Close Reading Book Study {Chapter Six}

    Hello there!  Someone said it’s July…. it can’t be!  I guess I will have to accept it and move        on! I’m sorry this post is getting to you a little late.  I have no excuse except…weekend            getaways!  We all need a little fun in the sun! 🙂 Missouri does offer some nice views 🙂



In case you missed it last week Lyndsey covered chapter five of the book study.  If you didn’t catch it you can click HERE to read the post and grab some adorable freebies!
Chapter six is all about RIGOR! The chapter begins by discussing three important ways we can construct our close reading lessons to offer reading comprehension and strengthening our students’s abilities to interact with texts.

-Using Bloom’s Taxonomy
-Using Webb’s Depth of Knowledge A.K.A. DOK’s

-Differentiating rigor for our students
Bloom’s Taxonomy consists of three major systems; affective, cognitive, and psychomotor. Below is a visual to help you understand educational objectives of the taxonomy.

The text then on pages 114-115 offers a VERY informative “menu” of prompts/questions to help aid the structure of your close read to that of one following Bloom’s Taxonomy. Below I will list a couple examples for each.

-Knowledge {Low level questioning/Basic Recall}- What is…?  Identify…

-Comprehension {Low level questioning/Basic Recall}- Explain why….  Summarize…

-Application {Intermediate questioning}- How/why…?  What facts prove…

-Analysis {Intermediate questioning}- Compare __and __.  What caused ___ to happen?

-Synthesis {Higher level questioning}- Rewrite a new ending to… Hypothesize what would have happened if…

-Evaluation {Higher level questioning}- Argue against…  Evaluate the author’s use of..

The authors state using the above mentioned options can help deepen the students thinking during the close reading..ultimately increasing their RIGOR!

Up next is Webb’s DOK levels!  Webb’s DOK’s are broken down into four levels; recall and reproduction, skills and concepts, short-term strategic thinking, and extended thinking.  Below you will find an example for each as to how it would look in a close read lesson plan!

– DOK Level 1 {Recall and Reproduction}: Define the term… What is…?
-DOK Level 2 {Skills and Concepts}: Can you explain why…    Summarize the text.

DOK Level 3 {Short-Term Strategic Thinking}: What conclusion can you draw from…  What do you predict will happen next?

DOK Level 4 {Extended Thinking}: Analyze two texts.    Which text supports…?

The text points out the the two models cannot be aligned with one another easily, but the do overlap on certain goals.

The book then goes on to discuss the importance of differentiating rigor for our students.  I thought you would find this particular quote interesting: “…our students are not all identical to one another.  They are, instead, unique with their own individual strengths and weaknesses.”  So true, yet it seems like sometimes we are the only ones that truly get that!

The book ends the chapter with again summarizing the important fact that rigor can not be the same for all students within your classroom.  The final two chapters are two of my favorites!  We will discuss close talks and close writes!

I hope you have a great start to you week! 🙂

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5 Comments

  1. I like your book study this summer. I am learning a lot about close reads, and it looks like something that I would like to start. How early do you start your reads with your kindergartners? It seems that the questions asked on Days 3 and 4 would be difficult for them to understand in the first weeks of school, and the writing may be a struggle for some who don't know how to write letters. Also, do you ever take grades of their work to have documentation for those who are struggling with the standards? Can't wait to read about the next chapter!

    1. Hi there Lee Ann! I will start my close reads on the first full week of school. Since I created my close reads with a vision of when I would use them throughout the year I was able to make them easier or more difficult. Again, the writing will come and even if they are simply drawing a picture! Yes, I keep their writings as samples and then this upcoming year I will be standard basing a lot of their grades using our close reads 🙂

      Tara

    1. Hi there! They are specified for a certain order. They are all about the same level…you can increase the difficulty or scale it down for where your students are at that time!

      Thanks,
      Tara

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