Study+Guides


 * Chapter 1 Discussion Starters**
 * 1) //Chapter One takes us through Ellin Keene’s reflections of her early reading experiences.// What do you recall of your own journey to becoming a reader? Did you, like the author during Honors English, have an experience that changed you as a reader?
 * 2) //Chapter One describes the educational pendulum as classroom literacy instruction swung from the highly & sequentially structured basal/phonics approach to the whole language approach//. How does Ellin Keene’s view of literacy instruction differ from both these approaches?
 * 3) What do you see as a strength of an instructional methodology that focuses on the cognitive process that occurs during reading?
 * 4) Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…

1. Why do you think Ellin Keene opens Chapter Two with her daughter’s poem, //Changing Times//? 2. //Paragraph 1 on page 27 describes traditional practices with comprehension as “instruction that was really comprehension assessment//.” What is meant by this? 3. //Think about literacy instruction in its current state at Glen Grove School. Which of our classroom practices add to the “Joy of Reading” to which Ellin refers on pages 30 and 31//. Which of our practices stand in the way of our students’ ability to genuinely develop a “Joy of Reading?” 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 2 Discussion Starters**

Have a volunteer or two or three… each read part of the essay “Girl” (pp 44-45) or the attached short essay, “Celebration of the Human Voice” out loud and listen to your inner voice as you read. Describe your thinking out loud as you read.
 * Chapter 3 Discussion Starters**
 * “Mindful Reading – Monitoring and Revising Comprehension”**
 * 1) //By modeling the kinds of strategies skilled readers use during reading and pointing out comprehension challenges we face, teachers can demonstrate their own “fix-up” strategies for their students.//
 * 1) What are the challenges of thinking out loud? What are the benefits?
 * 2) Do you agree with Ellin Keene that //Monitoring for Meaning// is the umbrella under which all other strategies lie? If you were planning for strategy instruction, would you teach this strategy first? Why or why not?
 * 3) On page 48, Keene describes the difference between //Surface and Deep Structures.// In which structure do teachers spend most of their time?
 * 4) Discuss the pros and cons of the way the second grade teacher, Kristen, handled her ambitious reader, Anne.
 * 5) Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…

//1.// //Keene refers to using our schema (connecting new knowledge to what we know and recalling relevant information before, during, and after reading to help us understand the text) as “activating our mental files.”// //H//ave a volunteer or two or three… read part of a picture book or one of the attached poems and describe your thinking out loud as you listen to your inner voice using your schema. Describe how “activating those mental files” helps you better understand the text. 2. What is the benefit of teaching children to activate their own mental files as they read rather than having the teacher build the background knowledge **__for__** his/her students? 3. Discuss your ideas about the **Gradual Release of Responsibility** model as described by Keene – the pros and cons of planning instruction this way. 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 4 Discussion Starters**
 * “The Presence of the Past – Using Schema to Understand and Remember”**

//1.// //Proficient readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.// Have a volunteer or two or three… read part of a picture book or one of the attached poems and listen to the inner voice as it generates questions about the print. Describe your thinking out loud with an emphasis on how the use of questioning is helping you to understand the print. Discuss how questions can lead to a deeper understanding of the text? 2. //In traditional classrooms, teachers generate most of the questions and students attempt answer them. Keene states that questions tend to be generative, leading to more thinking while answers frequently bring thinking to a full stop.// What are the benefits of allowing //__students__// to generate the questions instead of the teacher? What would be challenging to a classroom teacher implementing this practice? 3. //Char, the first grade teacher, used multiple **crafting sessions**// //and **invitational groups**// //over time to help her students generate questions and use those questions to help them understand the text.// Discuss your thoughts about Char’s experience. 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 5 Discussion Starters**
 * “The Art of Discovering – Questioning”**

//1.// //Proficient readers are able to create meaning from text that is **not**// //stated explicitly, in other words, they infer. To effectively teach students inference, we must first understand how __WE__, their teachers, infer while reading.// Have a volunteer or two or three… read part of a picture book and listen to your inner voice as you draw conclusions, make predictions, and interpret text. Describe your thinking out loud with an emphasis on how your thoughts helped you to understand the ideas in the text more deeply. 2. //Research has shown “thinking aloud” to be the single most effective instructional strategy.// Discuss the difference between the instructional strategies of “**think aloud**,” “**modeling**,” and “**demonstration**.” Why do you think the “think aloud” yields better results? 3. //Keene refers to conferences as “the lifeblood to comprehension teaching.”// Discuss the significance of conferencing and how you would envision conferences to occur in your own classroom. 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 6 Discussion Starters**
 * “Crafting Meaning – Inference”**

