This past Sunday, I met a super great teacher, Sarah Press, during the weekly #caedchat. The topic was about reading (a super great follow-up to this year’s keynote speaker, LeVar Burton, at CUE 2014.
At one point, we got to a question regarding how we can motivate students to read, to get them excited, what strategies we use, yada, yada, yada. There were so many amazing ideas circulating that my brain was oozing from my ears. The level of creativity is incredible, and I was so glad that I was able to be part of that.
Sarah inquired more about two my strategies: Combined Commentary and SOC Reflections. Both of these use GDocs.
Combined Commentary – super great to elicit active reading and to generate annotated responses to reading. This is collaborative. It’s bloggish with post/reply style, but perhaps easier to scroll through and track info along the way.
SOC Reflections – 20/20 concept. Read for 20 minutes (no stress on how much is read, just that there’s 20 minutes of reading). Write for 20 minutes. Writing is in a Stream of Consciousness fashion, and no stopping allowed. This is really great for authentic assessment on a chunk of reading, and another great way to promote active reading – thinking/reflecting about what was just read.
In both strategies, students have the opportunity to return back to these documents when it comes time to writing essays, holding class discussions, etc.
For a walk-through and visual, check out the 2 3-minute videos linked above.
