Interacting with Text

About ten days ago, I attended the first CalADE Conference in Anaheim where I participated in two workshops about effective instructional techniques to promote student thinking and interaction with text.

The first workshop was given by Vickey Aubrey and Michele Marta of San Joaquin Delta College. The ART (Authentic Reading Techniques) program starts with authentic and current materials collected from Gale database, which most college libraries subscribe to, and made into a thematic packet with five articles in each packet. Packet titles include Healthy Minds, Child Development, Nutrition, Criminal Justice, Business, and Medical Ethics, all content areas very popular among students. I immediately thought that here we have a way to create and own our own textbooks and cut the skyrocketing textbook costs for our students at the same time. We can do the same using Palomar library's databases and put our own packets on the Blackboard server for students to download.

ART at Delta College requires the students to start with a summary writing handbook that teaches them strategies for annotating and summarizing expository text. When students finish the handbook, they select a packet of five articles described above.

The students follow a 7-step procedure and complete one article at a time:

1. What do you already know about the topic?
2. What would you like to know about the topic?
3. First reading: Find new words for a vocabulary journal, where students
   
• copy the sentence in which the word appears in the article
• look up the word in a dictionary and write the definition that applies to the sentence
• write an original sentence using the new word
  
4. Annotate the article using a triple entry journal which has column headings of "Main Idea from Article," "Main Idea: Own Words," "Reactions and Questions." Students must have a tutor or instructor check this work.
5. Summarize the article using this template: In the article, " (provide title of article here),"(provide author's full name here) (provide an appropriate verb from a supplied list here) (provide the main idea in your own words here). Students must have a tutor check this work.
6. What did you learn?
7. Apply what you learned by writing about a similar situation, etc.

Thus, the students proceed from article to article. After the 5th article, students complete a writing assignment based on the information they have learned in the packet.

There are two simple, no-nonsense rubrics to assess annotations and summary.

Delta's ART program gives students substantial hands-on experience in interaction with text and is particularly applicable for reading-writing-thinking integration in our academic ESL classes. I have a few extra handouts from their presentation that I can share with anyone who may be interested. Just contact me to let me know.

(To be continued.)