week and one point she made was that there is no such thing as "main idea". She teaches children that main idea is a construct test makers made up and that students, when faced with a main idea question must try to figure out what the test maker thinks is important. She explains to children that there are important ideas...but these might vary based on the readers' reason for reading. The question that immediately popped into my mind was related to expository text structures. Isn't there a text structure that is organized main idea detail? Isn't that newspaper writing where we get the most important idea first? I know lots of simple nonfiction for primary children seems to be organized main idea detail---just think of Scholastic News, Weekly Reader and Time for Kids. So---when I came home I picked up my copy of To Understand and backed up to chapter seven. Figure 7.2, page 182 does not have "main idea detail" listed as a text structure, but the description of the descriptive text structure seems to me to BE "main idea-detail". I thought of descriptive text structure to be narrative in style but each idea to be of relatively equal importance. So...what I want to know is this: Do you think we need to teach main idea as a text structure? Especially since lots of school and test reading seems to be organized in a narrative style with the most important ideas first. Or is this misleading to kids who will think that there is only one important idea to be learned from a particular text? What do all of you make of this? 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 _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
