I agree Renee. What I often do is spend a little time talking about our purpose for reading first and letting that guide the discussion ... I think it was Kylie Beers that uses the example of a text that is a description of a beautiful home. An interior decorator, a real estate agent and a thief, all would find different things in the text to be important because their purposes for reading would be quite different.
Sent from my iPhone On Feb 18, 2012, at 1:00 PM, "Renee" <[email protected]> wrote: > Evelia, > > I think one thing that happens with **some** nonfiction, when there are lots > of photos, is that kids skip the captions in the photos. If you include > social studies and science texts in this category, which they are, those > books often have lots of pictures. There are times when I spend lots of times > just on the captions, or the highlighted words, or things like that. > > Sometime having students ask questions about a subject can lead into a > discussion about what is important or what's not. For example, when I was > subbing yesterday, doing a lesson about George Washington, when asking third > grade students what questions they might have about George Washington, one > student asked, "How did his face get on Mount Rushmore?" Now I think that's a > very interesting question, but I deflected it for this lesson by > acknowledging how interesting of a question it is, then "thinking out loud" > that it wasn't really about George Washington himself, but about the person > who did the sculpting, and then asking the student if the answer to this > question would give us more information about George Washington's life (he > said no). Now, in some cases I might include this question on the list (like > if it were my own class, for example, and I was going to have the children > doing a research project) but in this case I needed really focused questions. > > Determining importance is tricky because what's important to one person might > not be important to another person, and what's important in one context is > not so important in another context. > > Just some thoughts... > Renee > > On Feb 17, 2012, at 8:58 PM, evelia cadet wrote: > >> Is anyone aware of a great lesson/lessons to teach determining importance in >> nonfiction? Thanks. >> >> Evelia >> >> Sent from my Windows Phone >> _______________________________________________ >> Mosaic mailing list >> [email protected] >> To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to >> http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org >> >> Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive >> >> > "There is no test that measures a child." > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
