For our book club, we agreed to read chapters 3 and 4 from
the book Reading History by Janet Allen. This section was, as Sara aptly mentioned, a
cumulative review of what we have been learning throughout this class and also
the Methods course we are in. I have
really learned that literacy is not just about reading and writing basic
sentences, but that there are various forms of it, and that there are many ways
that we don’t automatically associate as literacy learning.
On page
65, there is a mention of outlining, and honestly don’t like it at all. Outlining chapters was something my 8th
grade teacher would have us do to teach us.
He rarely taught in class, and to cover his own butt he would have us
basically teach ourselves. There were
never discussions or connections to the text within class, so overall by the
end of the year we had a final exam, but the only thing we had to show was our
outlines. I don’t think I’ll be making
my students do this type of activity because while I learned, I did not enjoy
or make connections, it probably explains my lack of connection to American
History till today.
The
next method, the Mapping/ Webbing I have had a chance to see in my CPD and
really saw students review and gain knowledge through this, especially when
they have to explain their thought process and connections. There is a new application through Triptico
that is still in BETA version that works with hexagons, and the students had a
chance to connect the hexagons relating to their unit. Students had a fun time and even taught each
other/ explained to their classmates why it would be a good answer. Granted this type of activity does not have
to have a right answer, it just makes the students more aware of the various
perspectives and ways of drawing connections.
The use
of R.E.A.P is another method that I found interesting especially since the P
asks the students to “ponder” and develop questions. This is something I can connect to Frederick
Drake, someone we were introduced within our Method’s class, because he always
mentions the importance of creating a laboratory classroom that always has
questions present. I’ve said it before and will say it again, we almost beat
the questioning out of students during elementary and middle school, so by the
time we get them in high school, they are afraid to form questions. This is a
good method to counter-act that.
The
Multiple Sources was another method that had me think back to how much better
my previous classes could have been if the organizer that Allen introduces, had
been used. So often we ask students to
look up the other side, but we don’t take the next step and have them write
about it. It doesn’t even have to be the
graphic organizer, but just to write a paragraph with a reaction or opinion about
it would be great because it can get the students to start questioning and
researching.
The
Alphabet Book is something that I have seen used within my CPD and have
actually really wanted to use in the future.
It was not exactly my mentor who used it, but another teacher would use
my mentor’s classroom for his literacy class.
Students would be asked to read a book and create an Alphabet Book on
it. Students also had to make a connection/ explanation with it because some of
the letters needed explaining. Students
had to go out and do additional research for their presentations. This could be easily used within Social
Studies for certain time periods.
I feel
like that outline of “best practices” in chapter four was a checklist for both
our TCH courses this semester on what we had learned and what we should take
away. I look forward to integrating some
of Janet Allen’s ideas within a classroom.
I'm most interested by your idea about how we beat questions out of students. Sad but true, yet as you note (and I would agree) social studies, as most of our disciplines, when in their "real form" are ALL about questions. It's also true that students who ask questions increase their comprehension so there are literacy benefits, too! So...keep on asking questions.
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