1. //The tendency to create images during reading highly correlates with comprehension.// Have a volunteer or two or three… read part of a picture book and listen to your inner voice as you use your senses AND emotions to create images. Describe your thinking out loud attempting to articulate whether the image helped make the text more memorable, helped you to recall important plot elements or details, or helped you interpret the print. In other words, how did the images in your mind help you comprehend the text more deeply? 2. //Keene refers to independent work time as “**composing**////.”// Review the characteristics of an effective composing session on page 185, and discuss the benefits of “composing sessions.” What challenges would you need to overcome before implementing composing sessions into your own literacy block? 3. //Pages 192 & 193 describe written, artistic, oral, and dramatic ways for students to record their thinking about a book.// Why would requiring children to record their thinking about their books be a necessary part of the literacy block? 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 7 Discussion Starters**
 * “Bringing Life to Text – Using Sensory and Emotional Images to Enhance Comprehension”**

//1.// //The purpose for reading, as well as personal beliefs, experiences, prior knowledge, and knowledge of audience govern our decisions about what is important in any text making the thought process one goes through to determine importance as unique as the individual thinking.// Have a volunteer or two or three… read part of a picture book and listen to your inner voice as you use your own beliefs, experiences, and prior knowledge, to determine importance. Describe your thinking out loud as you discriminate important from unimportant information. 2. //As children read, they may have difficulty identifying anything of importance or may lack the criteria needed to discriminate thinking everything to be equally important. To help children learn to determine importance when reading requires explicit, targeted instruction and the use of **conferences**// //to follow up and monitor the degree to which children are successfully indentifying what is most important.// Discuss **conferences** – the importance of having them with our students as well as the challenges of scheduling them and monitoring the progress gleaned from them? 3. On pages 210 – 213, Keene describes the three levels - //sentence, word, and whole text// - we use to help us determine importance. As a classroom teacher, how would you use these levels to help students determine importance? 4. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…
 * Chapter 8 Discussion Starters**
 * “The Heart of the Matter – Determining Importance”**

//Synthesis involves ordering, combing, and recreating into a coherent whole the mass of information that bombards our minds every day. It differs from summarizing. Summarizing asks students to retell the key points in a text in the order they were presented. When students synthesize, they move beyond a simple retell – they elaborate by adding concrete details, extrapolate without compromising themes and use details from the text to arrive at those key themes. **Synthesizing requires a deeper and more complex level of thinking.**// 1. Look at the two student samples. Discuss the difference between the two. Which one comes closer to synthesis? Why would we want our students to use this strategy?
 * Chapter 9 Discussion Starters**
 * “The Evolution of Thinking – Synthesis”**

2. How can we encourage our students to pay attention to the evolving meaning as they read and create //__new__// ways to think about and share information.

3. Or… Talk about something new you’ve learned, a way in which you have applied or plan to apply your new learning. Bring up a question you have or a comment about the chapter. Or…

//Our wrap-up of Mosaic of Thought is in two weeks. Before the final meeting, please think about the following:// What questions might you have for the author? If you were to synthesize this text, what thoughts might you include?

//Mosaic of Thought// and other professional literature and ideas we’ve discussed over the course of the year has helped us build some common knowledge around what really matters in teaching children to read (and to love it!) Please discuss the following questions with your table teams: 1. What are some the practices we engage in and engage our student in at Glen Grove School that encourage a true LOVE of reading? 2. What practices might inadvertently discourage a true LOVE of reading? 3. In synthesizing information from //Mosaic//, other literature and/or workshops to which you’ve been exposed, and your own experiences, describe any “aha!” ideas with which you will walk away and ponder. 4. In synthesizing information from //Mosaic//, other literature and/or workshops to which you’ve been exposed, and your own experiences, describe challenges you foresee in integrating strategy instruction into your literacy instruction. 5. How might you and your team plan differently after reading this book?
 * Final Thoughts on Mosaic…**

