Reflections on Literacy Learning and Teaching

Draft Close Reading Activity- Grade 4

Text-Dependent Questioning: Critical Response to Reading

In this paper, I will discuss the summary of this close reading activity and provide explanation using learning resources. When we feel passionate enough to reach a topic, we have specific questions in mind, questions that we have generate for ourselves (Cummins, S., 2013). As an illustration, the text used for the close reading activity for grade 4-6 was an old basal reader dated in the 1955-1965 period story. In fact, the story narrates the events of a cat named Tom that lives in a place called Junction City. Furthermore, the text is about four pages and is one that uses quite an understandable level of language for grade 4-6 students. In fact, one of my objectives, as I chose this text for the close reading activity, is that I wanted the students to have a great understanding and think about the text in effective ways. For instance, I settled on this text since it was easy for me to use it to achieve major informational goals I had, while conducting the close reading activity with the students in class.

In addition, the text contents the three components of text complexity in various ways. The three components of text complexity are qualitative measures, quantitative measures and reader and the task (Burke, 2017). As a result, the text has ideas that further student’s understanding of various topics such as heroism and fame among others and thus satisfies the qualitative component. Furthermore, the text had a structure that could be used to access if the students understood the text meaning. In fact, the quantitative aspect, the text is of the readable level to grade 4-6 readers an important factor that influenced the success of the text. Since, my pre-assessment test, I had assessed how conversant my students were with the topic of heroism and fame and gauged their interest in the topic, which was quite high as such; also, text met the reader and task consideration aspect for it to be properly use for a close reading activity.

Nevertheless, the pre-assessment data for the close reading was composed through observation and teacher talk. For the most part, I watched and listened to students as they read in class for themselves, which was I task I conducted as a self-assessment. Furthermore, I observed that most of the reading my student were “gist” reading, which was done hurriedly by just reading the text. In this case, I used effective questions to assess if the student would be able to answer a few questions about the text they were reading. As a result, I realized that their answers were just an interpretation and discussions that were, based on the text not grounded in a comprehensive way.

Indeed, the response from the students to the close reading active was quite positive. Furthermore, it was the kind of response most teacher, would hope from the students after an exercise. Nevertheless, the students were sincerely excited and seemed to have enjoyed the text at a deeper level, which I presume would not have been the case if they had not read the text carefully. Then, I also incorporated acting out some of the parts of the text in a dramatic way; most students was engaged as could be demonstrating when I asked them to relate some sections read in the text with real-life situations that they could relate to. In fact, this was also, proven in the writing section of the activity as most students gave correct answers to the questions showing a deep understanding of the text. Furthermore, most of the students were, faired quite well in the writing section with the close reading helping them improve on new words they had learned from the text as most of them struggled to give the correct spelling of the vocabulary they had learned from the text.

In addition, the text-dependent questions that I asked for the closed reading activity were in three sections depending on the intent of the questions and the interpretive objective of the reading. Next, the questions were checking three main things: if the students could indicate the key ideas and details about the text; Also, if the student has a grasp of the structure and craft of the text; and if the students could integrate.

The text-based questions were as followed:

Questions on the main ideas in the text

· What was special about Tom?

· Why did Tom pretend to sleep?

· As the men loaded the train, what did Tom do?

· What was the reason behind Tom’s picture the newspaper?

· What problem did Tom have when he was in the in the railroad car?

· What did the engineer think Tom wanted when he yowled?

· What happened after Tom saved the train?

· Where was Tom when he got out of the car?

Questions on text craft and structure:

· The author wrote, “He had never seen a kitchen or climbed a backyard fence?” What did he mean?

· What is the meaning of “freight”?

· The text, on page one narrates states that Tom was a “hero.” What does that mean?

· Is this story a realistic fiction or fantasy?

· What is the difference between the references of Tom as a “hero” on page four that in page one?

Questions on the meaning of the text:

· What is the alteration between a hero and a famous person?

· The word “hero” has been use twice in this story. Which is the right one?

· What is better, being a hero or being famous?

· What did you learn from this story?

In summary, this close reading activity was successful, and in addition to that, there were many valuable lessons that I learned, that should enlighten my next instructional practices with grade 4-6. Together with, dramatization during the close reading is important as it enables the students to clearly understand the deeper meaning of the text and enjoy the activity as well. In fact, the text-based questions should be set with the intention of accessing a particular objective of the close reading activity.

Reference

Cummins, S. (2013). Close reading of informational texts: Assessment-driven instruction in grades 3-8. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.