...that is the question.
In my efforts to implement close reads with accountable talk, I've been trying to limit my (formerly excessive) front loading for English Learners. I want them to read the text for itself, not parrot my ideas about the text back to me.
The first text I chose went beautifully. We engaged in AMAZING accountable talk, and I was so floored that they could in fact do what I was asking them to do.
With the second text, and the entire thing flopped. Crickets chirping. Deer in the headlights. And then the deer got hit by a semi.
They were so exasperated they turned to misbehavior. And these are kids that are not prone to goofing off. Suddenly everything I tried to do was a joke.
So what's the difference?
I think it all boils down to these two words: productive struggle.
The first article I selected was just out of their grasp, so they struggled with it a little bit, but could still comprehend enough to pick out meaningful portions to discuss. The portions they were confused about (or chose not to say anything about) I reinforced with other multimedia sources. (I guess that means I backloaded it?) I let them show me what they didn't understand, but required them to engage in the text first. They enjoyed the challenge. They felt the challenge was worth it. I felt like Mrs. Awesome.
The second text, though in the appropriate Lexile range, was simply too hard. The struggle was not productive, it was defeating. The next day, I had to backpedal and summarize the first 3/4 of the article so that they could even have the slightest clue what was going on. Once I basically told them what the article was saying, they were able to go back and read it themselves, but without the front loading, they were lost as last decade's Easter egg.
What do you think? Have you had successful ventures in close reads of complex text without front loading? Or have your attempts failed miserably? How do we strike that perfect balance of productive struggle with culturally and linguistically diverse kiddos?
Your mention of appropriate Lexile level takes me back to CC training this summer when we discussed (at length) text complexity. They stressed that the quantitative aspect of complexity is but one part of the puzzle. Something at a deceptively low Lexile level can be very complex if it is filled with nuance, multiple meanings, and varied text structures. Lexile levels are tricky little buggers, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteI hope that all the talk of complex texts brings the one-shot reading level discussion to the forefront.
We also had a very, ahem, lively discussion on the topic of frontloading vocabulary and pre-reading activities in our training ;)