Chapter 6 3Qs blog post.

1 Q.  Quote w/ Reasoning - "When matched carefully with text, graphic organizers can help students clarify the connections and relationships they are finding in the reading."   I chose this quote because it sums up the reason graphic organizers are used perfectly.  We use graphic organizers to help students make connections and point out improtant info in texts.

2 Q.  Question - How can you use graphic organizers for assessments and check for actual understanding?   I do not feel students have to put enough information about the topic to truly show their understand of a topic.

3 Q.  Personal Connection - I personally connected with the part that dicussed when graphic organizers can be used.  It said that they could be used during a "reading" lesson not just before and after.  In high school my chemistry teacher required us to take class notes on bubble chart, graphic organizers that she created.  This was a terror!!  We needed to know way to much information to put it all on a tiny graphic organizer with no other notes.   Also, when you are taking that many notes a bubble graph graphic organizer can not be organized, and that is a pain in the but for someone who like organized notes.

"Text Talk" and Chapter 4

The article gave lots of insight about ways that teachers can fail using questions with read-alouds; however, I feel the article went in circles talking about problems and offering no solutions.  I did like how the article discussed that texts must be "conceptually challenging."  Since I do not have much experience seeing children at different grade levels, I often forget how smart students are and how much they can understand because of their limited reading abilities.  As I was reading the article said that pictures should not be shown while reading because students will focus more on pictures than the text, but how do you read a picture book to a child without showing pictures.  Isn't it important to walk through the pictures before reading to allow students to predict?  I had a personal connection with the section of the article that discussed students focusing too much on background knowledge and what they know about the subject.  Last semester when reading a book to my kindergarten class I asked a question about their experiences/knowledge, and I had great difficulty getting the students back on the task of paying attention to the book.  The article discussed how it is important for teachers to appropriately activate students' schemata, but they left me wondering how to do this without having students stray off topic.  The book discussed that shared reading promotes metacognition, and we love discussing metacognition in CIR 411!  I like the idea of using shared readings followed by think-alouds to help students practice critical thinking.  The article stated that read-alouds do not have strong effects according to studies.  I disagree with this, because when students have opportunities to practice their oral language comprehension they will have an easier time grasping concepts that teachers lecture in higher grades.  This skill will allow students to learn so much more from classes as they get older.

Writing to Learn

Until reading the article and chapter 8 I hadn't heard much about writing to learn.  After learning more about it, I discovered that it is a great teaching concept.  Not only can it help improve students writing skills and knowledge, but it can improve subject content knowledge and reading comprehension.  I enjoyed reading the different strategies and I learned many new ones.  Biopoems were one of my favorites, because used for so many different topic and subjects.

When the class discussed the article, I noticed that many people have bad feeling towards the check lists the article discussed.  I personally feel that check lists are an excellent resource for students who struggle with writing.  It also helps students write to learn, because it directs them towards important information.  I need a checklist when writing, because if not I am a nervous wreck thinking I am not doing the project or writing correctly.