Did you ever spend your life teaching something, only to have someone come along and sum it all up in a sentence or two, with more precision and accuracy than you ever did? It happened to me this summer when I heard my friend and former TC colleague Dorothy Barnhouse speak. She is the author of Readers Front and Center (Stenhouse 2014) and What Readers Really Do with Vicki Vinton (Heinemann 2012).
She told us about a struggling middle school reader she's been working with. He was reading a text out of a reading anthology. To Dorothy, the text was immediately recognizable. It was Chapter 31 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It describes a dark setting with a sliver of light. The student got every word right. Dorothy asked him where the story takes place. Noticing that it was a dark place with just a sliver of light, the student said that it's in a movie theater. Dorothy worked some more with the student to figure out his reasoning.
That night, she looked at her own copy of Tom Sawyer. She reread Chapter 30 and realized that it gave the perfect setup for a reader to know that the characters are in a cavern. She then reread Chapter 31 and saw that without the context clues in the previous piece, a reader, especially a 21st century middle school student in Brooklyn, might have no way of knowing that the scene is in such a faraway remote place. It's because there is no context! There is no context from the student's prior knowledge. There is no context from the previous chapter. There is no context in the explicit language of the chapter itself. "Context," Dorothy told us, "is key."
In a previous post, I wrote about Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Plato writes about how confusing it would be to interpret the world simply through the shadows of reality. When you only see the shadows of truth, you can be very confused about what's going on around you. Inadvertently, we do this every time we remove the context of something and turn it into an activity. Here are some ways in which you can add real context to seemingly isolated activities...
That night, she looked at her own copy of Tom Sawyer. She reread Chapter 30 and realized that it gave the perfect setup for a reader to know that the characters are in a cavern. She then reread Chapter 31 and saw that without the context clues in the previous piece, a reader, especially a 21st century middle school student in Brooklyn, might have no way of knowing that the scene is in such a faraway remote place. It's because there is no context! There is no context from the student's prior knowledge. There is no context from the previous chapter. There is no context in the explicit language of the chapter itself. "Context," Dorothy told us, "is key."
In a previous post, I wrote about Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Plato writes about how confusing it would be to interpret the world simply through the shadows of reality. When you only see the shadows of truth, you can be very confused about what's going on around you. Inadvertently, we do this every time we remove the context of something and turn it into an activity. Here are some ways in which you can add real context to seemingly isolated activities...
1. When teaching new vocabulary, immerse it in the context of something real. Name where you found the word and why it's useful. If you or a student discovered it in a book, describe the context around the word. It will help students to better understand the nuances. This will help them use it better and more often!
You should also have kids orally create sentences with a partner for the word. It takes away some of the, "I'm doing this for the teacher" flavor of the traditional writing a sentence for each new word activity and make it seem more real. The nuances will shine through much more, because kids will develop context through the oral revision of sentences with their partners or the whole class.
You should also have kids orally create sentences with a partner for the word. It takes away some of the, "I'm doing this for the teacher" flavor of the traditional writing a sentence for each new word activity and make it seem more real. The nuances will shine through much more, because kids will develop context through the oral revision of sentences with their partners or the whole class.
2. When asking students to write about their reading, the context is definitely important. Think about the purpose of writing about reading. Is it to simply prove to the teacher that they read the chapter? (although, most savvy students figure out ways to do this without really reading) Or is it to develop their thinking so that they can read on with greater depth and synthesis?
The latter might create sketches, abbreviations, and other messy icons of thinking. However, the thinking is what we're going for! The writing about reading is actually a part of the process of reading, not an end product that's just for accountability. Once kids tap into how a timeline, a jotting about a thought, a T-chart, or a sketch can make them think more deeply in their text today, it can create greater context for their continued reading tomorrow.
The latter might create sketches, abbreviations, and other messy icons of thinking. However, the thinking is what we're going for! The writing about reading is actually a part of the process of reading, not an end product that's just for accountability. Once kids tap into how a timeline, a jotting about a thought, a T-chart, or a sketch can make them think more deeply in their text today, it can create greater context for their continued reading tomorrow.
3. When imagining the physical layout of the room, try to establish a learning context for the charts on the wall. Which charts are helping students act with greater independence, because they've had a hand in creating them? This doesn't necessarily mean that their handwriting is on the charts, but that they were created with the students during and after learning something.
When kids can look at charts and be reminded of something they learned how to do, these strategies are triggered and strengthened at each glance. That's why we tend to not reuse charts from previous years, instead opting to recreate these with each new class. This is also a good argument against buying ready-made charts in the store with things like classroom rules, examples of grammar and punctuation, or content-specific vocabulary. These have context, but the context doesn't match that of the experience of your class, and in that way, they're very limiting.
When kids can look at charts and be reminded of something they learned how to do, these strategies are triggered and strengthened at each glance. That's why we tend to not reuse charts from previous years, instead opting to recreate these with each new class. This is also a good argument against buying ready-made charts in the store with things like classroom rules, examples of grammar and punctuation, or content-specific vocabulary. These have context, but the context doesn't match that of the experience of your class, and in that way, they're very limiting.
4. When teaching our minilessons, we have to pay close attention to the connection at the beginning and the link at the end. By naming how what we're about to learn is important to reading, writing, learning as a whole process, we are establishing context. We say, "Something I've noticed," or "Something good readers or writers do is," to help them see how useful this new knowledge is and how it fits in to everything else that they do. We almost have to sell the minilesson in that way...telling them how urgent today's strategy is for what they do each day. At the end, by saying to students that what they just heard in these 10 short minutes will help them today and every day when they do similar work, we are establishing context. By holding them applying these skills each day in their lives as readers and writers and learners, we are strengthening the context.
So, imagine a world without context. We'd be filled with shadows and misunderstandings. Sometimes we get so upset (and rightfully so!) at the policymakers and politicians who are calling the shots of how and what we should be teaching. I don't think it's because any of us are closed-minded, after all, we are in the business of learning! It's because when those people tell us what's wrong with classrooms, they are talking without the context of being in classrooms every day, teaching real kids with real problems. They don't have the context to really understand our world. It's for this very same reason that we need to have context at the heart of our teaching---context is at the heart of true understanding!
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