Fiction text: The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of Odyssey by Rosemary Sutcliff
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wanderings-Odysseus-Story-Odyssey/dp/0553494821
Nonfiction text: Credo: I Believe by Ignatious Press
Student text
http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/faithandlife/download/FLGr5STSample.pdf
Activity book
http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/faithandlife/download/FLGr5ABSample.pdf
Teacher's manual
http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/faithandlife/download/FLGr5TMSample.pdf
Spanish version
http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/faithandlife/download/FLS5_S-Psample.pdf
Family guide manual
http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/faithandlife/download/flb_fg-psample.pdf
What does research say about teaching fiction and nonfiction texts to students (including ELLs)?
Simmons & Kameenui, 1998; Pressley, 2000; Pearson & Duke, 2002
Understanding the way in which authors organize and structure their ideas in texts is key to understanding good reading comprehension.
Vallecorsa & Bettencourt, 1997
One of the most important aspects of teaching young children to comprehend narrative texts is to teach them story structure.
Thorndyke, 1977; Mandler & Johnson, 1977; Stein & Glenn, 1979
The elements of story structure have been captured in a system of rules called story grammars.
Reutzel & Cooter Jr., 2004
1. Story grammars are the rules, necessary elements to make a story, and the expected sequence for these elements. Researchers generally agree on the following elements and sequence of elements in a story grammar: setting, problem, goal, events, and resolution.
2. Developing a sense of how stories are written and organized helps readers predict what is coming next with greater skill, store information in schemas more efficiently , and recall story elements with increased accuracy and completeness.
Gordon & Braun, 1983; Hagood, 1997
Effective teaching procedures for developing readers' story grammar knowledge:
1. Instruction in story structure is most effective when it makes use of well-formed stories. Visual organizers can be used before, during, and after reading to guide discussion.
2. Set the purposes for reading by asking questions related to the structure of the story. Questioning designed to follow the story's structure will focus students' attention on major story elements.
3. After questioning and discussing story structure, specific questions about the story content can be asked.
4. For continued instruction, gradually introduce less well-formed stories so that students will learn that not all stories are "ideal" in organization.
5. Extend this instruction by encouraging children to ask their own questions using story structure and to apply this understanding in writing their own stories.
Reutzel & Cooter Jr., 2004
Nearly 85 percent of all adult reading is with information texts (i.e. nonfiction). Information texts contain facts, details, descriptions, and procedures that are necessary to understand concepts and events in the world around us. Authors structure information texts using several well-known text patterns or structures.
Armbruster & Anderson, 1981; Meyer, 1979
They researched text patterns most used by authors of information texts. These include:
1. Time order - putting information into a chronological sequence
2. Cause & effect - showing how something occurs because of another event
3. Problem & solution - presenting a problem along with a solution to the problem
4. Comparison - examining similarities and differences among concepts and events
5. Simple listing - registering in list form a group of facts, concepts, or events
6. Descriptions
Bartlett, 1978; Meyer, Brandt, & Bluth, 1980
Readers who understand an author's organizational pattern recall more from reading information texts than readers who do not.
Reutzel & Cooter Jr., 2004
1. Research has also shown that poor or struggling readers are less likely to be able to identify and use an author's organization of text to recall information.
2. Teachers need to teach children how to identify the author's organizational pattern or text structure and use this knowledge.
Applications in my classroom:
1. Fiction - research has emphasized teaching about the plot structure of a narrative or fictional text. In my literature classes, my students use the plot structure/story grammar, a list of Socratic questions related to the plot, and literary terms in reading and analyzing a particular piece of literature. For this 3rd quarter, my 5th grade students have been reading and discussing The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of Odyssey. Below are images of the plot structure that the students use, a sample of the list of Socratic questions that they discuss and answer, and some of the literary terms that they have to find in the literature (if applicable).
Plot
Socratic questions
Literary terms
2. Nonfiction - research says that we need to explicitly teach students the author's organizational structure of an informational or nonfiction text. I chose a Religion/Theology text because this is one of the most difficult texts that my students read, especially if they are not Catholic. At the beginning of the school year, I walk through my students into the different parts of the text and the accompanying activity book which acts as the formal graphic organizer of the text. I show them how a chapter looks like, what is included in it, the important vocabulary words that they need to memorize, the memorization questions, and how the text is supported by the Bible. The Religion/Theology text has all the text patterns found in the research by Armbruster & Anderson and Meyer. We discuss these text patterns in Language Arts as well so these text patterns are integrated in reading the Religion text. I also communicate with the parents on how they can help their children to understand the text by sharing with them how to use the family guide that supports the contents of the student text. I also taught my students how to use applicable graphic organizers (the ones I have shared with the class last Wednesday) and sticky notes/taking down notes while I read aloud a particular chapter. I read aloud a chapter for two days and the students accomplish (with scaffolding) their activity book pages for two days. Before a quiz, I go over with my students the quiz questions. If the quiz has an essay part, I allow them to write their essay before the quiz and use their sticky notes. It is like a close reading process. Teaching Religion/Theology is hard because one has to make sure that the content being taught is according to what the Church teaches.
REFERENCES:
Armbruster, B., & Anderson, T. (1981). Content area textbooks (Reading Education Report No. 23). Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading.
Bartlett, B. J. (1978). Top-level structure as an organizational strategy for recall of classroom text. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University.
Gordon, C. J., & Braun, C. (1983). Using story schema as an aid to reading and writing. The Reading Teacher, 37(2), 116-121.
Hagood, B. F. (1997). Reading and writing with help from story grammar. Teaching Exceptional Children, 29(4), 10-14.
Mandler, J. M., & Johnson, N. S. (1977). Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 111-151.
Meyer, B. J. (1979). Organizational patterns in prose and their use in reading. In M. L. Kamil & A. J. Moe (Eds.), Reading research: Studies and applications (pp. 109-117). Twenty-eighth Yearbook of the National Reading Conference.
Meyer, B., Brandt, D., & Bluth, G. (1980). Use of top-level structure in text for reading comprehension on ninth-grade students. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 72-103.
Pearson, P. D., & Duke, N. (2002). Comprehension instruction in the primary grades. In C. Collins-Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 247-258). New York: Guilford Press.
Pressley, M. (2000). What should comprehension instruction be the instruction of? In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research, Vol. 3. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, Jr., R. B. (2004). Teaching children to read: Putting the pieces together (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Simmons, D. C., & Kameenui, E. J. (1998). What reading research tell us about children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stein, N. L., & Glenn, C. G. (1979). An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In R. O. Freedle (Ed.), New directions in discourse processing (pp. 53-120). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Thorndike, P. N. (1997). Cognitive structure in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse. Cognitive Psychology, 9(1), 77-110.
Vallecorsa, A. L., & deBettencourt, L. U. (1997). Using a mapping procedure to teach reading and writing skills to middle grade students with learning disabilities. Education and the Treatment of Children, 20(2), 173-188.
*I was finished with my draft at 9 PM. Then, my ever-reliable Sony Vaio keyboard, with a mind of its own, deleted my draft. I have to rewrite from memory everything that I wrote two hours ago. Sigh.
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