Topic: Study Skills

Question: How help students develop study skills?

10-second review: Prepare videotape for each content class showing the use of study skills with the actual materials being used in that class.

Source: MF O'Hear. College Composition and Communication (October 1977), 277-279. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: The content-area teacher will probably say, “That’s doing it for the students.” I say, “It’s teaching.” RayS.

Topic: Speeds of Reading Silently and Aloud

Question: What is the relationship between speed of reading aloud and reading silently?

10-second review: "It is of interest to note that the rates of 250-300 words per minute...as more-or-less 'maximal' rates for silent reading, correspond closely to the fastest rates at which trained readers can read aloud."

Source: TG Sticht in Understanding Reading Comprehension. J Flood, ed. Newark, DE, 1984, p. 150.

Comment: Seems to imply that the way students read aloud is the way they read silently. I would suggest that students who do not read aloud well, halting, stumbling, etc., be given training in fluency. Teacher and student read aloud together. Students re-read the same short piece of material repeatedly until they can read it smoothly and effortlessly and with expression. RayS.

Topic: Teachers' Questions

Question: What kinds of questions do teachers usually ask?

10-second review: Evidence from previous research suggests that teachers in all academic disciplines are given to using low-level factual questions.

Source: RA Lucking. Research in the Teaching of English (Winter 1976), 269. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment. Other types of questions: questions to which both students and teachers do NOT know the answers and work together to find the answers. Open-ended questions that can have a variety of possible answers. REAL questions to which students want to find the answers. Questions that begin lessons and units. RayS.

Topic: Research Paper

Question: How prepare students for writing a research paper?

10-second review: Author suggests using the familiar FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format—questions followed by answers—to prepare for writing the traditional research paper. The Q & A will include the information the student has found before writing the actual research paper.

Suggests the FAQ format also as a method for introducing students to the research process with students' questions about the research process answered by the teacher in writing.

Source: J Strickland. English Journal (September 2004), 23-28. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: I think both suggestions are excellent. The second FAQ should help to answer the students’ many questions about the research process. The first FAQ should give both teachers and students an understanding of what students have learned from their research. I wish I had used both ideas. RayS.

Topic: Reading in Secondary Schools

Question: What is the attitude of secondary teachers in subjects other than English about helping their students read?

10-second review: Secondary teacher: "I'm not a reading teacher; students should already know how to read when they get to middle school. My job is to teach them social studies content." The author responds by suggesting the steps in the directed reading assignment.

Source: DD Massey & TL Heafner. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (September 2004), pp. 26-40. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: The social studies teacher is right. Her job is to teach the ideas in social studies. But for students the topic of the reading assignment is probably unfamiliar. Some of the vocabulary is probably also unfamiliar. And students need to know what to look for as they read. The social studies teacher can help students read what is unfamiliar and difficult.

The author calls using the directed reading assignment "teaching reading." I disagree. Teaching reading to me is teaching reading skills directly, finding main ideas, details, inferring, etc. For me, using the directed reading assignment in content areas is not teaching reading, but helping students succeed with specific reading assignments that are difficult to read.

The directed reading assignment consists of four steps: building the students’ background knowledge of the topic to be read about because the more students know about the topic, the better they will understand what they read about it; pre-teaching unfamiliar vocabulary; setting purpose for reading (questions developed by the students after reading the first paragraph, the first sentence of each intermediate paragraph and the last, summary paragraph) and having students apply or extend the ideas that they have read. RayS.

Jargon Watch:
“Content area teachers”: Teachers of subjects other than English, social studies, science, etc.

“Pre-teaching vocabulary”: Teaching unfamiliar words before students read the chapter.

Topic: Questions

10-second review: What kinds of questions do we ask? John Searle: There are two kinds of questions, (a) real questions, (b) exam questions. In real questions “S” wants to know (find out) the answer; in exam questions, “T” wants to know if “S” knows the answer.

Source: WB Horner. College Composition and Communication (May 79), 169.A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Nothing motivates students like real questions, questions to which the teacher and students do not know the answer. But close to “real” questions are questions that students ask about the topic of the day or the unit, which helps the teacher focus the content of the unit. RayS.

Topic: Literature

10-second review: Why study literature? "Our focus should be on helping children learn from literature about themselves, about their lives, about the lives of others."

