Writing About Reading

[Day 5 Notes from Mary Ehrenworth's Session]

Reading Notebooks
Writing about reading:

1. Just like with writing notebooks, if there isn't an audience for the reading notebook, kids won't continue it.
2. Have kids start playing with challenging writing WAY ahead of time. Ex: WAY before teaching an argument unit in Writing Workshop, kids are doing many argument protocol experiences (like the Giving Tree example from Day 2) in their reading notebook. 
3. Creating an environment of innovation

The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

7 Survival Skills:
1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Collaboration and leading through influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship
5. Effective written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

Quality of Play:
Let kids figure out what works better for kids to write. Will they write more if they write in pink sparkly gel pen? Will they write more if they write on a whiteboard and take a picture of it? What really matters: The writing or the material?

Sometimes you might ask kids to "publish" a reading notebook page.
Sometimes you might do some small writing on post-its, then move it into the notebook.

Are you building an atmosphere of compliance, or are you building an atmosphere of innovation?

Notebook: Do lots of play with thinking. Put the pieces together to come to new thinking.

Awesome book: What Do Fish Have to Do With Anything? by Avi


Launching and Sustaining Innovative Writing About Reading
Don't focus on the tool! Reading notebooks might be on the iPad, in a notebook, or tattoos on your body!

• Gather some samples (Just having kids look at what other readers are doing can help)
• If you need samples, just collect some during a shared reading
• GREAT book: The Most Beautiful Place in the World by Ann Cameron
• Develop rituals for sharing 

• Maybe have "gallery walks" on Fridays (Protocol: 2 different post-its- A compliment post-it, and a goal post-it "What did someone else do that I want to try?")
• Publishing "By next Friday, can you gather some notebook pages that show some innovative work. Post on a wall.

• Demo ("co-author") during lesson/ small group/ conference
• Keep your own notebook (Model your own notebook. It doesn't always need to be real)
• Don't ask your kids to do something you wouldn't do

Resources Mary created that will help with argument work:

http://readingandwritingproject.com/resources/classroom-libraries/text-sets.html

What about letting kids research online? Think about this: Even in college, students are given resources by the professor. Rarely does a professor say, "Ok, go research. I hope you learn about psychology. Off you go!"

How to Get Argument Going:

Start with Reading Workshop (picture book) repeatedly

Then get book clubs started- Students create their own questions that are debatable and juicy

Then get it going in Social Studies and Science

Doubling Down on Strategic Reading: A Closer Look in Grades 3-8

[Notes from Stephanie Harvey's Keynote]

Thinking-Intensive Learning: Close Reading and Viewing for Understanding

The only way we can get information out of complex text is we have to be more strategic.

Comprehension at the Core

• The more complex the text, the more complex the thinking must be
• The tougher the text, the more strategic the reader must be

We teach kids to use strategies so they can hurdle the background knowledge gap. We don't teach strategies for strategies' sake. We don't need to make a kid the best connector in the the room.

"We teach kids to think so they can acquire and use knowledge"

Kids can only turn information into knowledge by thinking about it. We can't do that thinking for them.

Must-Reads:

Choice Words by Peter Johnston

Opening Minds by Peter Johnston

We can't teach kids to think. Kids are born thinking. We can teach them to be aware of their thinking.

Strategies for Active Reading:

• Monitor comprehension
• Activate and connect to background knowledge
• Ask questions
• Infer and visualize meaning
• Determine importance
• Summarize and synthesize

How is Lexile measured?

• Length of sentence
• Number of syllables in a word
• Amount of repeated frequency of words that are unfamiliar

Not involved: Interest!

Don't rely to heavily upon Lexile. Use it as a guide!

Lexile = 940:

Harry Potter

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway (People use this book for their Ph.D. dissertation)

*What makes The Old Man and the Sea complex is what is NOT written

Henry and Mudge: Lexile 460

Sarah Plain and Tall: Lexile 430

*Company saw the study, so they went back and changed Henry and Mudge (Mudge was repeated over and over and over, so computer marked at 460

Use levels as a guide, but do not be a slave to this level. There are some things that human teachers do better, and this is one of them. Use your best judgement!

Don't be a slave to it!

What is Text Complexity?

Our kids need to be thinking intensive readers, thinking intensive listeners and thinking intensive viewers.

• To understand complicated ideas, complex issues, multi-faceted problems and to turn information into knowledge, readers need:
• to think about what they know to understand new info
• to think inferentially to figure out meaning in the absence of explicit information

Infer from images, features, words, actions, figurative language and text.

Inferring is the strategy that allows us to get over a background knowledge gap.

Instead of considering level, kids must consider:

Economic Implications

Cultural Implications

Political Implications

Religious Implications

Historical Implications

Practical Implications

Incredibly Complex Text we need to focus more on: Infographics

There is so much missing from an infographic like this. You need to bring SO MUCH to it to make meaning. This is what we will be reading more and more of.

There is so much work to be done with two sentences!

Must Read:
The Art of Slow Reading by Tom Newkirk

Simple Problems vs. Complex Problems

Simple Problems

• Think aloud and share a simple problem you have had and explain that a simple problem is easily solved.
• Have kids turn and talk about a simple problem they have had or heard about. Have them share out a few of these simple problems.
• Create a two column anchor chart of simple problems and complex problems
• Jot some of the simple problems they come up with on the anchor chart.

Do the same thing with a complex problem

• Create charts together-What makes problems simple or complex

Don't underestimate the power of simplicity!