Working the Reading

Working the Reading

Carrie GouldingIrvine Valley College

IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGE

Total Students: 15,498 Male/Female Ratio: 44% male/56% female Full-time/Part-time Ratio: 34% full time/57%

part timeDay/Evening Enrollment: 31% day, 35%

evening, 35% day and evening Median Age: 23Writing class size: capped at 25 students

IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGE

Caucasian American: 37.9%Asian American: 29.2%Hispanic American: 11.2%Middle Eastern American: 4.8%Filipino American: 2.7%African American: 2.3%American Indian: .4%

Irvine Valley College

Students take a text-based writing assessment to place them into the correct writing class

70% of students place into writing classes that are below transfer level

IVC Writing ClassesWriting 2 Transfers (lower

division)Writing 1 Transfers (lower

division)Writing 201 Does not transferWriting 301 Does not transfer

FOR HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

THE STANDARDS

COMMON CORE ANCHOR STANDARDS FOR READING

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in

diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Academic Literacy

Statement:

A Statement of Competencies Expected of

Students Entering

California’s Public Colleges and Universities

Students entering colleges and universities are expected to:

Read texts of complexity without instruction and guidance

Summarize information Relate prior knowledge and experience to

new information Make connections to related topics or

information Synthesize information in discussion and

written assignments Synthesize information from reading and

incorporate it into a writing assignment Argue with the text Anticipate where an argument or narrative is

heading Suspend information while searching for

answers to self-generated questions

We can accomplish these goals by WORKING THE

READING with our students.

Students become stronger writers as we teach writing less and

reading more. When we make reading the primary focus of our instruction--with reasoning the

second most important--we produce better student writing than if we focused on teaching

specific writing principles.

California Basic Skills Initiative, Effective Practices Brochure, page 21

“Students whose abilities in critical reading and thinking enable them to grasp an argument in another’s text can construct arguments in their own essays. Those who question the text will be more likely to question their own claims. Frequent exposure to a variety of rhetorical strategies in their reading empowers students to experiment with and develop their own rhetorical strategies as writers.”

Academic Literacy Statement, pg. 15

Why We Need to Actively “Work the Reading” With Our Students

Students from Chabot College tell us what they do with the assigned reading.

Students from Chabot College Talk about Reading

“After watching the video, I recognized that I had spent the first decade of my career calling myself a “writing teacher” and making two assumptions about my students: 1) that they were doing the reading, and 2) that they understood what they read. The video makes clear just how flawed those two assumptions had been.”

Katie Hearn, Chabot College, quoted in Basic Skills Initiative, Effective Practices Brochure, pg. 21

Writing Problems Are Often Reading Problems

Writing Problem Reading ProblemNo analysis , evaluation, or thesis; failure to make or understand inferences; failure to make connections between readings

Comprehension

No transitions No internal sense of how one idea relates to the next

Empty and unsupported generalities; quotes disconnected from the text; long, undigested quotes

Comprehension; superficial engagement with the text

California Basic Skills Initiative, Effective Practices Brochure

One Way to “Work the Reading”—The Text Application Assignment

Assignment Scaffolding

1. Students read the essay “The Perfect Picture” outside of class2. Students write a one-page response to the essay in class3. Discuss and summarize essay in class4. Break-up thesis into parts5. Students write a summary of the essay outside of class6. Peer review/instructor review summary in class7. Discuss how to write a photograph description8. Practice photograph description and write description9. Practice photograph analysis10. Complete analysis chart11. Write photograph analysis12. Combine all three paragraphs into one essay13. Conference and Revise14. Edit

Reading and Responding

Read the EssayWrite an initial response to the essay

Why didn’t Thom take the photograph in this situation? Do you think he stopped taking photographs for newspapers altogether after this incident?

What questions would you want to ask Thom were you given the chance to speak with him? How do you think he would answer those questions?

What was Thom’s job at the time of this essay? Did he do his job here?

