Chapter Five comments

Why do we have to read this book? Why do we have to read so many books in school? I don't like to read long thick books. I hear these statements and questions at least once a week. I want students to read to improve their vocabulary and to expose them to new ideas, cultures and experiences. I try and give them answers that will motivate them to want to be successful in school. But I never really know what they are thinking. Chapter five discusses strategies and techniques to use in deepening students comprehension through a second-draft reading of text. I have not used any of the said strategies this semester but plan on using the multi-layered time line within the next week or so. He discusses a what/why time line has one layer explains what happened and the next layer explains why it happened. Then there is the character time line where students follow a specific character in text and the time line shows (1) what the character does; (2) why the character behaved that way; (3) what the character feels about the chain of events pg. 94 (Gallagher). This book (what I have read) is filled with practical suggestions that really work in the high school classroom. I can't wait to try a few new strategies!

Chapter four

A number of classroom strategies are discussed in this chapter to help students get into the correct frame of mind to read difficult text. I used the text frame with gaps to help my students get a better understanding of the play The Crucible. As a result students were able to tell what was happening and give predictions of what may happen. To help understand all the characters they created baseball cards for each character and used information from their reading to describe the characters. Students were able to pick from five different individual projects to present after reading the story. As a class they came up with suggestions for projects based on their own interest from the story. I plan on showing the movie to them as well. This book has given me some really good suggestions for my English classes. The next activities I may try are the color coding and trouble slips.

Chapter Two Deeper Reading

As a new teacher I would assign the required reading to my students assuming they could read and understand certain words. We would discuss the reading a few days later and I would give them questions to answer to make sure they were comprehending the story(novel). After reading this chapter I found a few different ways to help my students get the deeper meaning of a story. I like the suggestions of first draft readings and metaphors to help students who have trouble with comprehension. I have always used examples to help students understand a new reading. I'm still learning new ways to improve my teaching skills and have enjoyed this book and working with my co teachers.

Chapter Three Comments

Chapter three of Deeper Reading suggested ways teachers can incorporate new strategies for a more effective lesson plan, to help students with the reading of challenging works. During a daily bell activity students had to write a journal response to a question realted to the story The Crucible. After all the students finished six were picked to share their thoughts. I used this period to answer quesions they had before we began to read as a class. I continued to use daily focus questions to revisit our last reading. I found this to be very helpful with my specail education students that have a defict in comprehension. The oral summaries and daily focus questions also helped my students gain a better understanding of the story and characters.

Chapter one of Deeper Reading

This chapter helped me look at my special needs students differently. I realize many of them have different reading levels, but I needed to reach them on a different level as well. Many of my students can recite songs, lines from movies and commercials but can not recall lines of a story read to them. Chapter one is about finding ways to help students get to a deeper meaning of reading text. I used the conversation piece from page five in my eleventh grade co teaching class. Two of my non readers voluntered to read the conversation piece (a loud) and were really engaged and looking forward to reading. After the class heard the story twice they wrote down what they imagined happened. I was able to get more students involved in this short story and to share The class was on a natural high so I went into the introduction of the next story we were going to read The Crucible. I tried something different with that as well. The little conversation piece gave my students another way to look at reading simple stories. It's hard sometimes trying to help students with reading when they don't see the realavance in it. After reading this chapter I have decided to use a different approach and it seems to work. Thanks for the little things that work to make a difference.