In yesterday’s post, The Power of Memorable Learning Experiences, we discussed the importance of building background knowledge by searching for companion texts to read aloud and share with students.  As we continue to think about this idea, we have a question for you: How many times have you read something and thought to yourself, “I have no idea what that is about”?  

When this happens as a reader, you have two choices.  The first, more passive response (the one that students most often choose) is to say, “Oh well” and continue on satisfied with not knowing. The second, more active response is to say, “How will I figure this out?” and work to pull together whatever resources you need to make it make sense.  While passivity has always stood in the path of deep thinking and learning, from the Common Core era all the way into lifelong learning, passivity on the part of readers has dire consequences. Standard number ten requires that students “read and comprehend literary and informational texts independently and proficiently,” so if students do not work to figure things out,  they are not practicing reading closely and carefully. If they are not practicing reading closely and carefully, they are not thinking about the big picture and considering what they know about words and how text works.  They are not thinking about the author’s point of view of utilizing their research skills to find answers to the questions about which they wonder. In short, they are practicing none of what standards 1-9, college and career readiness, or lifelong learner-ship ask of them. They are becoming neither more independent nor more proficient. Attaining independence and proficiency seems to begin with  nurturing a desire to know and nurturing a desire to persist until the curiosity is quelled.

In a recent demonstration lesson, Kim worked with a group of fifth graders reading Cyrus Cassells’s “Soul Make a Path Through Shining,”  a very sophisticated poem about the Civil Rights movement containing words like “minotaur” and “hydra-headed” and “maelstrom.” The class unanimously agreed that the poem was hard but rather than quit and say, “Oh well,” Kim nudged them to consider what they could do to figure it out. Several students said that they could reread the poem but others chimed in that they felt that rereading would do them no good because the real problem was the words.  How would reading the same unfamiliar words over and over help you? they wondered. That’s when they decided that if the piece that was missing from this puzzle was word knowledge, they’d need to somehow solve that problem. They decided that the first thing they’d do would be to talk to each other to collectively share what they knew about the words they didn’t know and after that they’d go to dictionary.com.  

Pre-Common Core, Kim might have begun this lesson by saying, “When you read this poem, you are going to meet some tough words.  To help you understand, let’s talk about what the word minotaur means … .”  Instead, Kim let students discover their own problems and work to find viable solutions.  In this teaching scenario, she assumed the role of coach, the one who stands to the side and lets the kids run around the field kicking the ball. She interjected advice and intervened when necessary and, by allowing them the opportunity to “excavate” for problems (Fisher and Frey, Building Background Knowledge, p.34, 2009), she nurtured the curiosity and persistence needed for creating independent and proficient readers.