Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Graphic Organizers
I co-teach in 7th grade language arts class, and it seems that there is a real push away from the class doing work on the same text--and towards students doing assignments from a chosen book. We did an assignment this week that turned out to be less effective than we thought it would be. We were having students doing a summary of a fiction text using a somebody-wanted-but-so graphic organizer that I created. After they filled in the main points from the text, they put these points together into sentences for one summary paragraph. This worked really well when we modelled from one text, then we had the pods work from one text. However, we had the next step be working with partners on a chosen picture book--so every pair had a different book. This did not work so well because some picture books did not lend themselves so well to writing a summary using the somebody-wanted-but-so strategy. We will use the same text for all students for the next independent assessment for practice. that way, we can go over summaries as a group and learn together. There was no opportunity to really come together as a whole group with students using a chosen text. Choice is important I think for just right books and independent reading. However, so much is lost when they all have different texts for targeted assessments. ANY THOUGHTS??
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Ann, Yes! graphic organizers can be key for facilitating that procedural process of pulling meaning from text; it can be tricky to create/adapt those organizers to be "universal" in application. It seems like your team has a solid "next step" in really focusing on the practice, whole group, and then using the results/feedback of that assessment to reteach It may be that fostering that skill of indpendent choice/assessment takes longer to internalize.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a kind of task analysis of the books that did not work so well with your organizer, identifying those hiccups, would help with modifying that tool?
We are working on the same thing right now in 6th grade and it is definitely no easy concept to tackle.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you are taking all of the right steps, but it can be tricky when they get into that gradual release and are completing it on their own.
Currently what we are practing in class is identifying the important details in a fiction text using the who, what, why strategy. We then take all of that important information and 'smoosh' it into a central idea of the text (short gist). The best way that I have found this to work is completing this all together with a read aloud. We do part of it together and then the other half they complete on their own, even though we are still reading together. This way we can have a common discussion of what details they are identifying.
If you still want them to practice together, you could have them all practice with various non-fiction articles that you have looked through and can identify the central idea so that you are able to assess students as well.
It gets tricky when they move into their own texts and thats why i find it beneficial to practice all together using various texts. That way after alot of practice, they are able to apply the strategy in their own novels.
You make a great point Ann! I also found it interesting when you said that some of the picture books didn't lend themselves as well to the strategy you were using. I have also found that reading isn't always cut and dry; what works for one text may not work exactly the same for another, so it can be tricky for both teachers and students.
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