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Classroom Vignette
A Learner's Point of View
by Carol Van Zalingen
A friend of mine has spent almost four decades being a voracious reader, consuming
a steady diet of two or more newspapers a day, magazines, and historical and biographical
texts. Clearly, he can read nonfiction texts. He recently confessed that he still
struggles with any text that feels like "assigned reading." At work, he dreads being
given a report from his boss and asked "to look it over." His father frequently
clips articles from newspapers and magazines and gives them to my friend to read,
with the expectation that they will discuss them. My friend said he usually fakes
his way through these conversations because he never mastered how to comprehend
and retain information he doesn't care about. In this regard, he reminds me very
much of the adolescent readers I have worked with in my classroom.
When students approach a textbook, they often do so with the secret conviction that
the text is nothing more than a remedy for insomnia. They find it easier to read
the question on the worksheet they are to answer, skim the text for the relevant
paragraph, usually where the key word is in boldface, and then copy an answer essentially
verbatim from the textbook. Little thought is required, and virtually no comprehension
takes place. Even students who will happily devour a 400-page science fiction novel
will use this strategy when doing assigned reading in their textbooks.
How do we teach adolescent readers to engage with nonfiction texts, to synthesize
information from them, to retain it for later use, and to apply it to new situations?
It's tempting to say we need better worksheets, ones that address the higher levels
of Bloom's taxonomy. But if we want a fundamental shift in our approach to teaching
students about reading informational texts, we would be wise to look at ourselves
as learners. For many of us, it's been a long time since we have had to struggle
with learning a new skill that was not of our own choosing. As professionals and
adults, we do not have to show up to learn something we are neither interested in
nor good at doing. Our students do. Every day.
What I learned on my summer vacation!
I was reminded of this a few years ago when one of my own students accused me of
not understanding how difficult the learning task I had given him was. He was right.
I'm an experienced reader and competent writer. I didn't understand his struggle
to develop proficiency in either. I decided to remember what that was like, so I
signed up for a physics class that summer. After the first day, I had a profound
awareness of what it was like to be a learner who felt overwhelmed by the objectives
of a content area.
When it comes to teaching students how to read nonfiction texts, I return, again
and again, to that summer of physics, when I found myself struggling to make sense
of a physics textbook. The most invaluable strategy I used was a simple one: I reread
the text. Most of my adolescent readers do not know to do this. Those who do know,
don't want to do this. What made me reread a physics textbook? I needed to know.
My physics teacher that summer began each class with an experiment— some were real-world
ones, some were virtual, and some were "thought" experiments. We'd watch the experiment,
and then he would ask us to discuss and apply the ideas and theories we'd read about
in the textbook. Why? how? what if? were staples in his lesson plan. He knew we
needed to construct our own understanding of the physics principles at work if we
were ever to be able to solve problems or predict outcomes on our own, and he gave
us ample opportunities to do just this. Through his experiments and whole-class
discussions, my professor ensured that we had the requisite background knowledge
to assimilate and apply complex concepts. Because he created an engaging environment
in which I would be asked to apply the content of the textbook, I made the effort
to reread a difficult text.
Another strategy I used that summer to comprehend my textbook was just simply journaling
about my reading. After each section I had to read, I'd stop and write what I thought
I understood and what questions I still had. Because writing forced me to choose
the words I put on the page, it gave me a way to clarify my own thoughts and questions
about the content I'd just read. I have used this strategy of "holding thoughts"
with students, most often as a prediscussion activity with students who are not
yet comfortable engaging in whole-class or small-group discussions. Giving students
a timed writing in which they write down everything they understand and don't understand
about the content they were supposed to read helps them clarify enough of their
thoughts and questions to get a conversation going.
Recently, I worked with a class that was struggling to make sense of an informational
text on the Roman Empire. While students were reading the text in their history
class, their teacher had told them about Harrods, the department store in London,
and had compared it with the lavish lifestyle of King Herod in Judea. I began class
the next day by asking these students to write about what they understood and what
they still needed to understand. One student wrote,
I can not really remember what we read. I think it was about the romans. I can remember
there was a department store named after someone in the reading. It was a big store
with many expensive items. They did not have price tags because if you had to ask
how much it was you could not aford it.
Once students had written for about three to four minutes, I said to the class,
"Who can get us started talking about the assignment you read yesterday?" Many hands
went up, and many were confused about several points. Next, I moved to the text,
first clarifying the vocabulary that was above their reading level (words like placated and dissent), and
then reading the text with the students, this time asking them what was the important
information in each paragraph and showing them how to take notes that would let
them study for the quiz that would be given in two days. To assess how much each
student understood of the content we had addressed in class, I followed up the lesson
by asking them to do another, short timed writing about what they now understood
after our discussion in class. The same student from before wrote,
I understand Herod was the king of Judea. He died in 4 BCE. I also understand Christianity
was based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. It began in Judea. I also understand
a prefect was a Roman ruler. Pontius pilote was a prefect. I think
this was a great way to study. It made it a lot easyier to rember things.
Short timed writings are an easy way to gain invaluable insight into our students'
understanding of our content.
