Let me introduce you to dobostorta (pronounced DOH-boash-TOR-ta). It's a Hungarian dessert with about 15 layers of very thin cake with chocolate buttery cream between each layer. The same chocolaty cream goes around the outside, and there is a caramel "drum" top. Many Hungarian bakers don't even attempt to make this, but my wife can! If I've been good to her, then every second or third Father's Day or birthday, I can have one of these. It takes hours and hours to make one, and probably weeks to burn the calories in one slice.
The word "dobos" is a Hungarian word meaning "drummer," and many people might think it's called that because of the top layer. It's actually named after Jozsef Dobos, who invented it. In a time when cooling techniques were difficult to come by, Dobos needed a kind of cake that could last for a longer time without refrigeration. It took him a long time, experimenting with different ingredients that would satisfy both flavor and resistance to melting.
The word "dobos" is a Hungarian word meaning "drummer," and many people might think it's called that because of the top layer. It's actually named after Jozsef Dobos, who invented it. In a time when cooling techniques were difficult to come by, Dobos needed a kind of cake that could last for a longer time without refrigeration. It took him a long time, experimenting with different ingredients that would satisfy both flavor and resistance to melting.
So it is with the greatest thinkers and inventors. Albert Einstein once said, "It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.” They ponder a problem, posing hypotheses, until they get them right. Thomas Edison said that his hundreds of attempts to create light, he didn't experience countless failures, but one long process to experience success!
It takes a long time to achieve greatness. We have to teach kids to pose their thinking and live with it for a while.
This happens as they allow their thinking about a character or an issue to unfold in a chapter book. They go from seeing Opal's relationship with her father taking dramatic turns in Because of Winn-Dixie. Story events add up and they create new understandings. It's even cooler when you see different readers in the same text debating their ideas in a read-aloud or a book club. That's the stuff of real reading!
It takes a long time to achieve greatness. We have to teach kids to pose their thinking and live with it for a while.
This happens as they allow their thinking about a character or an issue to unfold in a chapter book. They go from seeing Opal's relationship with her father taking dramatic turns in Because of Winn-Dixie. Story events add up and they create new understandings. It's even cooler when you see different readers in the same text debating their ideas in a read-aloud or a book club. That's the stuff of real reading!
When we confer, whether in reading or in writing, we walk a fine line as not to play the ancient game of teachers called, "Guess the word that's in my head!" Cory Gillette says, "The one who does the work does the learning." If the word that's in our heads is so important, why don't we just tell them what it is? We have to lead students to arriving at how they can improve this piece of writing without trying to get them to make the writing sound the way we hear it in our heads as a revised piece. Instead, we have to teach in the realm of strategy, knowing full well that they won't make it sound exactly as we would, and that it may not be as good as if we were writing it. But that's normal isn't it? They're just kids!
In reading, we shouldn't push our interpretations onto kids, or they're not doing the interpretation. They're not the ones who are doing the learning! However, this is a leap of faith. In a recent blog, Vicki Vinton writes about the need for us to give up control a little bit and allow kids to think and talk in a very open-ended way. We need to trust our own teaching so well, that looking at it long term, it will pay off. We need to trust our students' learning so well, that looking at it long term, it's like a carefully constructed Lego castle.
What are some ways to do this?
We have to be careful not to over-scaffold in our teaching. It usually leads kids down a dead end of ideas where they aren't free to explore to the point where they discover an important theory, a light bulb, or a dobostorta. We have to also teach them to pose fewer questions, but to pose a hypothesis. Instead of asking, "Who else will Opal meet because of Winn-Dixie?" we need to state, "It seems like Opal is finally making friends, and it's because of Winn-Dixie." As we read on, we start to see this is true, but that the friends she makes are just as lonely as she is. However, if we give students thinking-proof questions to answer, we really hold them back.
