The Evolution of the “NEW DEFINITION” of Reading of the 1980s to Close and Critical Reading of the 21st Century

Michigan Reading Association

Summer Literature Conference

July 8th and 9th, 2014

Mackinac Island

Dr. Elaine M. Weber

Macomb Intermediate School District

Who among you remembers the New Definition of Reading?

Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of the reading situation.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you+tube+Defintion+of+Reading&go=Submit+Query&qs=ds&form=QBVR#view=detail&mid=C219F301B4B886C80B0FC219F301B4B886C80B0F

Research from the late sixties into the eighties focused on schema theory, prior knowledge, what good readers do when they read. This led Michigan to create what they called, the “New” Definition of Reading. It looked for the first time at the active role that the “reader” plays in constructing meaning from text. Reader

Text Context (purpose)

This new attention on the reader grew larger and larger …sometimes viewed as more important than the text.

Reader

Text Context

Prior Knowledge

Schema Theory

And with the definition came the …

Reading Strategies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d5Xw9yoYCRY

The Reading Strategies survived the purge of research with The “ What Works Clearinghouse” of the Reading First era.

P.David Pearson used the wisdom of Kenny Rogers to caution us about the use of the strategies “to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away.”

Stephanie Harvey put them to work in “Strategies that Work.”

Reading Strategies Thrived!

We created a card game, “Stack the Deck for Reading Comprehension.” using the reading strategies of Stephanie Harvey. Students were videotaped using the card game with their text books.

It was while watching that video, I realized the strategies, even synthesizing, were only getting students to tell what the text said. It was then that I looked for a protocol that would take students beyond the text.

Success! I found a protocol on Dan Kurland’s website called, “What is Critical Reading?”

The protocol uses three questions:

What does the text say?

How does the text say it?

What does the text mean?

These three questions with one addition,What does the text mean to me?, served as the structure for the development of the Michigan Department of Education HSCE units for meeting the MMC requirements

Since that time, Michigan literacy educators have used the four questions to move students’ thinking about text to ahas, new insights, and encouraged them to think generatively about ideas in text.

Close and Critical Reading and the Common Core Reading Standards

What does the text say?

How does the text say it?

What does it mean?

Key Ideas and Details1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make

logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Craft and Structure4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including

determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g. a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats,

including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. 8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text,

including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take

Key Ideas and Details1.Read closely to determine what

the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2.Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

The Reading Strategies support

these 3 standards with

EVIDENCE from the texts.

Strategies that Work with EVIDENCEStrategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Ann Goudvis

1. asking questions2. visualizing3. determining importance4. synthesizing5. inferring6. making connections7. repairing comprehension

Turn to a partner and together decide where you would use one of these strategies with this excerpt from Letter from the Fringe.

Compare what you and your partner found as places in the story where you could use “strategies that work” with the sample handout of the story that has been analyzed for strategy use.

The next three standards expect a different kind of reading.

Craft and Structure4.Interpret words and phrases as

they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5.Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole

6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Excerpt from “A Letter from the Fringe” by Joan Bauer

Every kid at the fringe table has been a victim of cruel remarks from the "in crowd," and Dana, who has been their target too often, wants to change things. But does she have the courage to tell the kids in school how they've made her and her friends feel? And will telling them make any difference?

"I used to give you control over my emotions. I figured that if you said I was gross and weird, it must be true. How you choose to respond to people is up to you, but I won't let you be my judge and jury. I'm going to remind you every chance I get that I have as much right to be on this earth as you."

"This letter could be from the nerd with the thick glasses in computer lab. It could be from the 'zit girl' who won't look people in the eye because she's embarrassed about her skin. It could be from the guy with the nose ring who you call queer, or any of the kids whose sizes don't balance with your ideal. "You know, I've got things inside me—dreams and nightmares, plans and mess-ups. In that regard, we have things in common. But we never seem to connect through those common experiences because I'm so different from you.

"My being different doesn't mean that you're better than me. I think you've always assumed that I want to be like you. But I want you to know something about kids like me. We don't want to. We just want the freedom to walk down the hall without seeing your smirks, your contempt, and your looks of disgust.

"Sometimes I stand far away from you in the hall and watch what you do to other people. I wonder why you've chosen to make the world a worse place.

"I wonder, too, what really drives the whole thing. Is it hate? Is it power? Are you afraid if you get too close to me and my friends that some of our uncoolness might rub off on you? I think what could really happen is that learning tolerance could make us happier, freer people.

"What's it going to be like when we all get older? Will we be more tolerant, or less because we haven't practiced it much? I think of the butterflies in the science museum. There are hundreds of them in cases. Hundreds of different kinds. If they were all the same, it would be so boring. You can't look at the blue ones or the striped ones and say they shouldn't have been born. It seems like nature is trying to tell us something. Some trees are tall, some are short. Some places have mountains, others have deserts. Some cities are always warm, some have different seasons. Flowers are different. Animals. Why do human beings think they have the right to pick who's best—who's acceptable and who's not?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Guided Highlighted Reading for Craft.

Prepare with a copy of the text and a

highlighter pen to respond to the

prompts.

Standards 4, 5, and 6 are all about the text! How it was developed, how it is structured and from what point of view it was written.

reader

TEXT context

What does the text mean?

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Couple, A Letter from the Fringe with diverse media---

Standard 7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively as well as in words.

What does the cartoon say?

How does the cartoon say it?

What does the cartoon mean?

What is the issue?What is the claim?What are the reasons?What is the evidence?What is the counterargument?What is the rebuttal?What is the resolution?

Standard 8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and the specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevancy and sufficiency of the evidence.

Or put two texts together …

Standard 9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.Quindlen, Anna. “A Quilt of a Country.” Newsweek September 27, 2001. (2001)America is an improbable idea. A mongrel nation built of ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though everyone knows that most men consider themselves better than someone. “Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image,” the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote. That’s because it was built of bits and pieces that seem discordant, like the crazy quilts that have been one of its great folk-art forms, velvet and calico and checks and brocades. Out of many, one. That is the ideal.

Both pieces deal with the concept of diversity.

In “A Quilt of a Country.” think of all the ways the author let us know America is made of diverse parts.

Share your findings with a partner.

How has reading changed in 31 years since the “new” definition of reading?

Balancing the triangle has brought more attention to the “text” – close reading, author’s craft, text structure, text-dependent questions and evidence from the text.

Using text to read for different purposes broadens the reader’s perspective and extends possibilities for thinking with the text: Reading for argument, theme, theory, craft, and perspective.

Having students consider what the text says as well as how it has been written, offers more insight for critical analysis of the text.

And just think, how many times did you read A letter from the Fringe for different reasons?

How many ways did you “think” about this text?