Module 7 Video Discussion

This teacher was a master at scaffolding her instruction for a close reading of a complex text.  What is important for me to remember that she did so well was to do the lesson in small chunks, have students preview the text, annotate the text, pair the students carefully, and encourage discussion about the text to see the connections students can make.  I think most of her strategies can be used at any level.  Sometimes students want to and think they will get answers immediately, but as was evident in the video, you need to encourage students to grapple a bit and teach each other.  She chose a complex text that her students could connect with and that is another great strategy to use in order to get the buy in from the students.  I need to remember that teaching students how to close read a text is a process, and giving students the opportunity to look closely at vocabulary and read the text multiple times with a different purpose each time, can be done even at the second grade level.  They need more teacher-modeling than the older students but many of the strategies in the video are still applicable.