Drawing Readers Closer to Text Facilitated by Angela Stockman Fall 2014 Outcomes Participants will Distinguish close reading from other reading experiences Consider facts, fallacies, and unintended consequences of close reading Develop a nuanced understanding of text complexity Identify vocabulary words by their function, and consider how to treat them differently during instruction Examine levels of questioning and their use Study practical approaches that draw readers closer to texts for meaningful purposes Gain access to practical tools that support close reading Apply what is learned by crafting lessons, curating resources, or adjusting curriculum maps Curiosity Carousel Examine the quotes provided on the charts around the room. Consider the questions, concerns, and curiosities that they raise. Add your thoughts to individual stick notes, and attach each note to the chart it is most relevant to. One Prerequisite for Close Reading: Clear Vision. What theyre saying about close reading Its a strategy! Kids need to reread. Its about the details. You should only use informational text! They need to annotate. Kids arent allowed to have opinions. They are supposed to read books that frustrate them. All of the questions must make them return to the text. We can create close reading lessons! Once I tried to make a standardization of staircases. Probably that is one of the oldest of the standardizations. Of course, we design new staircase steps every day in connection with all of our houses, but a standardized step depends on the height of the buildings and on all kinds of things. --Alvar Aalto Architect, Sculptor, Painter Read like a detective, and write like a reporter. But the most engaging reporters are story tellers Tinkering with Complexity Text Quantitative Qualitative Reader Cognitive capabilities Motivation Knowledge Experience Task Teacher-led Peer-led Independent Quantitative Values Qualitative Values Background Prior Cultural Vocabulary Standard English Variations Register Genre Organization Narration Text Features Graphics Density and Complexity Figurative Language Purpose Levels of Meaning Structure Knowledge Demands Language Convention and Clarity Vocabulary: Tiers of Complexity Content-specific High frequency and sophisticated Common, every day Examining the Work of Varied Thinkers for Varied Purposes: Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey Chris Lehmann and Kate Roberts Sunni Brown Opinions, Arguments, Intertextual Connections Inferences Authors Purpose Vocab & Text Structure Key Details General Understandings Part Whole Questions Also Add Complexity General Understandings Overall view Sequence of information Story arc Main claim and evidence Gist of passage Key Details Search for nuances in meaning Determine importance of ideas Find supporting details that support main ideas Answers who, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many. Vocabulary and Text Structure Bridges literal and inferential meanings Bridges literal and inferential meanings Denotation Denotation Connotation Connotation Shades of meaning Shades of meaning Figurative language Figurative language How organization contributes to meaning How organization contributes to meaning Authors Purpose Genre: Entertain? Explain? Inform? Persuade? Point of view: First-person, third-person limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator Critical Literacy: Whose story is not represented? Inferences ISOLATE build to a whole. ISOLATE each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole. Opinions, Arguments, and Inter-textual Connections Authors opinion and reasoning (K-5) Claims Evidence Counterclaims Ethos, Pathos, Logos Rhetoric Links to other texts throughout the grades Playing with TextPlaying with Text Reading on our feet and out of our seats! Inspired by Sunni Brown Increasing Reading Power with Play! Gamestorming! Gamestorming is a form of SERIOUS play. Brynn Evans, Expert Gamestormer The sticky note is one of the most useful tools for knowledge work because it allows you to break any complex topic into small, moveable artifacts knowledge atoms or nodesthat you can distribute into physical space by attaching them to your desk, walls, doors, and so on without wreaking total havoc. This allows learners to quickly and easily explore all kinds of relationships between and among the atoms and to keep these various alternatives within your visual field while you are working. Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and James Macanufo Tool Up! Necessary Game Pieces: index cards, blank paper, sticky notes, sticky dots The Board: white board, chalk board, flat tables, chart paper, wall space Other Tools: pens, pencils, crayons, markers, painters tape or ticky tac Four Games for Readers Brainwriting Surprise! Do You See What I See? Moody Brainwriting Goal: Brainstorm and expand upon important details as a group. Brynn Evans recommends that this is done in silence, allowing ideas to bubble up before they are shot down. Number of Players: 5-10 Duration of Play: minutes Materials: Each player needs a blank sheet of paper, something to write with, and access to crayons or markers. Prior to playing, everyone should have read or listened to the same text. You may provide individual or group copies, if available. You will also need space for a shared display. Go! Begin by creating a class display: write the name of the reading selection on a chart or board and sketch a very basic picture that represents the title using only ONE color. Leave room for pictures to be hung nearby. Ask each player to draw an important person, place, or thing from the story on their sticky note (index card, paper square) using only ONE color. Tell players to pass their pictures to the right. Each player will add a detail to the picture received, using evidence from the text and adding color, as appropriate. Players keep passing pictures to the right and adding details until each player has worked with all pictures. Finally, players should add text details to their visuals, using evidence from the selection. Options might include: things a character said or thought OR things they think or would like to say as a reader, based upon evidence. Once finished, the teacher collects all pictures and adds them to the class display. Players review the display as a group, discussing the most