Q. Greg Stout asked:
I’m trying to start using this as a break from stories, but I’m having troubled conceptualizing how I can make this last for an entire class. I think I understand how to start, but how do you all prolong L & D to keep the CI going for the whole class? First I show an image and establish meaning for 3 or 4 key structures. Then do some PQA on those 3 or 4 structures. But then, how do I keep discussion going off of just those 3 or 4 structures and the image, especially since my kids have acquired so little language already?
A1. Nathan Beck responded to this:
I think you’re right that, maybe at this point, you should keep L & D short as a little break from stories/readings.
Also, and these are suggestions based on not knowing what structures you are using, but I always find it useful to ask students personal questions using the structures. This may seem like a ‘duh’ response, but for example, if you’re talking about the colors in a painting you could ask students if they like those colors? what is their favorite color? OR if you’re talking about a bridge, you could not only ask for extensive details about that bridge (size, length, color), but fish for students that may ‘have’ or ‘want’ a bridge and build off of that. And if no student wants a bridge, you could just say ‘so-and-so wants a bridge’ and then go off into a discussion describing the kind of bridge Susie wants, and comparing it to the bridge in the painting. These are all just things I might do in order to extend the discussion.
In short:
– ask for personal details from students about things in the painting – if an object, ask if any student has or wants that object, and then go further in describing the ‘new’ object that that student wants.
A2. Ben Slavic followed what Nathan said with this:
Yeah we keep L & D short, as you said Greg. And we personalize it if the discussion falters, as you said Nathan. That was a brilliant answer, Nathan, so I highlighted the part all of us need to keep in mind like all the time in class in green.
This of course reflects what we do in stories but, lacking a script and instead being limited by the nature of L & D in that we only have one static image, we learn to establish meaning for only three or four terms related to the image, and then we personalize when and as we can as per what Nathan said above, and then when it loses energy we learn to toss it fast and move on to another picture or some other activity.
(There are all kinds of dictée/textivate/imtranslator options available at that point if we need to move the kids out of whole brain learning bc of their mood*, or whatever.)
This establishing of meaning and then personalizing whenever we can is what we do in stories, it is what CI is, and the pattern thus described in Step 1 of TPRS is revealed as a secret to all comprehension based instruction. The pattern may be THE secret.
It is as if we have a train (CI) but it needs rails for it to roll on (structures) and as long as we keep the train on those rails, whether it be a picture or a story, and personalize, we are good.
The only difference in functionality between L & D and stories is that stories last longer than pictures because the tracks provided are longer, in the form of the script with its three locations. We can’t make a story out of a picture very often and we shouldn’t try.
So we learn to bail fast and often with L & D. I now have worked it in to my two week schedule as the first five minutes of every class. I don’t call roll to start class, I do that during the brain break. I start class by teaching the four terms, then discuss the image, trying to personalize, but if the discussion is weak I toss the image. I only have five minutes anyway according to my two week schedule.
*when kids are being jerks I have them write. I toss what they write, most of the time, as soon as the last kid is out the door. Why should I work extra if they are the ones being the jerks?