Kuunari

The series “Reading Notice and Note” features essays I wrote for a distance learning class while reading the book Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading by G. Kylene Beers and Robert E Probst. Overall, I found the book and the class enjoyable and hope this series helps others as they read and think about the book. 

In 2018 I had the opportunity to attend some short trainings that introduced Notice and Note and the signposts in fiction. While I was enthusiastic about their value in teaching, I only had a surface understanding of the concepts taught through the signposts. After reading the book and answering the reflection questions, I have a clear path forward and many tools to utilize these signposts to change my teaching. 

I have become more aware of the value of close reading, but have found many texts about close reading, for example A Close Look at Close Reading, K-5, to reinforce a dry, disengaging style of reading instruction. Notice and Note encourages the teacher and students to see the text as dynamic, and the meaning behind the text as something that is creating in partnership with the author. It gives the teacher and students the tools to purposefully go back to the text and reread for deeper understanding. In addition, the students can start identifying the texts they need to read closely by noticing the signposts. The signposts become the signifier that there is more to the text than the surface level. This awareness allows students to transition the skills they learn in close reading activities to their own reading. They are transferring their knowledge.

I also plan on utilizing the model the authors of Notice and Note gave to encourage the students to create text-dependent questions on pages 43-44. While I always am ready with questions to ask my students, I find the conversations and thinking that is done when my class is using student generated questions is always much deeper and richer than if we are only using questions I generate. The model they suggest helps to encourage repeated readings as students want to find and support their answers.

The few times I have utilized a model similar to the one in Notice and Note I have seen very animated discussions when we talk about their questions and the quiet hum of engaged work when they are looking back into the text to answer the questions. When students are taught how to ask good questions, they usually will ask better questions than I can. In addition, those questions become vital information to guide my future teaching.

What is confusing the students can be further explained and taught later. If all their questions tend toward a certain kind of question, it tells me that I need to do more to show the students how to ask other types of questions. The signposts will be a key component of my instruction moving forward because it helps put the ball back in the students court. They become the ones investigating the text. They are the ones making meaning from the words on the page. I am only the guide.