One thing I really appreciated as a learner during that summer of physics was when
my teacher looked through an assigned reading with us beforehand, telling us which
sections were important and which we could skip. Students cannot possibly assimilate
all the information in a textbook. As a learner, I know this. In subsequent courses,
I became both frustrated and overwhelmed when I was barraged by too much information
I could not possibly retain all at once. Anyone who has ever tried to file his or
her own income taxes knows this feeling. Imagine having to do it everyday. This
is what inexperienced adolescent readers face when given assigned readings in textbooks
that aren't focused on what matters most to them.
As teachers, it is incumbent upon us to do a few simple things that can significantly
help the adolescents in our classrooms who struggle to make sense of the informational
texts we ask them to read. First, we can level the playing field by making sure
we've previewed the vocabulary and have shared the nuanced meanings of any troubling
words. One of the timed writings from the history class that was struggling with
a text about the Roman Empire mentioned how difficult the vocabulary was:
Yesterday I think we talked about Roman reiligous stuff. Like the Christians and
about Jesus. But I didn't really understand most of the vocabulary words. I think
[the teacher] should have explaned them to us before we read the article... the
vocab was tough.
Too often, struggling readers lack the requisite vocabulary to comprehend an assigned
text. Imagine filling out your tax forms if you didn't have a clue what a W-2 or
IRA was. Inexperienced readers need this simple support.
Second, we can focus the reading on those areas that matter most. Instead of "covering
it" with minimal, if any, retention, let's decide ahead of time what key ideas and
concepts need to be retained and zero in on them. Once these areas of the text are
determined, we can then give students a reason to read: the promise of being able
to talk about it the next day. Adolescents are inherently egocentric and social
creatures. Tapping into their desire to question and share opinions and ideas is
a way to build on their strengths. I realize many teachers feel they don't have
time for this conversation in their classrooms— there is just too much to do, too
much to cover. Lecturing seems much more efficient. These are teachers who haven't
been learners in a quite a while. I know. I was one of them. Students need a reason
to retain what they read, especially if it's not something they would ever choose
to read. If they know they can answer questions about a text without thinking about
it, they have no reason to read critically. If they know the teacher will only lecture
them about what they've read, they have no incentive to read at all. But if they
are presented with an invitation to discuss what they've read, or a scenario that
requires them to analyze a situation using information from a text, or an opportunity
which pushes them to explain and interpret something based upon the ideas in a text,
then they have a reason to remember what they read.
My recent experiences as a learner have taught me the erroneous nature of the notion
that if a teacher says it, students will learn it. They won't retain it, and in
our hearts, we all know this to be true. Learners need time to make information
their own. Thrashing ideas out in class with the whole group, or even in small groups,
is one way to give them this opportunity. It is time consuming, but the returns
are huge compared with what a student takes away from a lecture. The old Chinese
proverb is true:
Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I
understand.
Once I realized the value of my experience in that physics class, I began to venture
into other disciplines to gain insights into my students' needs as learners. What
I learn, again and again, is that those classrooms in which I am an active participant
in my own learning are the ones whose information I retain the longest. To this
day, I can still take a derivative and do simple integrals, explain the difference
between position, velocity, and acceleration, and greet someone in Swahili. In those
classes where I had to memorize facts for a test and was never asked to discuss
anything, I have little or no recall, which is why I cannot tell you who fought
in the Peloponnesian War, let alone who won it.
At the start of my lesson about the historical text on the Roman Empire, a third
student wrote:
In class yesterday, we read a paper about Christanity. I'm not sure how Christanity
was started in Ancient Rome. I know we talked about some guy named Herod. I think
the religion of Christanity is about believing in Jesus Christ. I think the book
The New Testment is like a bible that tells the life of Jesus Christ. I believe
the authors of this book are Mark, Luke, and someone else. If we had to take a test
today, I wouldn't get a good grade. I do not have a full understanding of what Christanity
is in Ancient Rome.
Strategies such as rereading a text, reflecting on what was read by writing about
it, and then discussing the material, all help students develop the metacognitive
awareness they need to become skilled readers and learners. At the end of a class
where she had the opportunity to engage in all three strategies, this student wrote:
From taking notes from this paper, I understand what this article was trying to
say. I know now that a Prefect is a Roman ruler that focused on polictics and economics.
I have a better understanding about Chritanity in Ancient Rome and that Herod had
an 'iron fist,' which made the army strong. I also know that Pontius Pilate oversaw
trail and execution of Jesus. I understand this paper well now.
As adults, our students will have to be discriminating consumers of a vast array
of nonfiction texts. We do them a huge disservice if we don't give them every opportunity
to develop those skills that will make them critical readers who are able to synthesize
information. We need to look closely at whether our students are active participants
in their own learning— at whether we create opportunities for them to develop their
own understanding of our content, rather than merely asking them to spit back what
we've told them for the sake of expediency. Perhaps if my friend had had more practice
with nonfiction texts, more situations in which the reading of a textbook was supported
by the teacher, focused by the teacher, and then discussed within a safe classroom
environment, he wouldn't cringe so much today when he gets another magazine clipping
from his father or a report from his boss.
Carol Van Zalingen is a National Board Certified teacher in early adolescent English
language arts. She has a master's degree in education and has presented workshops
for Hilliard City Schools, OCTELA, and NCTE.
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