Visualization:A strategy for all sessions

How many sessions will you have with your students?

How do you visualize the School year? 2005-2006

• Calendar• Minutes per session• Weeks• Grading period• Units• Staff development days• Counting days until the

“break”• Semester• End of course

We’ve got text.

Teachers are proficient readers.• “The problem is that they are expert readers. This means…that they

are probably not aware of the things they automatically do as readers. These strategies are seamless, under the level of consciousness, automatic. As a result, they do not struggle as our students do, don’t experience the ruptures and difficulties , and don’t have the same reading experiences as students do.”

– Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy, 6-12 (2001)

1. Unpack reading to load skills by separate strategies.2. Bring students on board.

Loading Instructions for Reading

Community of Readers

“Good readers have a repertoire of thinking strategies they use to comprehend texts. Those tricks you used, trying to make sense of the …text, weren’t random and they weren’t spontaneous. You were actually drawing from a set of specific thinking skills that you have developed and used through your life as a reader.”

Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman, Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading (2004)

Thinking Strategies of Effective Readers

• Visualize• Connect• Question• Infer• Evaluate• Analyze• Recall• Self-Monitor (Daniels and Zemelman,

2004)

“A story is really just ink on a page, but a reader takes that text, infuses it with meaning, and creates a full and complete secondary world that can be lived through, deeply experienced, elaborated upon, enjoyed, used to think with, and much more.”

Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Strategic Reading

The reader creates a secondary world ….

Uses for this visualized world

Where does meaning reside?

Any meaning must take into account clear features of the text.

Meaning (visualization)

• Text

• Experience and purpose/ Reader

• Code

A transactional theory posits a reader bringing experience and strategies to interact with a textand to negotiate an interpretation or meaning.

Visualization: A meaning or a strategy?• Pre-reading/ Predict• Activate prior knowledge• Build schema• Mediate possibilities • Test hypotheses• Sequence• Summarize• Evaluate• Synthesize

Each of these strategies involves deliberate acts of visualization.

Minilesson #1 Strategy Instruction

• Select only one teaching point per lesson. While the possibilities for teaching points are endless, it is critical to select a teaching point that is targeted to the needs of this group of students. Demonstrate how the strategy works, provide practice, and then make it clear that you expect them to implement the strategy while reading.

Linda Hoyt, et al. Exploring Informational Texts (2003)

Visualization with a literary device:the simile

» Look for text features:

» 1. Can you find the word “like” or “as”?» 2. Are two things being compared?» 3. What are the two things?» 4. How are these two things alike?» 5. What is the idea in this comparison? » 6. How does this idea add to your understanding ?

Visualize a Simile

• 1. Find the word “like” or “as.”• 2. Locate objects in front and behind “like.”• 3. Draw a picture with sensory detail.• 4. Find the two things being compared.• 5. Chart space for three words associated

with each of the two item compared.• 6. Brainstorm words applied to the two things.• 7. Make a general statement about the thing

before the word “like” or “as.”

Use Similes to Make Pictures

• show comparison and contrast

• create a picture

• examine elements of similarity: analysis

• make inferences

• generalize from a particular: synthesis

10 point assessment

• 3 points for a drawing

• 2 points for identifying the two items

• 3 points for descriptive words applying to the items

• 2 points for a statement applying the concept or idea in the comparison

Some TAKS Objectives and TEKS Expectations for Grade 9 Reading

• Objective 1 The student will demonstrate a basic understanding of culturally diverse written texts. 9.6 The student is expected to

• (B) rely on context to determine meanings of words and phrases such as figurative language…. (E) use reference material such a glossary, dictionary, thesaurus…to determine precise meaning and usage; and

• (F) identify the relation of word meanings in analogies, homonyms, synonyms/antonyms, and connotation/denotation.

• Objective 2 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the effects of literary elements and techniques in culturally diverse written texts. 9.10 The student expresses and supports responses to various types of texts. The student is expected to

• (B) use elements of text to defend his/her own responses and interpretations.• 9.11 The student analyzes literary elements for their contributions to meaning in literary texts. The

student is expected to • (F) recognize and interpret important symbols• (G) recognize and interpret poetic elements like metaphor, simile, personification….• Objective 3 The student will demonstrate the ability to analyze and critically evaluate

culturally diverse written texts and visual representations. 9.7 The student is expected to

• (H) draw inferences such as conclusions, generalizations, and predictions and support them from text.

Modifications

• G/T: Have students transition to metaphor. Have students create similes to fit characters in a narrative. Have students evaluate possibilities for additional application in a personal essay.

• Special Education: Choose similes with direct correspondence to emotions and emotional states. Have students compare pets to other animals in the wild or in the zoo. Have students make comparisons with family members and their likes and dislikes.

• LEP and ESL: Ask students to compare new experiences in their adopted culture with elements from holiday celebrations in their native culture. Have students make comparisons using their knowledge from two different languages.

Works Cited

Bertrand, Diane Gonzles. Trino’s Choice. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1999.

Daniels, Harvey and Steven Zemelman. Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004.

Hoyt, Linda, Margaret Mooney, and Brenda Parkes, eds. Exploring Informational Texts: From Theory to Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.

Langan, John. Ten Steps to Advancing College Reading Skills. West Berlin, NJ: Townsend Press, 2004.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey D., Tanya N. Baker, and Julie Dube. Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.