Day 35
As I navigate the Reading Apprenticeship framework, I continually want to thank Kate Glass for bringing my attention to it. Since my last post, I dove into the framework a little more. And there is a lot that I want to bring into the normal, routine practices of the classroom.
Giant Learning
The framework gives a way to read complex ideas in a subject not familiar to the reader. It allows all people to access a text. That is crucial for the subjects that I teach. Most of the topics are unfamiliar to everyone. At the same time, the framework doesn’t require me to create a worksheet for each text. It doesn’t require me to do the thinking for the student. I don’t have to frontload the text by giving background knowledge so a reader can access the passage. Ultimately, it allows the reader to be in control of the text.
One of the ways the framework does that is by making reading social while reading. Not just being social about the right answers, but what didn’t work. Readers should share what they are thinking and how they work through a text. There becomes a need to talk daily about reading. The students will share how they read and begin to notice what readers do. They can then connect any reading to their personal goals and interests and they work through their understanding of how to approach texts.
The framework makes the invisible visible. This is what I attempt to do daily…just not always with their thinking about texts. I typically make their understanding of the text visible. By focusing on the process, all people can access the texts. It becomes okay to struggle with the reading as long as we are working together to find out what is the struggle and how can we overcome similar struggles the next time we encounter similar texts.
Giant Questions
How do you easily embed this practice when there are unfamiliar topics almost daily? Because the complexity of a text is situational for all people, the unfamiliar will be different for everyone.
How do you motivate a student to read an unfamiliar text or topic?
How do I do this process without it taking up too much class time when there is so much I have to get through?