As
I read this week’s readings, this image from the graphic novel To Teach the journey, in comics by
William Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner, kept popping up in my hea. The reason
being that I felt like this connected to the complexity in readings and other
texts students face in our classroom. Not just that but also how a student’s own
understanding and how we as teachers assume their knowledge may affect how
complex a piece of literature may be for students.
Chapter three in Buehls
text is a good starting point for this discussion because he points out how “[a]s
readers, whether we consciously realize it or not, we are constantly scoping
out the match with any text we read” (Buehl 75). He goes on to explain how as
readers when we find those said matches “comprehension often seems to be a
natural byproduct”(Buehl 75). Which is where I feel like complexity of a text
really fits in. In my opinion the text needs to make some kind of connection
with the students in order for them to truly understand. By assuming that the students
know everything necessary about a piece of text creates a toxic reading environment
which makes learning and comprehension difficult. That being said, I thought it
was important to understand Buehls frontloading teaching, explained in chapter
four, as it addresses the ways that we as teachers can help students make the
connection to a literary reading, despite the complexity of it. Frontloading
teachings allow us to helps students further think about what they must know or
what they already know in order to understand a text. Sometimes the complexity
of it is not always about how complex a topic is or the words used in a piece
of writing, like Goldman & Lee reading mentions (although I do believe it
is important to still keep these topics in mind). That does not mean I disagree
with Goldman & Lee, I simply feel like there is a deeper factor that helps
one understand a complex piece of writing.
As a future teacher I would want my
students to be pushed when it comes to their readings, so complexity is
important, but by simply providing a text with big words or various concept
ideas I would only confuse my students more and limit their learning. It is
important that we prepare students for the kinds of reading we want them to
interact with and in order to do that it is important that we know our students
and understand that they do not have limits, just different ways of seeing text.
The complexity of a text should not be a challenge, but a means of better
understanding.
Fabiola, I think you make some excellent points-- Buehl does a great job of explaining the importance of creating a more level playing field through the use of front-loading. Not only are we stimulating student's minds when it comes to sharing known information surrounding a new topic, but we also set up the students who may have a more limited knowledge of the topic a leg-up in the sense that they will be familiar with the subject instead of having their first interaction take place independently and with the text. This kind of proactive teaching helps students enter unknown territory with confidence and encourages students to verbalize what they do understand and search their knowledge banks (Beuhl, 159).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSomething that really stood out to me this week was when Buehl stated that "As teachers we rearrange our instruction to frontload reading assignments so that the classroom flow evolves from 'read about it and then we will talk about it' to 'we will talk about it, read about it in more depth, and then talk about it some more.' " (pg 121) This in particular stood out to me because I believe that as teachers we need to move away from simply assigning text to read in hopes of building academic background. If we simply assigning our students readings and expect them to gain certain knowledge on material that will be cover in class, we will be setting some of our children up for failure. This is due to the fact that students reading comprehension varies based on the prior knowledge they have and how they can relate to the text. Buehl states that "When we can make few, if any, connections to our prior knowledge, we struggle, we want to give up, we might even get angry, and we fail to comprehend." (pg.75) Since our students all have their own identity they will certainly have different experiences and beliefs that they will bring into the classroom. Some of our students won't have any access to academic knowledge in their lives besides school. Thus, it is our job as educators to fill in the gaps and build academic background for reading.
ReplyDeleteFabiola - thank you for your post. I think it is important that we don't just accept Goldman & Lee's argument at face value. But I think Buehl makes a compelling argument for acknowledging students' abilities. The chart of possible students ability sets, which he provides on p. 86, made me stop and think about how difficult the job of engaging every student in the classroom can be when each person is coming to the text with a very different set of proficiencies.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you are right to advocate the empowerment message of "they do not have limits." But the reality is that some students will have an enormous head start on others, having entered the classroom with a great deal of prior knowledge on the subject. This "gap" widens further when such students have "high processing ability," and are able to acquire the knowledge imparted in class quickly. Now you are in a conundrum as a teacher: do you slow down to make sure those with lower processing abilities are able to catch up? This risks disengagement from the high processing students, and you might get the same result if you sacrifice text complexity. But if you do not slow down or simplify your texts, the lower processing/lower academic knowledge students may fall so far behind they may lose hope.
Sorry if my response is kind of a bummer. But I think this is a real point of contention in academics, especially in urban contexts.
Fabiola I agree with a lot that you discussed. Frontloading is an excellent tool to use to try to even the learning field of your students. As a teacher you cannot control as much the previous external text-to-text, text-to-self or text-to-world knowledge that students may have. These connections can limit or aide a student’s ability and will to learn a new topic. Ensuring that you as a teacher limit your assumptions of previous knowledge and connect as much as the new material as you can to material you know that you have taught or have observed, can facilitate the process. The Pearson 2011 quote (pg. 74) “Knowledge begets comprehension begets knowledge.” stayed in my mind the entire week. This to me means that not understanding a previously needed skill or topic can limit future understanding of topics that require the use of the previous topic. I am not saying that future learning is futile but it can be limited. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI would agree that there are limits that we have as teachers when it comes to our student. And like Kevin mentioned in his comment, some students will have a head start and some will not. That being said there are limits but i feel like we should look at them more like build-ons, somewhere we can start with students to help them understand content.