Source: H Mills, et al. Language Arts (September. 2004), 51. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Comment: There are a number of reasons for reading literature. One reason for reading novels is information. Many contemporary novels tell about hospitals, law, and other professions in addition to telling a story. James Michener is one example of writers who provide a great deal of information in telling stories. Reading for the story itself is another reason. People love to read stories. Reading to relate the story to one’s life is a reason for reading literature. Reading to understand experience emotionally is a reason for reading poetry. Reading to understand the use of language in literature is the reason for explicating (New Critics). But I think that the reason most students who are not English majors will give for reading literature is to add vicarious experience to their own lives.

Reading literature to relate to the readers’ own lives and to learn about the lives of others are really the only reasons for most students to read literature. The trouble is that most English teachers teach their students as if they are going to be English majors. That means they concentrate on explicating the literary work without regard for personal experience. RayS.

Topic: Publishing

10-second review: What do writers need to know about publishing? "Nowadays, writers largely have to edit themselves. The better you can make your manuscript before submitting it to a publisher, the greater your chances of getting published."

Source: C Leddy. The Writer (September 2004), 41. The Writer is a magazine by writers for writers.

Comment: If you’re not an expert grammarian, ask someone who is pretty good at grammar to look over your manuscript. Specify what you want him or her to help you with. General instructions like “Look it over and tell me what you think” will lead to judgments that might even offend you and comments on spelling that are irrelevant to what you need. Tell them you are looking for help with grammar. The trick with having people read and comment on your writing is in the directions that you give. The more specific you can be, the better directed will be the comments. RayS.

Topic: Starting a Writing Career

10-second review: How can writers get started on a writing career? Become an expert on something and then write about it.

Source: K. James-Enger. The Writer (September 2004), 18-19. The Writer is a magazine by writers for writers.

Comment: Sounds like a flip answer to the question, but when you think about it, it makes sense. All those experts who are quoted on newscasts have become knowledgeable on the topic of concern. RayS.

Topic: Struggling Readers

10-second review: Students need explicit demonstration of what good readers do while they read…. Struggling readers must come to know that their job is not just to answer questions, but also to ask them. This may necessitate pointing out that skilled readers question as they read as a way to monitor their understanding and that...raising questions aids comprehension.

Source: Ganske, et al. The Reading Teacher (October. 2003), 123-124. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: Interesting concept to share with struggling readers what good readers do. Probably true that good readers ask questions as they read. How teach it? Take a chapter in a textbook. Have students read the first paragraph, the first sentence of intermediate paragraphs and the last paragraph and have students raise questions about what they want to know. Then read to answer the questions. That’s a start.

Good readers probably intuitively question as they read. I’m not sure how to teach struggling readers to consciously raise questions while they read. I need to think about that one. And then, what else do good readers do when they read? RayS.

Topic: Motivation Defined

10-second review. Motivation: That which gives both direction and intensity to human behavior.

Source: Frymier. English Journal (May 1969), 709. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: “Motivation” is one of those terms we all know the meaning of until someone asks us to define it. I appreciate Frymier’s definition. RayS.

Topic: Learning vs. Education

10-second review: Lewis Perleman: Learning has to do with satisfying curiosity; education is being told things.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (May 18, 1995), G1/G6.

Comment: I think I would re-define “education” as satisfying curiosity and “schooling” as being told things. Try beginning each class with a question. Check at the end of class to learn how many students are able to answer the question. I wish I had thought of that when I was teaching. RayS.

Topic: Motivation to Learn.

10-second review: Profile of eighteenth-century Mennonite school master Christopher Dock reveals that his methods were strikingly modern. He saw the need to motivate students to learn rather than to expect motivation and emphasized treating students as individuals.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (January 20, 1996), CC6.

Comment: I wonder how many teachers today still expect students to come to class motivated, teach to the students who are, and ascribe student failure to “laziness”? RayS.

Topic: Purpose and Learning

10-second review: One of the chief aids to learning is the sense of purpose.

Source: Highet, The Art of Teaching, 69. Although he focuses on lecturing, Gilbert Highet's book provides excellent ideas on teaching in general and on lecturing in particular.

Comment: Probably the most unasked (out loud) question in education is “Why am I learning this?” Students are afraid to ask it because everyone will think they are dumb. But those other students do not know the answer to the question either. The effect is boredom.

Teachers can improve their instruction significantly if they will make clear why they are teaching what they are teaching.

