Top Ten Toolkit -Group 2

Top Ten Toolkit

Text Set


1. Library of Congress Website: Kids and Families. Retrieved July 13, 2010, from
http://www.loc.gov/families/, 2009.

This website is maintained by the Library of Congress. This particular section: Children, and Families focuses on fostering youth literacy. The page includes links to numerous themes, including America’s Library: an American history for elementary and middle school students, Music, Theatre, and Dance: a collection of scores, sheet music, audio, films, and more, Portals to the World: Resources and information on the nations of the world, Lifelong Literacy: Promoting Adolescent and Youth literacy through digital book access, Braille access, book reviews, and messages from the youth literacy advocate. These are just a few of the site’s portals; it is a priceless tool for the pursuit of knowledge.

In my ELA classroom, this website could be used as a valuable resource for both supporting the curriculum, and supplementing it. Students could browse the site for book recommendations to do projects on, which would familiarize them with literary criticism and the critical writing process. This site could also be valuable to students with disabilities: its inclusion of both digital and Braille literature could open up the doors of literacy to all of my students. The site will also provide important cross-curriculum thematic ties, with literature that pertains to American history, nations of the world, and music, theatre, and dance.


2. Stephanie Meyer podcast from The National Book Festival 2006, Retrieved July 13, 2010 from http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4001, 2006.

In this Podcast provided by The Library of Congress, Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight Series speaks at the 2006 National Book Festival. The author begins by speaking a little bit about the process of becoming an author, and her inspirations. Meyer also speaks about her experiences first and foremost as a reader, and how these experiences have contributed to her writing. The author then reads a short excerpt from her second novel, and answers questions from the audience. Meyer honestly answers questions from both adolescents and adults concerning her career and the series itself.

Knowing that both the Twilight novels, and movies are popular with young adult readers, I would show this reading/interview to my ELA class. For the students who are familiar with Meyer’s work, this interview will allow them to glean a little bit about the author’s motivations. The students will be able to think critically about the author’s explanations, and compare them to their experiences with the text. Also, students will be exposed to the writing process, and consider their own potential as writers. Meyers reads a dream sequence and compares her writing career to the sequence, which will encourage the students to believe that anyone can become a writer if they choose to pursue it. For the students who are not familiar with the text, the interview, and their classmates’ reactions might encourage them to pursue it. Also, as Meyers shares her love of reading, students may feel more inspired to read in general because of their interest in the text/movie.

3. Atkin, S. Beth. Voices from the Streets: Young Former Gang Members Tell Their
Stories. Little Brown and Company, 1996.

This non-fiction text is an incredibly rich resource for students from all backgrounds. The book’s powerful first-person interviews with young former gang members is accompanied by these individual’s poems, quotes, photographs, and journal entries. These materials in conjunction with the use of each individual’s own voice resonates honesty. By including individuals of different ages, as well as various ethnic, racial, and socio-economical backgrounds, the text is able to breakdown stereotypes about youth who join gangs. The autobiographical accounts chronicle their experience from their decision to join a gang, to their successful emergence from gang life. This message of hope is supplemented by an intervention page, a how to get help page, and a suggested reading list.
Because of the variety of individuals that are portrayed in this text, each student in my ELA class should be able to identify with some aspect of it. This personal connection will encourage students to think about the true consequences of choices that they make. The text will also provide an interesting opportunity for the students to explore a different literary genre: autobiography. The supplemental materials in the text will allow the students to put faces to the words, explore how experiences translate to poetry, and see the benefits of journaling. The students can use this example to create their own autobiographies, create poetry, and journals that express difficult times in their own lives. Students will also understand that every individual can make poor decisions regardless of their race, gender, age, or socio-economic background, and that hope will always offer an opportunity for change.

Strategies

1. Retellings (Reading Comprehension)

A retelling is used as an after-reading strategy to encourage reading comprehension. Students create an oral summary of a text based on “a set of story elements, such as setting, main characters, and conflicts” (Beers). First, the teacher models a retelling for the class. The teacher reads a short story to the class, and then retells it. After creating a scoring rubric, the teacher posts the rubric on the overhead, and allows the class to discuss how her retelling would have been scored. Teachers should be sure to model both exemplary and poor retellings, so that the students have the opportunity to understand what contributes to each. This strategy is appropriate for all age groups. It can be used to plan lessons, and track students’ reading comprehension progress over time. Because struggling readers often have a difficult time organizing information from a text in their heads, practicing retelling allows them to perfect this skill. If they are constantly thinking about the information they read in terms of a narrative that they would retell, then they will have mastered reading comprehension. If a student practices retelling on a daily basis, a teacher will be able to use the rubric to track their progress, which is usually very difficult to do with reading comprehension. This strategy provides the scaffolding that a student needs to create a logical retelling and guide their reading over time. I would use this strategy in my ELA classroom for both short in class reading assignments, and longer individual reading projects. This strategy will help students understand how to effectively convey their thoughts orally, and ultimately it will help them with writing as well. If a student can orally convey the themes and logic of a novel, then she will have little trouble writing them.

2. Sketch to Stretch (Struggling Readers)

Like retelling this strategy gives students the opportunity to practice truly understanding what they have read, in their own logical terms. After students have read their text, they are asked to create a sketch of what they have read. This sketch can be made in pairs or individually, but must be symbolic of the text. In order to make this strategy successful, the teacher must create and post a set of guidelines for the sketches. The teacher will first model the exercise, after reading a short piece of literature to the class. After creating a sketch on either the board, the teacher will go over the guidelines, and compare her drawing to these guidelines. After discussing the effectiveness of the drawing the teacher models the second portion of the exercise: the explanation. Students are asked to write an explanation of their sketches that explains how the sketch represents the text. The teacher models this portion, and explains that students should be allowed to draw conclusions about the sketch prior to reading the explanation. For this reason, the students are asked to write their explanations on the back of their sketches. After creating their own sketches, the students are put into small groups and asked to share and discuss their drawings; as was modeled. This strategy is appropriate for readers of all levels, and with all different types of texts. Students can engage in this exercise after reading different texts, or the same text. With different texts, students will be exposed to new literature that could spark their interest, and with a universal text students will be exposed to different perspectives and interpretations. This strategy works well with all different types of learners, and is particularly helpful to students who are visual learners. Many students will learn better by drawing their ideas first, which will then help them complete the writing portion of the exercise. Students are encouraged to construct their own meaning from the text they read in this strategy. Students will learn to look for constructing elements of a text as they read, and will learn to visualize them. This process will encourage critical reading, and comprehension, as well as imagination. I will use this strategy in my ELA classroom often, perhaps as either an opening or closing exercise. It could be helpful in both drawing students into a lesson, and wrapping up a lesson. I like how the exercise can be used with any type of text, and is relevant for any reading level.