Shifting winds

I am collecting student data on every step of the journey in terms of the previous discussed questions in response to the new text annotation strategies.  To determine if the strategies are being utilized judiciously, I had the students annotate a text using any strategy that seemed useful to them.  This was done twice, and both times the data illustrated that there are some strategies that are being over-used, while others are underused.  This led me to some questions regarding the nature of the underused strategies.   

• I am wondering if it is the nature of the text...as science informational text woud be better served if using visualizing and connect. 
• I am also curious if it could be the nature of the response questions the students are asked to do after reading the text?  It is known that the purpose in reading should drive how you respond to the text. 

The most utilized strategy is is summarize, and literature states that it is common to think of a 'good' reader as one who can summarize the content; however, in advance texts and courses, they may require more than just summarize to effectivey speak on the text.  I believe we need to move past summarize to really get into close reading.

I have noticed that today four students refered to text when they were struggling over a connection between characters in two different stories.  This is a huge shift for them, and I have not seen this type of growth from them before.  They were pulling quotes to provide evidence for the claim they were making.  I'm so proud of them!!

I am thinking I may need to spend a little more time marking the text strategies with the students and postpone rereading strategies.  I will change up the text to see if they can utilize a larger variety of strategies to increase comprehension of the content.

Beginning AR

My AR proposal needs a few tweaks such as formative assessments made along the way and how/what I plan on collecting as reflective questions for myself.

My students are learning a new strategy a day on a text that I pull from their AP English class.  On one essay, they will complete 2 or 3 strategies over the course of a week, no more than one new strategy a day.

Upon practicing that strategy on the text, they write a reflective piece that contains the following responses:

1. Explain "Questioning" to a friend.  How would you tell them to do this strategy?
2. Is the strategy Questioning used effectively in all paragraphs?  When is this strategy best used?
3. Provide three examples from your reading today in which you used the Questioning strategy.

This formative assessment allows me to see if they understand the strategy, have found ways to best apply using this strategy (evaluation) and their best examples of this strategy in action.  

If they are successful in applying this strategy, the only question then becomes if they actually use it on an assessment to have success in answering AP English multiple choice responses and/or essays on the reading.  This will come at the end of the implementation phase to best assess effectiveness.

My reflections consist of implementation of the content themselves, and to see if there seems to be confusion on how I instructed them to write in the margins.  Again, I am not a reading teacher by trade but I am trying to expand my abilities to help my students.  I am trying not to assign so many strategies that none are executed correctly, and give time to practice the strategies before we move on.


Tomorrow, we will begin reviewing the strategies as needed and see how they judiciously decide to apply what they are learning.