Strategic Content Reading

1. Strategic Content Reading Laura Scarpulla ~ adapted from Jeff Wilhem

2. When you finish any unit, students should have a new heuristic • Transportable piece of knowledge that the student now HAS and takes with them always • simple transportable tool • IE the 5 Ws in journalism • If anything is odd, it is probably important- Literacy text • S0 What? Toulmin’snotion of argument • Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

3. Reading for Main Idea:Example heuristics • Identify the general subject of the text (topic that all details have in common) • Identify the key details • Identify the pattern or underlying structure of all key details and the implied connections • Identify main idea or generalization expressed by this pattern of these details

4. If Main Idea is what you want students to be able to do independently, then… • do it over and over and over • Some teachers say if I do just one thing, I have missed out on other things- NOT TRUE! • Learning is a web- the more deeply you concentrate on one strategy, the more other strategies fall into place • Nothing is worse for students than a teacher that stands up there and tries to check off a list of content objectives- students learn nothing well “mile wide, inch deep”

5. Start with the concrete Key teaching concept Teaching strategies See- think- wonder Bring actual things Visuals manipulatives • Short things before longer things • Directly stated then move to more implicit • Concrete to abstract

6. What is the main idea?

7. What is the main idea?

8. What is the main idea- piece of classic art

9. Parady of art

10. Parady #2

11. #3

12. Scaffolding • Now students have practice finding main idea with concrete and familiar things • We want to move this concept to text • Start with short pieces • Start with modeling • Build on the picture practice

13. The Shark- John Ciardifind the main idea & several key ideas

14. Teacher scaffolding in reading-“ If you have trouble meet with me” • Several lines that develop the topic • Shark’s keen eyesight • Shark’s dark thoughts about something to eat • Shark’s capacity to swim without making a sound Central/ focus/main idea • Sharks have terrible manners • The bright eyes of shark increase it ability to see it enemies or prey • Swimming is dangerous • Watch out when swimming in shark infested waters because the shark has a voracious appetitite.

15. Only one person every talks like this • You’ve missed the point. This poem is not about a shark. • The only person you ever hear talking like this is a dad to his daughter before she goes out on a date. • Reread poem through this lens • This is how you know a student has internalized the hueristic- they start telling you things about the topic you didn’t know

16. Picture Mapping Directions • Read article • In group of 3-4 students, identify the topic of the reading • Go through the text and mark or list the key ideas about the topic--- pay attention to text structure! * first, last sentences; * introductions and conclustions; * paragraphs are often about a single idea * highlights, bolds, italics, bullets, boxes, font changes * pictures, graphs * quoted materials * surprises, shifts, changes in focus, direction or emphasis

17. Picture Map • Determine the topic and create a picture or symbol to represent that topic • After you have drawn the topic, consider how to represent or symbolize each key idea with a symbol or picture. • Pay attention to the pattern between the images- make sure the relationship between these things is apparent. • Be prepared to explain your picture map.

18. Share your posters with another group Today: two groups share and compare • Other options: • Show and tell- every group gets a brief moment in the sun • Each complementary article is read by a different group, must share key info to rest of the class • Different levels of difficulty- text difficulty • Different aspects/angles on the same topic • Small groups respond to material through drama, reciprical reading