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Today we will discuss the problems with textbooks and offer ways to overcome some of those problems. First we will conduct our first official jigsaw which you will reflect upon in your journal. In this jigsaw we will be discussion the role of motivation in literacy development. We will then discuss the importance of building and activating prior knowledge before reading difficult texts to help students comprehend their reading. Additionally we will emphasize the importance of vocabulary building as a means to build background knowledge and to improve comprehension.

Before we jump into our Jigsaw activity, we will explore some of the research on boys and literacy. We will talk about the so called "boy crisis" and how the hype and misinformation is influencing policy and instruction decisions. Much of the research that helps us understand boys and reading engagement can inform our practice in the content areas. Well-respected books that speak to this topic are Reading Don't Fix No Chevys and Glowing with the Flow : Engaging Boys (and Girls) in Literacy Learning by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm.

The Bucket List Activity
- This is another activity that you can use in your classroom as either a before or after reading activity. If you want to use it as a before-reading activity. Place a bunch of facts from the reading on cards and distribute to students. In groups, students must come to a consensus about whether or not the item in question is true or false. Students then place the facts in either true or false buckets. Place the buckets around the classroom to encourage movement.

- For our purposes please look at all 33 of the Power Point slides and determine whether the statement is either true or false. It might be helpful to list 1-33 on a piece of paper and jot a key word to remember the fact.

Here is another resource about boys and literacy for your information

Jigsaw (1) - Today we will read three articles concerning student attitudes and motivation in literacy development. First you will arrange yourselves in to your expert groups where you will all read the same article and discuss it using a text rendering protocol. The protocol is one you can use with other staff members or in a professional learning community. It is also one that you might be able to use with your students of any age group to help them think more deeply about the text they are reading, to summarize, or to use as a launch for further discussion. After you have developed some expertise regarding the content of your article and completed the protocol, you will rearrange yourselves into groups of experts. There you will share your insights about motivation and literacy development. You will be asked to create some sort of map that explains what you have learned from the articles in this jigsaw activity. Please choose someone from your group to present your map.

Question: What is the role of motivation in literacy development?

ACTIVITY: POSSIBLE PASSAGE This strategy is one that leads students to access their prior knowledge before reading, focus on important vocabulary, and uses prediction as a way to build active thinking about the topic before reading. It helps students become aware of the text structure as well as sets a purpose for the reading.

In groups of three or four place the words listed below in the following four categories: //skills, literacy experience, practice, texts to motivate.// Each person write a "gist" statement of two or three sentences predicting the what the article below is about.

DISCUSSION: SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM THE ARTICLE. WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE STRATEGY? WHAT ARE ITS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?

DISCUSSION:

Textbook Chapter Analysis
If available, please upload PDF's of your textbook chapters here. Do not worry if this is not available to you. It is simply meant as a convenience. If you are uncomfortable using a wiki, feel free to email me your PDF and I can upload it for you. jlattanzi@tcnj.edu or jameslattanzi@yahoo.com

First use the Raygor Readability Estimate below to estimate the readability of each of your texts. Then choose one of the chapters offered by your group members and think about the readability of the text. Try to answer the following questions and present your thoughts to the class.


 * How do (or would) you use the text in your instruction?
 * How readable is the text for your students/or students of a particular year or grade-level?
 * What important prior knowledge is required for the students to understand the text fully?
 * How does the structure of the text help them to understand their reading?
 * What vocabulary will be new to them?
 * How does the reading in this chapter impact ELL students or students with reading difficulties? How would you address this?
 * How culturally relevant/irrelevant is the text to your students?
 * What don’t you like about the text and why?
 * What do you like about the text and why?
 * What other readings can you think of that would be of better use and cover the same content?
 * What sorts of writing assignments might you align with this chapter?

ACTIVITY: EXPLORING DIGITAL TEXTBOOKS

// Write a brief (one page) reflection of this process in your journal. //

Here is a sample textbook if you were unable to bring your own.

Prior Knowledge & Front Loading
Please take a look at the image below and describe what you think it means. For some of you it may have been very difficult to comprehend the messages of this single picture. If this is true, it is most likely because you are lacking the background knowledge necessary to make sense of what you see. If you had known for instance that the picture is of a former American president named Theodore Roosevelt, you may begin to make some sense of what is happening, especially with the context clue of him being so large and stomping around the Caribbean Sea. If I told you that Roosevelt was an imperialist who wanted to protect American neighbors from the growing power of pre-World War I Germany, you may begin to realize that Roosevelt did not mean harm to these island nations but was willing to use the U.S. Navy to protect them. If I told you that these islands were deep in debt with Germany and that the U.S. wanted to serve as an intermediary between the islands and Germany, you begin to get a sense of why the President is so large and how he uses his "toys" to tie Caribbean interests to American interests. Oh, and by the way, President Roosevelt secured the Panama Canal in 1904 and began construction. How does that change your impressions of what you see?



Now that we understand the importance of building our classroom libraries with a variety of texts to help build background knowledge and to engage our students, I encourage you to edit our wiki page of resources. Please feel free to include any and all genres and media in our list. Click here to go to the list.