Evoking Sensory Images to

Deepen Comprehension

By A. Frasier

March 2009

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Purpose of Strategy Instruction

Goal of strategy instruction is active processing, NOT use of strategies.

Ex: Using a KWL, Venn Diagram, or 2-column notes is not the purpose of that “lesson”. It serves only as a tool for organizing information to foster the active processing of knowledge to understanding.

Sensory ImagesSensory Images

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“People who read without visualizing are simply gliding across the surface of a text, missing out on the rewarding experience of being immersed completely in another world or the complete cognitive engagement that comes from using all their mental resources to understand what they read.” (Kelley & Grace)

What Are the What Are the Results of Results of

“Sensing” Text?“Sensing” Text?

“Mental images bring forth not only snapshots of reading, but smells, tastes, feelings, and chills and thrills as well.”

(Zimmerman, Hutchins)

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““When Sensory When Sensory Images Form In a Images Form In a

Child’s Mind,Child’s Mind,It is an ongoing creative act.

Pictures, smells, tastes, and feelings burst forth and his mind organizes them to help the story make sense.

It is this ongoing creation of sensory images that keeps children hooked on reading.” (Zimmerman, Hutchins)

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Proficient Readers. . Proficient Readers. . ..

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• Allow the images and emotions to emerge from all five senses. These are anchored in a reader’s prior knowledge.

• Spontaneously and purposefully create mental images while and after they read.

Proficient Readers. . Proficient Readers. . ..

Allow themselves to be engaged more deeply, making the text more memorable.

Use images to immerse themselves in rich detail as they read. (The detail gives depth and dimension to the reading.)

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Phase 1:Phase 1:Sensory Sensory

ExperiencesExperiences Have students name words that

describe the five senses. Bring in fragrances, textures, colors,

tastes, sounds. Have students identify the samples. Discuss the qualities of each object. Provide the vocabulary.8

Concrete Concrete ExperienceExperience

Different objects Ask students to look at the object carefully

and feel its texture. Smell it. Listen to it. (Some objects may have a sound.)

Put the object away. Have students close their eyes and see the details in their minds.

Have students draw a picture of the object or describe it in writing.

Toilet paper rolls/Jewelers Loops 9

Connect to Reading & Connect to Reading & Writing Writing

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Phase 2:Phase 2:Evoking the SensesEvoking the Senses

Visual Thinking (photographs/paintings)

Wordless Picture Books (Good Dog, Carl)

Music/ Sounds (nature)

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What Does it Feel What Does it Feel Like? Like?

Short bio of Dorthea Lange

Lange created images that frequently juxtapose signs of human courage and dignity

Famous photo: Migrant Mother

Carefully look at the photograph

Complete the Visual Thinking Chart

Discuss responses with group12

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Phase 3: Visualizing Phase 3: Visualizing from Vivid Pieces of from Vivid Pieces of

Text Text

Read/Aloud Think Aloud

Poetry Poetry, Poetry

Split Screen Notes (Brings Rigor!)

Noticing Author’s Crafts/ Figurative Language

Visualizing is a form of inference! (BK+ Text= Image)

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Standard 14: Poetry Standard 14: Poetry GRADES PREK–2 14.1 Identify a regular beat and similarities of

sounds in words in responding to rhythm and rhyme in poetry.

GRADES 3–4 14.2 Identify rhyme and rhythm, repetition, similes, and sensory images in poems.

GRADES 5–6 14.3 Respond to and analyze the effects of sound, figurative language, and graphics in order to uncover meaning in poetry:

• sound (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme);

• figurative language (personification, metaphor, simile, hyperbole); and

• graphics (capital letters, line length).

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Standard 15: Style & Standard 15: Style & Language Language

GRADES PREK–2 15.1 Identify the senses implied in words appealing to the senses in literature and spoken language.

GRADES 3-5 15.2 Identify words appealing to the senses or involving direct comparisons in literature and spoken language. For example, after reading The Great Yellowstone Fire, by Carole G.

GRADES 5–6 15.3 Identify imagery, figurative language, rhythm, or flow when responding to literature.

15.4 Identify and analyze the importance of shades of meaning in determining word choice in a piece of literature.

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Adult Learning Adult Learning Experience; What Does Experience; What Does

it Look like? it Look like?

Follow the 5 step Split-Screen Notes

Dakota Dugout

Discuss your drawings with your group

What words/phrases did the author use to evoke sensory images?

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Poems are Sensory Poems are Sensory Treasure ChestsTreasure Chests

The Woman’s 400 Meters (L. Morrison)

Skittish,

they flex knees, drum heels and

shiver at the starting line

waiting the gun

to pour them over the stretch

like a breaking wave.

Bang! They’re off

careening down the lanes,

each chased by her own bright tiger.19

Phase 4: Creating and Phase 4: Creating and Sustaining Movies in the Sustaining Movies in the

MindMindNotice as Our Images Change throughout the

text SKETCH to Stretch

Nonfiction~ Visualize to understand facts/details (Determine what is important!)

Move to independent use of strategy, share visualizations in book clubs/ literature discussion groups

Use conferring questions

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All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that all of that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. (Hemingway)