...of previous chapters! We have some really rich and interesting talk going on right now. I do feel obliged, however, to begin the discussion on our final chapter, especially since we are a couple of weeks behind our original schedule! But don't let the start of this new thread prevent you from posting on the ongoing threads of discussion! I am still struggling with main idea myself and am eager to continue to hear from others who have been lurking up to now. While we will take the usual two weeks to discuss this last chapter, we do not have to let the discussion end in two weeks! Something tells me that as we get ready to go back to school, there will be many opportunities for questions and insights! As mentioned earlier, the third week of September, we will begin again at Chapter one. SO...on to chapter 9: To Feel, To Remember and To Understand. In this chapter, Ellin discusses the role of emotion in understanding. My first reaction to this was a fervent "AMEN!" I had learned this for myself recently as I taught one of the lessons from Harvey's Comprehension Toolkit with my fourth graders. Now, this particular group was very frustrating to me last year...they weren't behavior problems. They were the most passive, unresponsive learners I have probably worked with in 15 years. I had started working with them in non-fiction...which seemed to have lit a fire under a few kids, but most just wanted me to tell them the "right answer." I started using the wait time towards the end of the year..."I know you don't know, but if you did know, what would you say." I had some results, but I was discouraged when a student asked me if I was ever going to have a substitute. When I asked why he wanted me to have a sub, he said that he was tired of thinking and his friends were too! :-( (My two coteachers were both out on maternity leave and I was left with two subs who were well meaning but couldn't be expected to hold my kids feet to the fire to the same degree I did!) Finally,in desperation, I pulled out a book on the brain (Seymour Simon, I think) and I talked to kids a bit about what I knew about brain research...that their brains were plastic and they could be changed...and that by reading and thinking they could improve their own brains. Now I know that this is very oversimplified to the point of being wrong, but I told them that when they learned something, they changed their brains...they added new wrinkles to it and new pathways that weren't there before. I showed them pictures of neurons and dendrites...brain scans...the whole nine yards. After a chorus of "EW! Mrs. Palmer, that is gross!" I started to see some changes in my group. There were lots of questions about the brain and how kids learn. The next thing I knew, several boys had asked the media specialist for the "brain book". Then, I launched into a discussion of what it meant to understand and that those things we feel emotionally connected to or have a strong emotional reaction to are more easily remembered and understood. We briefly discussed what happened to them with the "Brain Book." Some kids said they remembered it because it was disgusting, one other child, a little girl, said that she didn't know her brain could change and that made her really happy. THEN, they were ready and I taught them the comprehension toolkit lesson on Polar Bears (in the determining importance unit, I think). They had the organizer Steph Harvey provided which asked the kids to write important facts and their reactions to it. I asked them to remember what they had learned from the Brain book and to pay attention to their thoughts and feelings when reading the Polar Bear article. Now it is a real downside to be a reading specialist sometimes, because we have to leave a class on schedule and can't keep on going when the kids are hot on to something! I wasn't entirely sure that the Polar Bear article was the right text to teach this lesson with... So...with trepidation, I left my fourth graders to go to fifth grade and trusted that the sub would follow through. Well, apparently, she did because the next day, I started the class with a question. With trepidation, I said, "Tell me what you remembered from your reading yesterday? What was important?" I nearly fainted with relief when ALL 24 hands were in the air and bottoms were out of the seat wanting to share what they had learned. Just visualize 24 little Horshack clones going "OOOH! OOOH! OOOH!" I had NEVER been able to get them to engage like that at all! (SO...can you all hear the strains of violins playing God Bless America for this wonderful teaching moment?hee hee hee) I took the time, and called on every single child, for the simple reason that I wanted ALL of them to feel what it was like to be so engaged. Then, with Ellin hovering over my shoulder, I asked them what they had learned about reading. I got variations on "When I pay attention to my feelings about my reading, I remember it better." Then I asked the "SO What? What do you understand now that you didn't understand before?" After a pause, one child tentatively raised her hand and responded, "I learned you were right...I really can change my brain!" In reflection upon this moment, I realize that what happened here was one of the outcomes of understanding that Ellin describes in this chapter: Confidence. These kids didn't believe they could think and no one had yet convinced them that they were intellectually capable. When they began to think they COULD think, then, well, they DID! If I were to be able to get in a time machine and go back to that moment, I would ask the kids to concentrate on how they felt at that moment...and put words to what it meant to understand. (Something tells me the word fervent might apply!) I wish I had pushed that girl to elaborate on her thinking just a little more to see if I could have taken it even deeper. I think I missed an opportunity there...(I think it was the shock of the breakthrough moment! ;-) I hated to see the school year end because all this happened in June and I am worried they will have forgotten by September... Sorry this was so long... Anyone else have thoughts on our last chapter? And of course, please continue the ongoing discussions as well! Jennifer
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