Often, even the student-generated questions and wonderings are so low level, that if they're answered at all, they're just low level recall types of information. If they're not answered enough, then we teach kids to leave a bunch of loose ends to their thinking in books. Sometimes I say to kids, "Don't ask questions when you're thinking. Give answers, even if they're just 'for now' answers." Some really smart people might disagree with this, but I've seen kids writing post-it's with questions that don't get answered, or even if they do, they're such tiny details that they don't really lead anywhere near interpretation.
In reading, we shouldn't push our interpretations onto kids, or they're not doing the interpretation. They're not the ones who are doing the learning! However, this is a leap of faith. In a recent blog, Vicki Vinton writes about the need for us to give up control a little bit and allow kids to think and talk in a very open-ended way. We need to trust our own teaching so well, that looking at it long term, it will pay off. We need to trust our students' learning so well, that looking at it long term, it's like a carefully constructed Lego castle.
What are some ways to do this?
We have to be careful not to over-scaffold in our teaching. It usually leads kids down a dead end of ideas where they aren't free to explore to the point where they discover an important theory, a light bulb, or a dobostorta. We have to also teach them to pose fewer questions, but to pose a hypothesis. Instead of asking, "Who else will Opal meet because of Winn-Dixie?" we need to state, "It seems like Opal is finally making friends, and it's because of Winn-Dixie." As we read on, we start to see this is true, but that the friends she makes are just as lonely as she is. However, if we give students thinking-proof questions to answer, we really hold them back.
Often, even the student-generated questions and wonderings are so low level, that if they're answered at all, they're just low level recall types of information. If they're not answered enough, then we teach kids to leave a bunch of loose ends to their thinking in books. Sometimes I say to kids, "Don't ask questions when you're thinking. Give answers, even if they're just 'for now' answers." Some really smart people might disagree with this, but I've seen kids writing post-it's with questions that don't get answered, or even if they do, they're such tiny details that they don't really lead anywhere near interpretation.
Another way is to expand their reading repertoire from just predicting. How many of us have seen kids whose main type of thinking is predicting? They can be on the second to last page, and they're still predicting. Instead of trying to guess what happens next, so that the author doesn't outsmart us, we have to get kids to synthesize what's going on in the big picture of the story.
I'm not bashing predicting here, but often it overshadows other types of thinking. One teacher I know said it nicely, "Don't only think about the future in your book. Think about the past and the present of it." Try to move kids away from exclusively saying things like, "I think Opal will have lots of friends." Instead they should be saying things like, "Winn-Dixie is making everyone less lonely in this story." Rock crushes scissors. Scissors cut paper. Synthesis beats just prediction!
I'm not bashing predicting here, but often it overshadows other types of thinking. One teacher I know said it nicely, "Don't only think about the future in your book. Think about the past and the present of it." Try to move kids away from exclusively saying things like, "I think Opal will have lots of friends." Instead they should be saying things like, "Winn-Dixie is making everyone less lonely in this story." Rock crushes scissors. Scissors cut paper. Synthesis beats just prediction!
The same principles go for conferring in writing. While it's good advice to have a few strategies in your back pocket before each conference, partly based on your knowledge of this kind of writing, and partly based on your knowledge of this student, you probably don't want to go into it with a map of what it's going to look like when you're all done. Even if you have a goal, leave yourself open to discovering anything with the student. Even if you are firm in knowing that you need to teach into zooming in on a moment, don't decide ahead of time what the zooming will look like exactly. If you do, you're probably closing the possibilities before you can really start.
Teaching reading and writing for real is very difficult. You can't just "cover" teaching points and say you're done. It takes a long time to create learning with any kind of depth. The teaching moves outlined in this post are just a part of the solution of how you can create learning that lasts. Imagine what the world would be like if Edison, Einstein, or even Dobos had gone for a quick fix?
Teaching reading and writing for real is very difficult. You can't just "cover" teaching points and say you're done. It takes a long time to create learning with any kind of depth. The teaching moves outlined in this post are just a part of the solution of how you can create learning that lasts. Imagine what the world would be like if Edison, Einstein, or even Dobos had gone for a quick fix?
RSS Feed
