This is part of a series exploring alternatives to the five-paragraph essay. You may also wish to read the series introduction or about collaborative essays and scripted dialogues.
Reading is a process that involves setbacks, challenges, breakthroughs, and for many of us moments of joy. As we read our understanding of the text grows and changes. It’s easy for me, and I suspect others, to forget that comprehension forms in this way, and to treat it more as a target that students more or less miss.
Inviting students to reflect on the reading process is a memorable way to consider how we have interacted with the text in an unfolding drama.
To set this up, I had students keep their “ThinkBooks” (reading journals) open as we read the text. We paused often to note any questions, predictions, contradictions, surprises, or moments of interest. I modeled this as we started out, wondering aloud about why a character might be motivated to act in a certain way, or why a particular word is used, or to describe what I pictured as we were reading.
After reading the text, I asked students to go back through their ThinkBooks and create a story about their reading process. I encouraged them to especially include the bits where they were confused, and how that was resolved, or where the text upended their expectations, and why.
What emerged were some thoughtful, interesting reflections on students’ adventures in reading. They weren’t polished pieces of writing, but they represented some real wrestling with the subject. I noticed that students seemed a bit more emboldened about reading after doing this, which I suspect was because we had spent a lot of time embracing the messiness of the process. In effect, this exercise seemed to affirm for students that it’s okay to wonder about what they’re reading; in fact, it’s part of the point of reading.
A final thought for my fellow Ontario teachers: this alternative gets at that tricky metacognition expectation that many of us are searching for ways to evaluate.
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Image by tosaytheleast
Brad – what a great idea – I have used ‘thinking notes’ for a long time as sort of a running reading record with senior students. They use these notes to write theme or technical journals on the novel, but I love the idea of writing a ‘story’ about the reading process, with all its ups and downs. True about the metacognitive expectations – gets at them in more meaningful way. Do you ever ask students to blog about this? I’d love to see some samples.
Wendy, thanks for stopping by. You’re right that the running reading record is important for senior students writing about the text. During the previous unit, I had my students keeping personal reading notes and posting reading reflections on their individual student blogs. Their reading narrative essays were to draw from both of these sources, as well as from their literature circle discussions.
Unfortunately, I am working with a secure blogging portal for students and cannot direct you to any samples.