Week 5: Reflections on Wilhelm Chapters 4,5,6 or 7
I am impressed with the responses that the Wilhelm book has sparked. Keep up with the quality thinking and writing.
posted by Susan A. Garr at 10:14 AM
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Previous Posts
- Week 4: RESPOND to Others
- Week 4: REFLECT on chapter from Wilhelm Book
- Week 3: Respond To Others
- Week 3: REFLECTION Ch. 8- Assessment
- In Class Reflection Writing: The Little School Th...
- Week 2: Write your response to another person's r...
- Week 2: Write Your Reflection on Reading (Moore ...
- Reflection and Response Week 1
- Why Reflection and Response?
- Welcome
5 Comments:
Jacqueline Aessa
Instructional Sequences (chapter 7, page 182)
I agree so much with the instructional sequences method of teaching. My favorite part was that it told the students what they would have learned by the end of the process or reading. This helps the student to focus on their reading of analyzing because they have an aim to where they want to be or to what they want to understand.
This is also similar to the top-down teaching technique. The big picture to where you want to go is presented, and now the student is guided or motivated to get the details.
Frontloading – An Excellent Practice !!
Chapter 4 – “Frontloading – Teaching before reading” – In my personal experience this is one of the most valuable tools in preparing any type of lesson plan. It works very much the same way an advanced organizer works. “ Frontloading is a technique to help readers access or build their prior knowledge (both conceptual and procedural) so they can better comprehend and approach a new text or task.”(page 96)
By using frontloading techniques we give our students a greater opportunity to accomplish the necessary tasks to be successful. Also due to the variation in students capabilities and learning styles frontloading affords all students solid base to begin the task at hand.
One of the most interesting aspects of Wilhelm’s chapter on frontloading is the varied approach he offers for using this technique. They include the use of drama, quick writes, K-W-L charts, Character quotes, “The Tea Party”, Opinionnaires, scenarios, and role-playing. The real beauty of this practice is that you can create your own technique for frontloading a lesson.
QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS
In another class a couple of weeks ago, I had to present a shortened version of a lesson. Walking away from it, I identified questioning as an area that I need help with, so it was serendipity to find Wilhelm’s chapter on “Loving the Questions” for this week’s reading.
Wilhem et al present several different strategies to get at various levels of questions, from basic questions to more in depth inferences and evaluative questions. While I think these strategies can be tweaked for non-literature classrooms, the strategies are skewed in that direction. Also, the authors state, and I agree, that no one of these strategies is a panacea for questioning, but using all of them, or bits of all of them, will lead us in a good direction and assist us in devising discussion questions that promote higher level thinking skills.
One very good point made by the authors when discussing Hillock’s hierarchy of questioning, pages 129-133, is that in order to lead students to more complex thinking, we need to start with basic questions and build on them. Without understanding basics, our students will have difficulty being able to tackle more difficult questions.
While the authors discuss three strategies in detail, one strategy was mentioned, Myer’s Twenty (Better) Questions, but then the questions weren’t shared. Susan, do you have a copy of these?
Now that I've read this chapter, I think I can work on questions that will foster a better student discussion. Using the strategies, along with some of the other ideas like the three index card idea, hopefully I can plan some better questions for my next lesson.
REFLECTION
WILHELM, CHAPTER 6
This chapter focused on the method of using SRI to teach reading and gave a very in-depth walk-through of the process. For those who did not read it, quickly refer to pages 166-169 to see the steps and planning sheet. The entire process became clearer the more I read—I found the questions I jotted in my margins were usually answered within the next few paragraphs.
However, I would like to see the SRI done visually. I felt like I was reading text on something that I needed to see in person, or see a video of. It reminded me of when I tried to learn how to knit from a book. The illustrations were as good as they could have been, and I did get the very basics down, but the process was tedious, frustrating, and I didn’t want to continue. There are some things that just need to be modeled. (I do realize that a textbook is limited in this realm!) I think I am visual learner in this respect.
Although I don’t think I have a solid grasp on the technique yet, SRI is definitely something that I can implement as an English teacher. I think that’s a given, after reading it, and I would be curious to see what other disciplines gleamed from this chapter. I want to experience it myself first. This is something that was not used when I was in school.
I loved how this activity made the reader aware of their reading—how they relate to the characters, what they do when they read, what they think the author was trying to do, etc. Great metacognition, if presented that way.
Chap 4 Wilhelm
Loving the Questions; Fostering Student Questioning and Discussion
This chapter discusses the importance of having students ask questions about what they are reading. Allowing students to ask questions can be a rewarding experience for both the teacher and students. In a related example, a student who was researching Tibet came across two different political maps. She was puzzled as to which was the correct map for Tibet. We entered into an active discussion about the reasons for the different maps. This discussion resulted in depth discussion about truth and reality and what defines these concepts. As it turned out, China, which has occupied Tibet since the 1950’s, had annexed part of the Tibet. It was not internationally recognized. Is United Nations’ recognition of borders the accepted truth (or reality)? Is not in fact an interpretation of facts based on the bias of the writer? The assignment ended with the students understanding their final report was their interpretation of facts and thus truth was relative. Since that experience I have assigned a similar a topic to several students and then we discussed any differences in their reports. Thus by creating an environment for questions I as a teacher benefited along with the students.
Shentil
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