The professional learning program
Term 1 Engaging with texts
The theme for Term 1 was Engaging, that is the aim was to begin engaging students in the pleasures of literature by teaching them to read enjoyable stories, and to begin using the language patterns they learnt to read, in order to write successful stories. To this end the first stage in developing students’ reading and writing skills was to start them reading and writing complex literate narratives, in other words stories that are more complex than the simple texts used in remedial classes, and the simple little stories that weak students tend to write. Lesson notes were provided for supporting students to start reading Paul Jennings short stories, followed by Henry Lawson, and a brief autobiographical recount from Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. The kinds of language features teachers can focus on in Detailed Reading are illustrated in the following extract:
Starting a sentence with time or place Themes signals a new phase in a story. Bridging reference here distinguishes two sets of people – most people were asleep <- those who were awake. Uncertainty is used to begin building tension. A variety of movements and sounds are used here to build the description. Metaphors and idioms are used to enrich descriptions and feelings. Characters’ reactions are used to engage the reader in their feelings. The final comment here makes the reader expect worsening problems. Teachers use this kind of analysis to prepare all students to recognise the patterns of literary meanings in the text, and why the author has made these language choices, so that they can later make similar sophisticated choices in their own writing.
These language patterns are discussed in the class using the scaffolding interaction cycle of Prepare-Identify-Elaborate, illustrated in the following transcript from the Reading to Learn training DVD Stories in the Middle Years (Rose 2004c):
| Prepare | In this paragraph on the top of page seven, the writer is describing to us how this earthquake begins, OK, the sounds that we hear, what it feels like. |
| Prepare | [sentence meaning] So if we look at that very first sentence, the writer begins by describing the sound to us, OK, and just where the sound came from. So if we have a look at it, it says, It started with a long low roar that seemed to be approaching from the north of the city. |
| Prepare | [position] So in that very first sentence, right at the beginning [meaning] it tells us what the earthquake did. What did it do? Chanila? |
| Identify | It started with a long low roar. |
| Affirm | That’s great, fantastic. So It started, so let’s highlight It started. [narrows student’s response] |
| Elaborate | [discuss reference function] Now I used the word earthquake, because we know its an earthquake. What have they used instead of earthquake, what’s the work they’ve used there to begin that paragraph? Bonita? [student] It. [teacher] It. And we can use It because we already know what It is. It is…? [students] the earthquake. [teacher] OK, fantastic. |
| Prepare | [position] Now, so the earthquake started, now when it started [meaning] what sort of sound did it make? [position] It tells us it started with something. What was it that it started with? Chanila? |
| Identify | Long low roar. |
| Affirm | Fantastic, so let’s highlight long low roar [repeating pronunciation]. |
| Elaborate | [engage students’ experience] Now can you think of something else? What else do we associate with that roar sound? What do you think? [student] A lion roar. [teacher] OK, a lion roars. What else do we associate with a roar? Another thing? [student] The sea can roar. [teacher] The sea, on a really stormy day. Yes it does give a bit of a roar. Justin? [student] A tornado? [teacher] Yes. those other natural disaster types of sounds. Yes. Ever heard a jet? Oh, you’ve all been to the airport. The roar of the engine? [student] An airshow. [teacher] The airshow, exactly. [student] The whole ground starts to shake. [teacher] Exactly. So that sound vibration even makes the ground move, doesn’t it? Yes, fantastic. And it starts off low, and builds up, doesn’t it? … So we have this roaring sound, but it starts off long…low. |
Here Prepare moves are used to enable all students to read each element of the sentence with understanding, and Elaborate moves relate their meanings to students’ experience.