A Challenging Piece of Text

The following quote is taken from Cris Tovani from her book Do I Really Have to Teach Reading.  "Whenever I do a workshop for teachers, the first thing I do is give them a chance to read a challenging piece of text.  My reasoning is that most teachers know their content so well and are so familiar with their reading material that they aren't aware of the thinking process they use to make sense of text.  By giving them something challenging to read, I can force teachers to see all that is involved in the meaning-making process."  I thought this was relevant to how our LLSS 538, Teaching Reading through the Content Field course, because this is similar to how our course began.  At the beginning of the semester, as a class, we were assigned three articles that our instructor warned us may be difficult text. We were asked to complete the text then as a class we had an asynchronous discussion.  In the process of the asynchronous discussion, we were able to make sense of the test by using different strategies.

As a teacher it is important to remember that there are many types of learners with varying strategies for understanding text.  Tovani expresses the point that reading strategies don't have to be difficult and ten different colored highlighters aren't always the answer for remembering and understanding text.  Tovani likes to ask her students; "So What?" one of the simplest things a teacher can do to help readers make connections to the text is ask them "So What?" If a reader can ask themselves this question and come up with an answer then it helps them to ask more of the text and make connections to the text.  The following is Tovani's  "So What?" Thinking strategy.

(this should be in a  clockwise cyclical form)

                                                   Text (1st)

   Bring the thinking back (6th)                                 connection (2nd)
    to the text       


                                                                          More thinking strategies (3rd)
How does this thinking (5th)
help you better understand                                                  ask a question
the text?                                                                               draw a conclusion
                                                                                             visualize
                                                                                             sift & sort
                                                                                          recognize confusion

                                                So What? (4th)


Tovani developed this thinking strategy because a high school student kept asking her "so what?" when Tovani told students that the text was important. 

This has been interesting to read. This book has made me reflect on how I used reading material in my classroom as a physical education teacher.  Tovani explains that all teachers no matter their subject, are responsible for teaching their students how to read.