Introducing the method’s use with really hard texts

This is part 5 of my project on teaching students to actually read.  The first post in this series was "The Problem," posted on 9/1/12.

Early in the year, I teach the idea of summarizing the main ideas in the margins first, using simpler texts so that students can focus on the skill apart from struggling with content.  They get it, but honestly there’s not always a lot of buy in to that kind of idea because kids know that they can hold all the ideas in their head without annotating much.  The first chance they get to really see the value of annotating for comprehension is when we read Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death.” 

This is a hard text for students, as the numbers show on my previous post.  So I start out with an extreme version of the annotation method – getting kids to really see that they can read around unfamiliar words and make meaning out of very difficult texts.  It’s a bit gimmicky, but here’s what I do.  Students come in to a Do Now that says this:

Read the following passage and use any knowledge you have to try to make sense of it.  If you can't figure out all of it together, pick out individual words and try to figure out what they might mean.

Peruse the language of this query to determine the relative meanings of the words vis a vis the overall knowledge of which you are already possessed.  In the event of a complete inability to associate local meaning with a sense of the global intentions of this statement, select individual signifiers and explain how their meanings might add up to something.

            Predictably, most students don’t really write much of anything in the 3-4 minutes I give them.  They generally get stuck on peruse and if they remember to read through that, query and vis a vis usually seal the deal.  Then we get to work as a class.  I play a bit dumb and say that I don’t know all the words either, but can read around them – it’s important to make this very caricatured, I think.  Students have to know you know what you’re talking about and playing a part.  I highlight words I supposedly don’t know and turn them white, leaving them erased.  Usually we end up with the following.

              the language of this           to determine the            meanings of the words           the overall knowledge of which you are already possessed.  In the event of a complete inability to                          , select individual                and explain how their meanings might add up to something.

 From this, students are able to read that the passage says:

“Do something . . . the language of this to determine the meanings of the words.”  Then, a more advanced student rearranges “knowledge . . . already possessed” to “knowledge you already have – something you already know” and this set of ideas, along with “how their meanings might add up” leaves the final blank as having something to do with words.  Students have made meaning out of a seemingly impenetrable passage, largely by simply removing 4 words and 2 unclear phrases. 

            They are ready to move on to “Masque of the Red Death” which will require them to use this skill continuously throughout.  I’ll post that lesson separately.