How Can Teens remember Literary Texts?
September 21st, 2008 by carreliI often wonder if, like me, other people have trouble comprehending something they just read. Whether your stressed out, thinking about a million other things or just not enjoying the text and can’t stay engaged. Too often I remember my classmates in high school whispering to one another before a quiz, “Did you read the chapters?”
“Yea I read them but I have no idea what they were about.”
“I tried to read it too but it was boring so I ended playing Nintendo.”
I even found myself raking my own brain before quizzes on whether I really understood the material or just read it. I believe there is a fine line between reading and reading comprehension and I think students need to be taught that difference and strategies they can use to help their comprehension after and during reading.
I can recall my high school English teacher asking students to count of by 5’s and separating into groups according to their numbers. She would then hand out a piece of paper with 5 questions on it and a space below each question for us to write our answers along with the chapter we found it in and the page number. I question this technique because firstly it isn’t quizzing students on their comprehension of the material but rather their ability to quickly identify where the answer is in the text. Secondly, students can easily divide the questions up among group members and copy the rest of the answers from one another, which hinders their learning even more. Thirdly, students don’t have to talk, they don’t even have to ask one another questions, all they have to do is read the paper and answer the question accordingly, in other words this technique allows for little interaction amongst their peers. Obviously there has to be another way to go about group work within an English classroom.
Thankfully, I came across an article in which I found extremely helpful and beneficial to all students struggling with reading comprehension.
Mahoney’s idea I think is perfect for high school students, not only to use on their own time but even for teachers to use in their classrooms. Lit’s in the Cards is perfect for any student trying to comprehend a piece of literature and test themselves. At the same time it is also perfect for group work within the classroom because at last a technique tests a student’s comprehension or their ability to remember key ideas and points. Secondly, it forces all students to play, interact and challenge one another as they play in groups. Thirdly, students are forced to talk, in order to provide a correct answer they must deliver their ideas orally. It’s important that students have time to talk to one another about key points or ideas they were struggling with and what better way to jog their memories about such things than playing a game that tests their comprehension.
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Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
I enjoyed your blog on cooperative learning. I think you make a lot of important points, and have given us a great source to use in our future classrooms. Also, I understand your frustration when it comes to reading, as I sometimes get sidetracked myself if the reading is not interesting to me.
As far as your old high school teacher goes, it is very unlikely that she is getting any results with the techniques you say she used. I think it is most important that, when we assign students to work in cooperative learning groups that they are held accountable for something within the assignment. The student has to be “forced” to some extent to participate. I say “forced” in parenthesis, because we are not really forcing them to do anything, but creating an assignment/lesson that allows for this to accountability to occur.
If teachers do not create lesson plans that require them to be held accountable, they will not learn anything unless they choose to, and most students will not choose to. They will be able to get by as you said, by coping from others. Another thing these lit cards do is create a communication between the students verbally.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I also enjoyed your blog. I was first intrigued by your title because I myself have had difficulty following and correctly understanding literary texts throughout my education. The one thing that I found the most interesting was this idea of group work. Like Santana said above, I think that at the end of the day it is the student, and the student only who can decide whether or not they are going to benefit and contribute to their peers.
I think that the idea of these lit cards is a way of helping to create a fun and different approach to the text. In my own experience, I have found that the educators who reach out to help the students (even if they don’t want it) are the ones who succeed in what they wanted. I had a teacher in high school who used current media/news etc. to help relate concepts from our texts into current themes to convey the idea of what was going on throughout the text.
By involving yourself as the teacher in the groupwork etc. I think that we have a better chance of reaching our goal to help students gain a better understanding to what it is they are learning. By making the learning experience fun and fresh, the students are more willing to expand their minds!
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
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September 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
This post presents a rather interesting idea regarding reading comprehension of classroom material. I do think that it is a wise decision to implement a means of identifying whether or not a student has fully comprehended class reading material, and implementing a “game” to get the job done is a great idea! However, while this particular technique may be beneficial to some students, it may just intimidate others. I’m certainly not saying that direct responses from individuals in a classroom is a negative idea, but I did think of a way to perhaps alter the rules of this game a bit in order to make it more of a class participation activity rather than taking turns sitting in the hot seat.
Here’s an idea I thought of while reading your post…
The cards could be distributed among students at one time, and they should be given some time to ponder their responses. I think it would be interesting to have the teacher write a few triggering ideas on the board, such as particular characters or events, and then to have each student respond according to their card rules…but instead of simply stating answers, they could write their responses on the board and connect them to previously posted responses in order to further implement critical thinking. Overall, I really like the goal of this idea.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:11 am
Looking at this game I think it is a really interesting idea. I am pretty terrible at reading for comprehension. I have to really enjoy the story to fully understand it. The idea of storing things in my long term memory is very difficult anyways, but the idea of playing a game to remember the story and comprehend it seems to be a good idea.
I don’t know that this particular game would help me because I think it could get really hard. Do the students play in smaller groups? Because is someone picks a two of hearts and then someone picks the three of clubs, the person with the three of clubs has to come up with three themes. I think theme can be somewhat difficult to find as it is, but to have to come up with 5 total themes of one story is kind of a lot. Maybe they could just use the suit of the card and not the number.
I like the idea of a game but I think it is a good idea to remember not to make your game too hard. This is where the teacher’s knowledge of their students is extremely important. If you know your students can handle the game as is, by all means please try this game with your students. But be sure you know your students and how well they will be able to play the game.
December 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
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