Close Reading: A Video Replay
The link purported to present a model “close reading”
lesson.
Although, there was much to like about the lesson, I
complained that it wasn't close reading.
Close reading is not a synonym for reading comprehension
(or even "really good reading
comprehension").
This is happening a lot. A company says their anthologies
include “complex text,”
but it isn’t clear what teachers are supposed to do with
it, or why it's there at all since
the instructional procedures still seem to favor the idea
of protecting kids from complex text.
Last week I dinged that video for claiming that close
reading is a teaching technique
(it's an approach to reading). I was critical of the idea
that close reading helps students
“conquer complex text,” if that includes language
complexity as measured by Lexiles.
I didn’t like the idea of reading the book to the kids;
I’m a fan of reading texts to kids
(see recent NewYork Times article on this), but
not the texts the kids are supposed to be reading. Finally, I didn’t like how
rereading was being approached.
Here is the rest of my thinking about this lesson. Hope
it’s useful to you.
1. Confusion of story and exposition.
A big issue with the standards is the shift to
informational text. Unfortunately, teachers lack experience teaching
informational text, and they haven’t developed a language for it yet.
In the video the teacher repeatedly refers to the “story”
that the students are reading.
Better choices: “informational text,” “book,” “article,”
“science selection,” and so on.
Our language cues kids as to which strategies to use and
what text features to rely on.
Stories have different characteristics than science
articles do.
They are organized differently and use language in
different ways.
1 2. The
terrific teaching strategies are irrelevant to close reading.
Many teachers who watch the video are going to be
impressed with the clever way
the teacher had kids sharing information (the
back-to-back arrangement, the whip around).
Those are clever techniques and I’m all for them. They're
the kind of thing that allows
effective teachers to reap the benefits of small group
instruction even when teaching a whole class. As a teacher educator, I’d be
very pleased if my students walked away from this viewing
with those techniques.
However, those techniques have nothing to do with close
reading. A lesson will involve students
in close reading whether or not those techniques are
used. (That's why this can be a "good lesson"--because of the high
engagement level of the students--but a poor lesson,
if the goal was to engage them in close reading.
2 3. Close
reading focuses on the text, not the reading strategies.
A major purpose of close reading was to shift readers'
attention from authors’ biographies,
the historical period from which the text emerged, or
from past critical response.
It aimed to shift this attention to the text itself.
One of the biggest problems with the presentation is its
heavy emphasis on main idea
and key detail detection, annotation techniques,
rereading procedures.
What the author had to say and how the author said it is
getting lost here.
That’s why I see this lesson as no different from what
was common in schools
in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and the Oughts.
This isn’t an advance; it is
just a new set of labels for what we were doing before.
I do believe that, as teachers, we need to teach the
reading process to kids,
and having some lessons that focus on how to summarize or
question a text makes great sense.
Similarly, I’m all for explicitly teaching kids some of
the common ways that texts are organized
and to have them practice reading texts to use those
strategies or to figure out a text’s structure.
But, as useful as such lessons
can be, they are different than the lessons
in which the emphasis should be entirely upon the content
and approach of a particular text.
One can’t really tell from the video when certain things
happened (is this what the teacher
started with or did she tell the kids this after they had
read the text once or twice?).
One example is purpose. She stresses that the purpose is
to get the main idea and details
and then tells students to look for the main ideas
(she even helps this along by asking them what they know
about adaptation).
The problem is that her purposes are more about the
reading process than the text.
A model lesson on close reading should stress the text,
not the reading strategies.
And, it should focus attention on not just what the text
said, but how the author expressed,
reinforced, or extended the meaning through
his/her choices of language and structure.
This lesson ignored tone, the role of illustrations, why
the author chose particular words,
or why information was sequenced in particular ways. Kids
will likely come away with
some of the facts (and that is good), but there is more
to it.
http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/search?updated-max=2015-01-19T19:29:00-06:00&max-results=6&start=8&by-date=false
Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How
to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps
you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com gives many ways
for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com which takes
advantage of the experience and expertise of others.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com
just for fun.
To
quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will
know.
The
more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
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Your opinions, experience and questions are welcome. M'reen