Strategies
This unit will rely on several teaching strategies and methods that are explained below as I implement them in my teaching. I draw upon the strategies to guide and scaffold instruction so that complex text can be deciphered and collaborative conversations may be had:
Shared Reading
Shared reading occurs when students join and share the process of reading as a teacher or other expert reader reads and models particular aspects of the text. During a shared reading, students have access to the text and can follow along with the teacher or expert's fluent and expressive reading. Shared reading is a form of explicit modeling that makes particular reading processes and reading strategies easy for students to understand.
For the purposes of this unit, shared reading will be used at the start of the unit to get students comfortable annotating text and developing text dependent questions that require textual evidence. Through the shared reading, it is hoped that students understand close reading and text annotation through my explicit sharing of my thinking.
Close Reading
Close Reading is a process in which students engage in purposeful rereading of a particular text with the intention of drawing out specific aspects of the text that may not be apparent after an initial reading. During a close reading, teachers develop text dependent questions that guide students to think deeply about text.
For the purposes of this unit, close reading will be used to look at the craft and form of selected poems. Each close reading of a poem will start with students reading and annotating the poem using selected marks. They will be guided through several rereadings of the text in order to pull out various elements that are contained within the poems.
Class Discussion
For the purposes of my classroom, class discussion builds off of questions that are prepared in advance by the teacher. The goal of a classroom discussion is to volley student thinking off of each other in order to build collective knowledge. This method of facilitating classroom discussion from student-to-student also fosters a classroom climate of respect for the ideas of others.
The specific protocol of a classroom discussion is as follows: I will develop specific questions before the lesson that are asked of the class. A student volunteers to start the conversation and then other students respond to each other's thinking. While students are discussing, I take notes to guide other instructional moves and tally student's participation to make all individuals accountable for speaking. If I see a chunk of kids that are not participating in a larger group, I will select a few questions for students that are share and have students discuss with partners or tables and tell those children that I am specifically looking for them to share their thinking. I want all students to talk and share their thinking; they all have equally important things to say. If they are capable of expressing their thinking at length, it promotes deep understanding. It is critical to get everyone talking more and for the teacher to facilitate and not always dictate.
Partner Reading
Partner reading consists of students working in pairs or in groups of three to read and annotate text together. During partner reading, students take turns reading with periodic periods that they stop to discuss what they read. With poetry, partner reading is helpful because students will be more apt to pick up on elements of the form of the poem through reading it aloud versus reading and annotating it individually. Poems that have elements that would become more apparent though reading it aloud will be partner read. Students will also have to record their thinking on their partner reading sheets.
See appendix #3 for the sample contents of what a partner reading sheet would contain for my students.
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