My search for relevant information to assist my own research has yielded many results. My research topic can really be broken into two equal elements. First, the teaching of textual analysis. Countless researchers have published dense and thorough findings about how to best teach students to analyze a text. They mention successful strategies, as well as disproved approaches. For example, an article by Doreen Saccomano focuses on Close Reading, and addressed the importance of selecting texts that are appropriate for your students. Saccomano explained that teachers should consider what their goal for using a specific text. For example, considering the author’s purpose for writing the piece and if that will suit the needs of your students’ learning goals.
Close Reading requires the teacher and students to both analyze a reading passage and examine it for details, some of which include understanding how the text works, the author’s message, providing text evidence to support thoughts and predictions the reader is developing, and making connections between the reader and the text itself (Frey & Fisher 2013; Shanahan, 2012). The second, core element of my research topic is working with English Language Learners. As and ELD3D teacher, it came to no surprise that there were seemingly even more results on this topic. Fortunately, I was able to narrow down the results to a couple articles that were particularly relevant to my upcoming research. These articles provided me new insight to specific strategies that could benefit my own students. One specific strategy resonated with me was the use of “Think Alouds" According to Oster (2001, p. 54) think-aloud is a method in which “students verbalize their thoughts as they read and thus bring into the open the strategies they are using to understand a text”. When I first drafted my driving question, prior to conducting thorough research, I was initially concerned about the idea of integrating technology into my lessons. This was not due to a dislike for technology, I simply was unsure of how my students could use it effectively for Close Readings and textual analysis. That was until I found an article which addressed that exact idea. Using close reading as our theoretical framework, the reading strategies and web tools presented here provide visual displays of evidence found in the texts that students read. These strategies are helpful for all students and especially for struggling middle school readers as they learn to read closely, think clearly, and construct arguments about evidence found in the texts they read. (Gormley & McDermott; 2015) Discovering this article allowed me to breath a sigh of relief. I intend to look into these strategic web tools further and ideally, find one that is appropriate for my students and the work they will be doing. My work is by no means over. I still have a lot of information to sift through. I have many articles at my disposal, and each of them contain relevant and potentially valuable information that will assist me on my journey. Wish me luck! Driving Question: What is the impact of guided practice of textual analysis with English learners? *Link to my Research Table
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Time Frame:
4/3 Administer pretest & Qualitative Self-assessment
4/3 → 4/7 Spend week teaching textual analysis Strategies:
4/8 → 4/16 Spring Break:
4/17 → 4/18 Resume teaching textual analysis 4/19 Administer post test & Qualitative Self-assessment
CAASPP Testing
Pre/Post Test: students will read and analyze an article. Then answer the questions on the handout. These questions are text dependent and require the students to go back into the text to locate their answers. The text is fairly complex for some of the students (850 lexile) However, it is important they learn to work with complex texts. Pre/post Questionnaire:What skills did you use to answer the questions about the article? Check One:
“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must we want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy”
This quote by John Dewey is a rather appropriate prelude to the final chapter of Darling-Hammond’s book, Flat World and Education, where she presents five key elements which she claims would be necessary for a new educational paradigm which is committed to meaningful learning and equal opportunity. Each of the elements put forth by Darling-Hammond would contribute to resolving the concerns addressed by John Dewey.
Darling-Hammond suggests our government should implement more supportive accountability strategies in order to ensure that our students have ample opportunities to learn while instituting a means of evaluating and improving our curriculum.