important people, places, and things from the text and pointing out the most powerful details added to the pictures by their peers. The teacher should take care to return readers to the text to check the accuracy of text details. Challenge players to revise your original sketch by using details from the pictures studied. They should add color as well. Variation: allow players to have their own copies of the text to refer to during play Surprise! Goal: Readers consider how their thoughts and feelings change when authors surprise readers with unexpected turns of events. This game inspires powerful conversations about authors purpose. Number of Players: 2-4 Duration of Play: minutes Materials: Each player needs a small stack of sticky dots and access to individual copies of the text OR a poster-sized copy that the group can share. Prior to playing, everyone should have read or listened to the same text. You may provide individual or group copies, if available. You will also need space for shared displays. Go! Begin by creating a class display: write the name of the reading selection on a chart or board and sketch a very basic picture that represents the title. Create a T-chart that states I USED TO THINK/BUT NOW I THINK. Create another T-chart that states I USED TO FEEL/BUT NOW I FEEL. Ask each player to place sticky dots on unexpected moments in the story read. Ask each player to use sticky notes to write or draw what they thought BEFORE the unexpected moment and what they thought AFTER the unexpected moment, rereading as needed. These notes should be added to the correct column on the thinking chart. Ask each player to use sticky notes to write or draw what they felt BEFORE the unexpected moment and what they thought AFTER the unexpected moment, rereading as needed. These notes should be added to the correct column on the feeling chart. Invite players to review each chart with you, discussing how authors add unexpected events to stories to change what readers think and how they feel. This is what makes reading a powerful kind of magic. Do You See What I See? Goal: This game helps writers identify and share important details from text prior to making evidence-based inferences. Number of Players: Groups of 3-4 Duration of Play: minutes Materials: Each player needs sticky notes and something to write or draw with. Prior to playing, everyone should have read or listened to the same text. You may provide individual or group copies, if available. You will also want to create an example display to use for modeling purposes (see next slide for directions) and provide space for players to create their own. Go! Begin by creating one display for each group: write the name of the reading selection on a chart or board and sketch a very basic picture that represents the title. Ask each player to recall 1-3 important details from the story. These details should be written or drawn on individual sticky notes. Invite players to post all of their sticky notes on the shared display. Once this post up is complete, challenge readers to return to the text to check for accuracy and revise sticky notes, as needed. Next, model the process of clustering with your own set of notes. Show writers how they can combine and recombine details to come up with their own, new ideas about the text. Each reader may see something that others do not. Challenge groups to combine and recombine the details on their displays, generating new ideas (inferences) as they go. Invite groups to share and compare their evidence-based ideas (inferences). Discuss what makes an inference strong and how to make shaky inferences better. Moody. Goal: This game helps writers experience and define the mood of story. If desired, teachers can expand this game to coach precision in word choice. Number of Players: Full Class Duration of Play: minutes Materials: Each player needs sticky notes and something to write or draw with. Prior to playing, everyone should have read or listened to the same text. You may provide individual or group copies, if available. You will also need a space to display the groups work. Go! Begin by asking each player to capture just ONE word that describes a person, place, or thing from the story on a single sticky note. Invite players to post all of their notes on a shared display. Players then come up one at a time and grab a word OTHER THAN THEIR OWN. They use this word to describe a person, place, or thing from the story. The class is then invited to share additional words that might describe the person, place, or thing. They add these words to sticky notes and then, to the display, where others may pull them down. Once every player has had a turn, invite writers to think about all of the words collectively. What kind of feeling do they leave a reader with? Discuss mood. If desired, invite players to rank sticky notes by degree, in order to demonstrate precision. For instance, sad is a lesser form of devastated. Happy is a lesser form of thrilled. Furious is a greater form of angry. MAKE YOUR OWN GAME. Each Game Has Three Parts: OPEN: POSE A TEXT-BASED CHALLENGE PLAY: PROMPT READERS TO DIVE INTO TEXT NUMEROUS TIMES TO BREAK OUT THE DETAILS. INVITE THEM TO ISOLATE EACH INDIVIDUAL DETAIL WHEN THEY CAPTURE IT REQUIRE THEM TO MIX AND REMIX THEIR IDEAS IN A COLLABORATIVE SPACE, CLUSTERING AND EVALUATING THEM SOMEHOW CLOSE: USE THE DETAILS AND THE MEANING MADE DURING PLAY TO REINFORCE A CONCEPT OR DRAW AN EVIDENCED-BASED CONCLUSION ABOUT THE TEXT. Falling in Love with Close Reading Chris Lehmann and Kate Roberts Credits Photo, Slide 2: Happiness, taken by Angela Stockman at the WNY Young Writers Studio June 12, 2014 Photo, Slide 4: Post It viaBrown, S., Gray, D. and Macanufo, J. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers. Cambridge, UK: OReilly Media, 2010. Demo Lessons Inspired by the Work of: Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey Chris Lehmann and Kate Roberts Sunni Brown, Dave Gray, and Mike Macanufo Expeditionary Learning Additional Credits Rainbow Staircase, Istanbul by Robert S. Donovan https://flic.kr/p/ntMRtK Strangers by Evan Rudemi https://flic.kr/p/5593pz Detective by olarte.ottie https://flic.kr/p/5BAUwp Story Corp by Omar Barcena https://flic.kr/p/8PxmS Slides 14-31: Adapted from the work of Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, accessed 9/23/14 from