Is it possible that teachers don’t know why they are teaching what they are teaching? I certainly did not know why I was teaching grammar until my mentor, Mrs. May, asked me why I was teaching students the differences between the direct object and predicate nominative—whether to use I or me, he or him, she or her, they or them. After that, I never taught any grammar without knowing exactly how students were going to use that information in their writing. I always began my lessons in grammar by putting a problem on the board that the grammar I was going to teach them would solve. RayS.

Topic: What Is Learning?

10-second review: Proverb: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Source: N Quisenberry & M Willis. Language Arts (September 1975), 885. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: To the degree that students see the application of what they have learned, they will both remember and understand. Several years ago, I observed a 7th-grade science teacher who taught students the facts about the circulatory system from a textbook. The students were bored. She then distributed articles from Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report on the use of the circulatory system in today’s medicine. The students were amazed at how knowledge of the circulatory system was being applied in today’s medicine. They were also fascinated by the questions that arose from working with the circulatory system in modern medicine. They could not stop talking about it.

Suggestion: Before planning your lessons on a topic, check the topic on the Internet. You will be amazed at what you find, sometimes thousands of hits. RayS.

Topic: Marshall McLuhan

What Was Marshall McLuhan’s Contribution to Education?

10-second review: Degree of involvement is key to how much we learn; inquiry is essential; exploration rather than instruction; need to be able to apply what is learned in activities outside of class.

Source: English Journal (January 1993), p. 55.

Comment: These are the keys to lesson plans. Building involvement, inquiry, exploration and application into your classes will motivate your students to learn. I wish I had known these keys when I was teaching. I might not have made light of the chore of lesson planning, and lesson planning might not have been such a chore. It would have been more of a challenge. RayS.

Topic: Role of the Teacher Today

10-second review: The teacher should cease to accept the role of fact-peddler and become with the students investigators, questioners.

Source: C McKowen. English Journal (November 1965), 702. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Someone else once said that best class he ever observed was one in which both students and teacher were searching for the solution to a problem. RayS.

Topic: Why Students Lose Interest in Learning

10-minute review: Ernest J. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: “Around the fourth grade students stop asking ‘Why?’ and start asking ‘Is this on the test?’ We need to keep ‘Why?’ alive for our students. ”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (November 2, 1995) W3.

Comment: Someone once said that students are required to answer questions they haven’t asked and couldn’t care less about. Try beginning every unit with the students’ questions about the topic. You might find that they will care about finding the answers. RayS.

Topic: Purpose for Reading

10-second review. Preparing students to read: Give students a question, the answer to which is hidden in the text, that contradicts their prior beliefs.

Source: VA Ciardiello. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (November.2003), 228-239. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: This would be a good exercise in skimming. Beyond that, giving students a question to answer gives purpose for reading. And having a purpose for reading results in active rather than passive, pointless, purposeless reading. The worst, most boring reading assignment is “Open your books to page 35 and answer the questions at the end of the chapter.” Those directions have about as much motivation as a wet dish towel.

How do you help students read a difficult, apparently boring, apparently unfamiliar chapter in a textbook? Build up the students’ background knowledge of the topic of the chapter. Pre-teach unfamiliar vocabulary words. Either give students a purpose for reading in the form of a question or have the students preview by reading the first paragraph, the first sentence of each intermediate paragraphs and the last paragraph and raise their own questions to read to answer. After they have discussed the answers, have them apply or extend what they have learned. RayS.

Topic: Formula for Organizing Expository Writing

10-second review: 1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them; 2. Tell them; And 3. Tell them what you told them.

Source: D Greenburg. The Writer (June 2004), 32. The Writer is a magazine by writers for writers.

Comment: Here’s a real writer telling how he writes. (Expository writing explains something; narrative writing tells a story, usually in chronological order, from beginning to end.)

For some reason this advice about how to organize expository writing has become a cliché. Especially when people woodenly apply it in Microsoft’s PowerPoint, this very exciting approach to communication bores rather than excites. Yet all effective communication, both in writing and in formal speaking, follows this formula. The reader hears or reads the message three different ways. As one of my community college students said, “It’s like hitting your reader over the head three times.”

To me, this formula means an introduction to interest the reader, followed by a thesis sentence or statement of the main idea to be communicated, followed by paragraphs with details headed by topic sentences that develop the thesis sentence and concluded by a last paragraph that summarizes the thesis and its details a third time.

I think I am a fairly effective speaker and writer and I follow this formula every time I write or speak formally. If you don’t organize exposition in this manner, how do you organize it? RayS.