When our children were little they'd lie next to us in their beds listening to story after story, fighting the urge to fall asleep. One of their favorite books was Good Night, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann. In the book, the zookeeper says, "Good night" to each and every animal in the zoo before going home at the end of his workday. Little does he know that Gorilla had stolen his keys and unlocked each cage as he tiptoed behind him.
Although the text is simple and repetitive ("Good night, elephant...Good night, lion...") the zookeeper's kind words and the smiles on the animals' faces as they creep along behind him inspired plenty of discussion:
"The gorilla is sneaky."
"The animals are cold and do not like sleeping outside."
And our favorite: "They love the zookeeper and want to go home with him."
We don't know for sure what Rathmann intended, but in our warm safe place we made our own interpretations and taught our children how to analyze text.
As teachers of language learners we believe we can create a similar environment in our classrooms through Close Reading, especially for those students who may not have had comparable reading experiences. Widely used in classrooms to support reading comprehension, Close Reading is a process that involves a critical analysis of the content and structure of a text. A close reader keeps one eye on the overall meaning of a text and the other on the vocabulary, syntax, text patterns and features used by authors to deliver their message to their audience.
Although Close Reading is a valuable tool to help students develop comprehension, it may be difficult for some language learners to utilize effectively. Comprehension resources (books such as Strategies That Work, by Harvey and Goudvis or Mosaic of Thought, by Keene and Zimmerman) provide us excellent frameworks with which to teach strategies to students. Many of our language learners, however, may have linguistic, vocabulary or cultural knowledge gaps that limit them from fully understanding how to put those strategies into play.
A traditional literacy lesson might begin with teachers naming and modeling a comprehension strategy: "Today you will learn how to make connections between the characters and events in the story to events that have happened in your own lives." Following the demonstration, students would be tasked to read and search for connections between themselves and the text. As we know from experience, chances of performing with a high level of success on this assignment is out of reach for many learners. More importantly, by limiting comprehension to just one strategy, we may be stifling the thinking of these learners.
We'd like to offer a framework that fosters deep thinking with even the lowest proficiency students through a scaffolded Close Reading approach. We do this by "flipping the script" for how we teach comprehension strategies to language learners. First, we identify the strategies our students already demonstrate. Then, we use explicit language to help them define and expand their understanding each and every time they read.
The framework consists of two stages of instruction blending whole group with small group/conferring settings. The first stage (seen below in purple) begins with building an awareness of thinking. We like to think of this stage as "lighting the fire" and "fanning the flame". We accomplish this through a series of very focused, interactive read aloud lessons. During these experiences, the teacher models her thinking while concurrently observing students' reactions to the text. These personal reactions to text, which are oftentimes facial expressions, gestures, or even sound effects, are celebrated and affirmed with student-friendly annotations. After this modeling, many students are ready to try this work independently in their own books.
In the next stage of instruction (seen below in the green), we revisit annotations in a small group or one-on-one setting. We are essentially trying to answer the question, "What were you thinking here?" Through engaging talk, we get a glimpse of the processes that are occurring inside students' brains. At this point, we name and define the strategies at work using academic language. Finally, we create opportunities to refine and expand this thinking at deeper levels.
These procedures and scaffolds are intended to enhance students’ comprehension by calling their attention to their personal reactions to text and the comprehension strategies they ALREADY use.
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Part 2: Building an Awareness of Thinking
Part 3: Modeling: Thinking Aloud for ELLs
Part 4: Observing and Affirming Student Thinking
Part 5: Naming and Defining Strategies
Part 6: Assessing and Expanding Strategy Work
Stay tuned...
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