DEMYSTIFYING READING

INTRODUCTION TO THE READING / WRITING METACOGNITIVE JOURNAL

OUR GOALS:1. Define metacognition;2. Describe how it is used by good

readers;3. Describe how lack of it creates

poor readers;4. Practice “Inquiry” in reading;5. Use the Reading/Writing Metacognitive Journal to make inquiries and improve reading skills;6. Learn a way to be a strategic, reflective, and self-regulating reader.

ENTER:THE METACOGNITIVE

DIMENSION

METAafter or beyond

COGNITIVE mental process of knowing

METACOGNITION IS “THINKING ABOUT THINKING”Metacognition refers to learners' automatic awareness of their own knowledge and their ability to understand, control, and manipulate their own cognitive (thinking) processes.

Metacognitive skills are important not only in school, but throughout life, as they help you:

be a person who has learned to learn;

know the stages in the process of learning and understand your preferred approaches to it;

identify and overcome blocks to learning so you can bring learning from academic to on-the-job/career situations.

READERS WITH POOR METACOGNITIVE SKILLS:

often finish reading a passage without even knowing that they have not understood it;

are unable to process and use what they have read;

are unable to make adjustments in their learning processes and monitor their own learning;

approach reading with a negative attitude;

set themselves up to fail.

COOL: HOW DO I START?

the act of seeking truth, information, or knowledge

an investigationThe act of inquiring or

of seeking information by questioning

INQUIRY in-kwuh-ree (n), inquiries

A READING INQUIRY HOW you readis as important asWHAT you read.

THE CHALLENGE We read different texts in different ways. Reading is an invisible process. For effective readers (or when one is reading

effectively) this is especially true. In order to conduct an inquiry into what we do

when we read, we need to make this invisible process visible.

How do I do that, you ask?

THE READING/WRITING METACOGNITIVE JOURNAL

Evidencequotes, phrases, words from

the text

Interpretationyour questions, comments,

predictions

LET’S START WITH HERE:

Turn to the person next to you and journal this image.

Evidence (objective)

1. It’s a cartoon with a single drawing

2. Parents watching “Reality T.V”

3. Stupid expressions of parents

4. Child reading Harry Potter is imagining what he is reading.

5. Content expression on boy’s face

Interpretation (subjective)

6. Single panel cartoons like this usually give the author’s opinion about one

topic, so what is the this cartoon trying to tell me?

7. Reality T.V. is boring (plain words).

8. Does reality T.V. make people stupid or do stupid people watch reality T.V.?

9. Reading is good for you.

10. Reading is better than watching reality television.

GOOD READERS: Take inventory of background knowledge to

make connections; Make predictions (look at titles); Take genre into account; Ask questions; Analyze (look at parts to understand whole); Pull evidence from throughout text; Connect evidence from the text to personal

knowledge to interpret; Confirm inquiry with supported interpretation.

LET’S TRY IT TOGETHER ON A WRITTEN TEXTHow to Mark a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.1 You know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of

anything. I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading. I want to persuade you to write between the lines. Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading.

2 I contend, quite bluntly, that marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love. You shouldn't mark up a book which isn't yours.

3 Librarians (or your friends) who lend you books expect you to keep them clean, and you should. If you decide that I am right about the usefulness of marking books, you will have to buy them. Most of the world's great books are available today, in reprint editions.

JOURNAL PARAGRAPH 4 IN PAIRS

4 There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher's icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.

DUE NEXT CLASS:Complete metacognitive

journaling of Mortimer J. Adler’s “How to Mark a Text”

ANY QUESTIONS?