Formative Figures:
While conducting research around my driving question, I encountered the work of one Kristi Heston. Kristi conducted research on the implementation of the Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading System. Guided reading is a teaching approach designed to help individual readers build an effective system for processing a variety of increasingly challenging texts over time. I found this relevant to my driving question as I will be focusing on the impact of guided practice of textual analysis. This will involve developing students reading comprehension along with their critical thinking skills. Heston’s research lead to some promising results. Big Ideas: The purpose of her study was to measure the amount of student growth, after the use of guided reading instruction, in the three specific areas: fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. Heston assessed her students prior to guided reading implementation, and again after the implementation. According to her research, “There was an increase in student scores in all three areas, the areas of accuracy and comprehension had the largest number of students show an increase in their scores.” Kristi’s research can help newer teachers such as myself to understand how instruction method is key to student success. Heston determined that guided reading increases student's fluency, accuracy, and comprehension, making clear the benefits of continued guided reading instruction. Another big idea of Heston’s is how fluency, accuracy, and comprehension levels each contribute to student reading success as a whole. However, growth in student reading levels is the only indicator looked at to determine growth in reading. Recognizing growth in the areas of student levels of fluency, accuracy, and comprehension is important to ensure students are making well rounded gains in their reading abilities. I find Heston’s conclusions to be both important and helpful to my own research. As I work with my students to improve their critical reading skills and ability to analyze different texts, I will consider both Heston’s approach as well as her findings. Getting Ready to Write: Citing Textual Evidence
Video Link: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-about-textual-evidence A. What is the nature of the case? The nature of this case is to support students with identifying and using textual evidence from their readings to support their writing. The teacher focuses specifically on students’ abilities to read a text, cite evidence from the text, and draw inferences. This activity includes both collaborative and independent work. I selected this case as it is directly related to my research question. B. Share some descriptive details This video features a 6th English Language Arts class. Students are learning about child labor. This lesson demonstrates different effective strategies for reading a text such as “Selective Highlighting”. For this strategy, the teacher has provided students with “focus questions” to consider as they read the article: What is child labor? What kind of work do the children do? How does child labor impact me? As students read, together as a class, they consider the focus questions and highlight anything they deem relevant. They will use their highlighted evidence to support their answers to the focus questions. The teacher has the article about child labor projected on the screen while each student follows along with their own physical “Research Packet”. (The packets include the focus questions) The teacher engages in a “Shared Reading” of the text. This involves the teacher reading aloud to the class, and pausing periodically to ask students to “Stop and Talk” about what they’ve just read and if they’ve highlighted any information, emphasizing the purpose of their reading. The teacher calls on students at random. As students encounter relevant information, they are encouraged not only to highlight, but also to mark the text, taking notes in the margins of the article. Once students have finished reading the article, they engage in the “All Right Consensus” activity. The point of this activity is for students to have a discussion in small groups, addressing one focus question at a time. What’s nice about this activity is that every member of the group must come to a consensus before they can answer a question. Each student must contribute by sharing their own input. Students appeared very engaged in their group discussions. The teacher notes that, “students typically find that they have similar ideas, which is the point.” The final aspect of this lesson is the “Exit Slip.” This is an independent activity. Students are asked to write one paragraph which answers one of the 3 focus questions. Students must include evidence from the article to support their responses. What is great about this final piece of the lesson, is that it provides students with some voice and choice, while providing the teacher an opportunity to assess individual student growth. C. What new and useful information did you learn? While watching this video, I learned a few beneficial strategies. First, I learned that it helpful to accompany a text with a few several focus questions. This gives students a purpose for why they are reading. By providing a clear objective, students are more likely to understand the activity and thus succeed at it. I already require my students to highlight information as we read, but I should start including focus questions to help with “Selective Highlighting. I also noticed that by “Stopping and Talking” periodically, there was a very clear sense of accountability. By randomly calling on students to share what they have highlighted, students are more engaged in the reading. The portion of the lesson that I found most innovative was the “All Right Consensus.” As a teacher, I love providing my students opportunities to collaborate with their groups because I know they are more likely to participate as a group than they are independently. What is really interesting about this activity is that students don’t only need to share their own ideas and evidence, but they must also generate an answer that they all agree with. This is beneficial for students as they get to develop both their collaborative and critical thinking skills. D. Could you potentially use this lesson? I could absolutely use this lesson in my own classroom. I would use this lesson in my English Language Arts class but I would be more interested in attempting it with my English Language Development class. As these students are all English Learners, I predict they would benefit the most from this approach. Rate the film experience 1 - 5 I rate this a 5 out of 5. The lesson is easy to replicate, and can be applied to a variety of texts/content areas. |
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