Q1)Read the two chapters from Cris Tovani's "Do I really have to teach reading?", post a QQC on your blog for each chapter.
Q2) Respond to the following questions on your blog: In what ways do you currently use writing-to-learn strategies in your class? In what ways could you expand your use of these strategies? How can writing strategies help students "hold their thinking?"
A1)The readings were a little hard to read because some sentences were cut off, but one of the main ideas that stood was how to help students "link reading and purpose. I couldn't help but wonder if I could somehow get my students excited towards finding a purpose when reading a math textbook. I understand that having a purpose will help retain more of what is read, but I'm not quite sure on how to go about it. In Chapter 5 page 57 there was a worksheet used for math but I'm still a little confused on what information to include.....what's important and what can be put on hold.
A2) A few times I have asked students to write self-reflections on what they've learned, and what they need to work on, but that's about it. I want to get my students used to explain why they take the steps they do when working out a problem....to explain their thinking.
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1 comment:
Explaining thinking is definitely a good plan, for just about any subject -- as long as they can express themselves well enough to demonstrate that thinking was, indeed, taking place. :)
I actually found it an interesting challenge to see that the last line of text was missing from each page. Given that we're learning about literacy skills and dealing with problems faced while reading, it was ironically appropriate: we had to make inferences about what was said on those missing lines, and not get hung up on them because we were reading with a specific end in mind (rather than just reading for narrative).
As for getting students excited while reading a math textbook, maybe the trick is to give them an interesting task to perform that requires the information listed in the textbook in order to perform it. Most of us don't learn math for its inherent beauty -- I certainly didn't -- but for its utility: we learn how to do things with numbers in order to do OTHER things with more tangible results. The math skills are a tool-kit to accomplish those results; maybe you can get the students excited about a project, and then show them how to pull information out of the textbook in order to be able to do it. *shrug* Just a thought.
Cheers,
Chris
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