I just
wanted to finish reflecting on a lesson I taught last week. It was a
private lesson (1:1). The student wanted me to bring in two articles
that she could read in class and then have a discussion about it
afterwards. So, I brought in a couple of articles that might have
interested her, and had her choose one. The one she chose was an article
about the three presidential candidates' view on chaebols and how that
might have an effect on the upcoming presidential election in Korea. I
knew that the appropriate route for reading activities was something
similar to: reading for gist --> (scanning) --> reading for
detailed comprehension; and then follow up with questions/discussions in
order to get her opinions and to think about how it relates to her
life. However, I wasn't sure what to do with this article because it
wasn't that short in length. Was I supposed to have her read the whole
article for gist, and then read in sections for the more detailed
comprehension questions?
So, here's what I did:
Read the headline & subtext to guess what the article will be about.
Divide the article in five sections.
Skim section 1, ask gist question.
Read section 1, ask comprehension questions.
Ask a follow-up question for section 1.
Repeat for section 2 - 5.
It
was a great lesson in that we had great discussions about the issue,
and she had a great time. She learned new vocabulary from the article,
but also learned how to guess the meaning from context. Unfortunately it
was really time-consuming. In hindsight, I think I should've had her
read the entire article for gist. And then, divide the article in
several sections, and ask her comprehension questions after having read
each section. And then ask follow-up questions after finishing the
detailed comprehension part.
this is a great idea. i like how it was chunked up.
ReplyDeletei agree with the 1st read being the whole article for gist.
i hardly do any reading in my classes but i would definitely try this.
Although it was time consuming, I like the method you used. It seems like you taught each section as an individual mini lesson. I should try this approach in my reading class. Presently we are reading a chapter at a time. The chapters are short, but there is a lot of vocabulary that students don't know. It makes answering comprehension questions difficult. If I focus on one or two pages at a time and use your steps, my students will have time to analyze the context and guess word meaning. I teach this class tomorrow and I'm going to try it out. On Saturday, I'll let you know how it went. Wish me luck!
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