SUMMARIZING

Summarizing

Three generalizations about summarizing extracted from research:

1. To effectively summarize, students must delete some information, substitute some information, and keep some information.

2. To effectively delete, substitute, and keep information, students must analyze the information at a fairly deep level.

3. Being aware of the explicit structure of information is an aid to summarizing information.

Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, pages 30-32.

Four Summarizing Strategies

Rule-Based

Summary Frame

Graphic Organizer

Test Notes

•Delete trivial and redundant material

•Replace specific terms with more general

•Invent a topic sentence

A series of questions that capture the basic structure of the text

A chart that mirrors the structure of the text

Allow students to “cheat” by bringing in a 3x5 card full of notes for an in-class writing assignment

Summarizing Using a Summary Frame

Basic Structure for Expository Writing:

1. Author2. Title3. Genre4. Thesis5. Main Supporting

Ideas

This Assignment:

1. Author2. Title3. Genre4. Thesis 5. How he arrived at

thesis (narrative)1. Setting, characters,

beginning, middle, end

Complete Summary Frame

1. Author: James Alexander Thom2. Title: “The Perfect Picture”3. Genre: Essay, personal narrative 4. Narrative: 5. Thesis:

1. depictions of human suffering, 2. in the news (newspapers, TV news, news websites), 3. are often included to entertain4. not to inform.

Questions for Further Discussion

Why didn’t Thom take the photograph?When do we see human suffering in the news?In what types of other situations would Thom refuse to

take a photograph?What is the purpose or goal of the news media?Do you think there are some types of human suffering

that Thom would say is acceptable in the news? What is the difference between human suffering that

Thom doesn’t think belongs in the news and the human suffering that does belong?

What do you think about human suffering in the news?

Review Student Sample

Assignment Scaffolding

1. Students read the essay “The Perfect Picture” outside of class2. Students write a one-page response to the essay in class3. Discuss and summarize essay in class4. Break-up thesis into parts5. Students write a summary of the essay outside of class6. Peer review/instructor review summary in class7. Discuss how to write a photograph description8. Practice photograph description and write description9. Practice photograph analysis10. Complete analysis chart11. Write photograph analysis12. Combine all three paragraphs into one essay13. Conference and Revise14. Edit

Describe Your Photograph

Choose an organizational strategyEvoke the sensesPaint a pictureEmphasize details that support the thesisKeep your audience in mindModel, “The Loneliness of Rose,” Jon Katz

Practice Photograph Analysis

Photograph Analysis: “We Do”

Complete your group’s analysis chart and share with the class.

Assignment Scaffolding

1. Students read the essay “The Perfect Picture” outside of class2. Students write a one-page response to the essay in class3. Discuss and summarize essay in class4. Break-up thesis into parts5. Students write a summary of the essay outside of class6. Peer review/instructor review summary in class7. Discuss how to write a photograph description8. Practice photograph description and write description9. Practice photograph analysis10. Complete analysis chart11. Write photograph analysis12. Combine all three paragraphs into one essay13. Conference and Revise14. Edit

Other Versions of This Assignment

Richard Rodriguez, “Memoirs of a Bilingual Childhood” Video, Sesame Street “Amigo” or Mad TV, “Nice White Lady”

Judith Viorst, “What, Me? Showing Off?” a person you know, a fictional character

Stephanie Ericsson, “The Ways We Lie” an advertisement, a fictional character

John Holt, “Three Kinds of Discipline” an article describing a bullying incident

Sigmund Freud, The Pleasure Principle Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

COMMONCORE.ORG

Other Versions of This Assignment

What Skills Does this Assignment Develop?

SynthesisPredictingFlexibility in reading and writing

ComprehensionReading and writing as a process

•ACADEMIC ESSAYS•PSYCHOLOGY•SCIENCE•MEDICINE•LAW •LIFE!

In what situations will students use these skills?

EVALUATION