DeleteWhen reading your response to Buehl, I agreed with your stance. with that being said, I feel as though it is important to focus on the prior knowledge aspect of complex text. I agree that it important for teachers to help students understand a complex text, but it is also important, as I see it, to make sure students have the right prior knowledge before tackling a text. as Buehl states, "many of our students are unable to achieve satisfactory comprehension of disciplinary texts, not because they cannot read but because they lack the assumed knowledge that makes it possible for readers to make sense of the presumed new material." focusing on prior knowledge can then help students understand complex text, as it will allow students to make stronger connections with the text, help students understand the ideas being conveyed, and other such things. once prior knowledge is acknowledged and handled correctly, then one can focus on understanding a complex text as a whole.
ReplyDeleteFabiola
ReplyDeleteVery good point that giving students complex texts may be counterproductive to learning. I agree that frontloading is a very good way to prevent complex texts from slowing down learning. I also believe it's essential we go through complex texts with students, and create environments where students aren't afraid to express confusion. I feel like as a teacher it's very possible that one will assign and over complex text because it seems simple to us. Therefore, when assigning a complex text I think it's important to factor in time for frontloading,as well as addressing the harder parts of the texts.
Fabiola,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. In the second paragraph you mention "by assuming that the students know everything necessary about a piece of text creates a toxic reading environment which makes learning and comprehension difficult." As a future science teacher I am trying to look at this weeks readings and how they would apply to my classroom. Obviously I do not want to create a "toxic reading environment" by assuming my students know things they do not. However, with science literacy, sometimes I feel that students see large, unfamiliar scientific terms and assume they will not understand any of the text and cannot relate it to their lives. Buehl states, "students often find scientific texts extremely esoteric and not much grounded in there life experiences (Buehl 98)" however he makes a great point that students "have all lived in the physical and biological worlds and the study of science can be directly related to multifarious facets of their out of school lives (Buehl 98)." Students are experiencing science every day but may not realize it. To get over this challenge I agree that front loading strategies are particularly important. Brainstorming (Buehl 130-147) allows students to reflect on prior knowledge as well as use their peers as resources to build a foundation. I think that getting students to realize their prior knowledge, the connection topics make to every day life and to "ignore" large scientific terminology" is important to forming a base for scientific understanding. Brainstorming can help accomplish this.
Hello Fabiola!
ReplyDeleteSo you mentioned this notion that assuming readers already know everything in a text creates a toxic reading envoronment, and... I couldn't agree more! Assuming readers know everything in a text allows teachers to be lazy. It also probably promotes them to be lazy, without even trying, because if a teacher thinks students know everything, wouldn't that teacher be less pressed to ask questions?
This is a complex notion, that of the toxic learning environment. One the one hand, it creates an environment that is outside the zone of proximal development (to the north) for most students. And, on the other hand, the paradox is if a teacher assumes a whole class knows everything in a text, then they are assuming the text is /below/ the zone of proximal development. That is an interesting paradox. Vygotsky will live on forever, it seems.
Nice post,
Max
Fabiola
ReplyDeleteI think we can agree that it is important for students to get a deep understanding of what they read. Buehl mentions the types of connections students have when reading text-to text, Text-to-Self and text-to-world. Having these types of connections make students understand the real purpose of classes. You mention "by simply providing a text with big words or various concept ideas I would only confuse my students more and limit their learning". One way to overcome this is assigning certain ideas that are beneficial for the students and even have a overview of the words they would encounter. We are giving time for students to address what they think of texts.
Hey Fabiola
ReplyDeleteI think your post touched on some really great points. It is important to point out, as you did, how according to Buehl readers are often searching for matches. This allows students to connect their previous knowledge to knowledge that will soon be acquired. The imperative part here though is to make sure student's prior knowledge is up to a teacher's expectations. Like you said, "simply providing a text with big words. . . would only confuse my students more". Although this may be true, there needs to be a line at some extent. Students should understand a broad basis of vocabulary, and then only be expanding, instead of simply prohibiting a furthering of knowledge.
Hey Fabiola - great post!
ReplyDeleteWhen you said that a text's complexity should be a means for deeper understanding rather than a challenge, I couldn't have agreed more. I too want my students to be pushed when working with texts in my classroom, however I worry about the difficulty associated with trying to ensure that various students are able to stay in the zone of proximal developmen. I believe, though, that the strategies for creating 'knowledge bridges' will be useful in getting the majority of students in my classroom onto the 'same page'.
Fabiola:
ReplyDeleteYou make several good points. I was reminded of what my former department chair and colleague always used to say, “This is why teachers come with textbooks.” You have re-emphasized what our role is as educators when it comes to teaching texts to students and how mindful we need to be about helping students understand what they read and strategies they can learn from us to assist them in their future reading efforts.
Another good point you made was on complexity of reading. You are correct to say that there is a difference between text complexity and text difficulty (though they can overlap). Text complexity relates to rich and varied ideas and the many ways we can interpret and understand them. The problem is finding the right selection of complex texts all the time for all of our lessons. We want readings that are rich and at just the right point of comprehension for our current level of students, yet complex enough to challenge them in a positive way to push them forward in increasing their reading levels. Then using frontloading techniques to help activate and build prior knowledge and prep the students for the text reading. Figuring out what are the right models or strategies we want to incorporate for each reading (since readings lends themselves particularly to certain strategies/models/literacy tools better than others), then a discussion of the reading and more follow-up on what the students have read and how can we get them to apply it. It is a time-consuming and complex process, but one that can be mastered with years of experience. In my personal experiences at Proviso East High School, I have learned never to make assumptions about what students should have learned already; rather, I try to assess before a world history lesson what do they know now, what do they not know, and how can I activate prior knowledge and tie-in the relevancy of the lesson to their present day lives. This, frontloading is crucial for student comprehension.