#TCI讲座#Recycle the Reading
Notes from Michele Whaley’s lecture “Recyclethe Reading”.
How to keep student interest high while building community?
Book lover’s perspective: reasons to re-read
Re-read to…
Enjoy favorite parts of the story again;
Pay attention to language richness;
Find hints you may have missed the first time;
See the story from a new perspective.
A teacher’s perspective: students re-read…
To gain confidence in reading;
To find support for discussion ideas;
To connect with unknown worlds;
To understand symbols, semantics, word order, intonation;
To acquire vocabulary, grammar and spelling;
To learn to “see” the movie in their heads.
A student re-reads…
Because there will be a test.
Because it’s fun or engaging.
How do we get students to “recycle”?
1. Games
We want to play the games that can give students a lot of comprehensible input. If not, maybe we should not play this game.
1) Bingo 1
Use or draw a 3*3 table. In each of the squares of the table, write one of the words that teacher provided. (These 11 words are from the reading and can almost answer the questions of the teacher.) Write the words in any order.
Teachers: be sure to have questions ready, one for each word.
2) Bingo 2
You can play a similar game, either with questions or for word/spelling recognition: Strip Bingo. Students make a strip of 5~7 words in any order, and they tear/cut them off as the question is answered. Whoever finishes with just one left is the winner.
3) Lucky Reading Game
Students read a text together in small groups, predict questions, then answer one at a time for their groups. They get a card each time they get a correct answer.
You can have a point guide to help add up the points for each group.
4) Three Truths and a Lie
Students write, or teacher writes, sets of 4 facts from the text.
Teacher or student groups tell those facts.
The rest of the class decides which one was the lie.
Everyone who answers correctly gets a point. If no one answers correctly, the author of the facts gets the point.
If it can be proven that the author is not accurate, the person who discovers the facts gets 10 points.
5) Freeze pictures
Students freeze in a scene.
Who picks the scene? Students themselves or teacher, but without telling other students which scene.
Limit the time for reading, or getting props. Students can be a tree or a character in the reading.
2. Compelling Activities
Important: Choose activities based on the extent to which your students need to re-read. Change activities regularly.
1) Re-writing
Ask students to rewrite a short story with five changes, or report five changes they would make in the whole story.
2) 1-2-3
a. Draw: Re-read the story. Draw a picture that shows what you hear.
b. Add: Add two speech bubbles to your illustration. Use at least 10 words in English.
c. Description: Write 3 sentences in (____) about your picture. Can be L1 if you want to check their understanding, or TL if you want to check comprehension or want them to practice writing. OR differentiate in class.
3) Mural Drawing or Smashdoodles(Smash books for advanced students)
Students include:
a. The title with an image;
b. 5 new vocabulary terms with images;
c. 3 important sentences with images;
d. 2 reflections: what they thought about the story.
4) Reader’s Theater
Traditional example: dramatic presentations: students stand on stage, reading and acting at the same time.
CI classroom:
Teacher assigns roles.
Many students are in the “chorus”, maybe part of the sound effect, or scenery.
Teacher asks questions, clarifies.
Students act while teacher reads.
The purpose is to let students re-read the story and have more CI.
3. Cognitive Challenges
1) Game of Quotes
Ask students to find a line in the book that matches each slide. Each slide asks a question, irrevelant to the story. Find a line in the book which can answer the question. E.g. The best excuse for being late to school: My stomach hurt.
Share: whiteboards or paper.
2) Unlikely/Possible/Probable
The teacher offers lines of dialogue that characters in the story might say, or things that might happen, and students move to one side of the room to say it’s possible, and to the middle side if it’s probable, while they go to the opposite side if it’s unlikely.
Students should take the text with them so they have proof or can explain if they need to.
3) Embedded Reading: unfolding picture.
4) Scaffolding Literacy: deep examination of all aspects of the writing.
5) Three-level Guides: lead to discussion.
Use activities carefully and sparingly based on your goals.
Remember: we want students to stay engaged, rather than behaving for us.
Purposeful engagement=>language acquisition.
Most of all: remember we are teaching students first, then curriculum.
