I am suggesting a possible template for this reading of authentic texts, subject to change and approval from the group. It’s a first attempt to make this discussion useful in the hands on way for us in our classrooms:
1. Find a text that is compelling. It could be, probably should be, part of instead of all of some novel or poem or song or whatever. Why part of and not all of? Authors hit streaks just like athletes. In Saint-Ex’s case, the entire Petit Prince is a masterpiece. But even great authors get boring at times. So the authentic text could be from one sentence long to an entire book.
2. Take the first sentence and project it or write it on the board. That is your clay.
3. Establish meaning. Just explain what any new words mean in English. Don’t go off on any grammar jags except for four second pop-ups that always take only the form of _____ means _____.
4. Once the kids know what the first sentence means, start working with it using simple yes/no questions and choral responses. This is the Reading Option A work as per the asterisked portions of:
https://benslavic.com/blog/reading-option-a-latest-update-2013
5. Make sure you get good GROUP responses as per:
6. Ask enough yes/no questions to where you see each student’s face get engaged. If any student who wants to learn doesn’t have enough reps, give them more. Make the fast dogs wait. Tell them that they are hearing and understanding French and that is your job and they must listen in that way even if they don’t want to because you have to teach everybody in the class so to get over themselves.
7. At a certain point of this narrow and deep yes/no discussion, move the discussion off of the yes/no questions into PQA questions, just as you would to set up a story. Get as many PQA reps as you can until things start to drag on that part of the discussion.
8. Go to the next sentence, rinse and repeat.
9. At the end of every paragraph or so, or maybe at the end of a page, just recycle. Start with the first sentence and move through he paragraph, this time at a faster pace. Always keep your students focused on the message and not the words.
8. Skip over, or just spot translate anything that doesn’t warrant this RAT process. There is nothing wrong with doing that. We obviously can’t do this process with an entire book (unless it warrants that) because of time and so moving quickly through to another more interesting paragraph is just fine.
That’s all I can think of, but I know that I personally need these templates and acronyms to follow because I am right brain dominant and auditory/kinesthetic and so I will print this and have it next to me when I do upper level RAT classes. If you find things to add or subtract from this please let me know.