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Cole (2003) suggests videotaped adult conversations to model for students how a rich, meaningful conversation works and looks. Many students might struggle to pay attention to an adult conversation - a podcast could be another effective means of sharing the elements of conversation! **caveat - you lose the gestural elements of conversation (see p. 7)** Students are more likely to listen to podcasts or watch a clip from a children's or teen's movie than to watch a video of their teachers talking. Peer modeling is so important - let's find relevant conversationalists for our readers/writers.
-E. Jorgenson

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"Think it, say it, do it" is the powerful action process that Dr. Beth Frye advocated for during our ELA course last semester. The "say it" portion of this process is about oral rehearsal - the opportunity to think out loud and process through observations, thoughts, and inferences before writing. Cole frames literature conversations as the ideal way for students to rehearse their thinking orally before writing (Cole, 2003, p. xvii). Cole relates the oral rehearsal's importance to assessment but it's also important for checking and enhancing comprehension and cultivating the rich conversations she refers to.
-E. Jorgenson

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Brevity

Clarity

Specificity

Originality

Tact

Sincerity

Lightheartedness (wit and humor)

Argument

Active listening

(Cole, 2003, p. xv)
Conversation guidelines and making elements of quality, rich conversation explicit for students acts as an equalizer. I recall only getting the "salon" style of conversation in my AP classes, which are not accessible to many learners - particularly learners of lower socioeconomic status or students with disabilities. The manner in which Cole recommends teaching and facilitating literature conversations in all classrooms and all schools makes education the social equalizer that many people think it should be. Ally's experience in Fish in a Tree reflects that of a student of both a lower SES and navigating a suspected learning disability. The conversations that Mr. Daniels facilitates could be the element of school where Ally finds success and builds community between her peers.
-E. Jorgenson

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Both Serravallo (2015) and Harvey & Goudvis (2017) stress the importance of highly motivating and engaging texts when teaching students to implement reading strategies to deepen comprehension.   As Serravallo (2015) suggests, students should be challenged to practice their focus strategies "repeatedly, with many books she chooses herself that are at her independent reading level" to ensure an ease of reading that frees up cognitive energy to expend on the strategies -A. Collins

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Serravallo's (2015) explanation of the necessity for strategies to become automatic, tacit processes reminds me of Dr. Gill's explanation of reading comprehension.  He taught me that tacitly (subconsciously) our brains go about comprehending.  For example, he asserts that our minds naturally predict without being explictly told to predict... otherwise, we would never feel "surprised" when there is a turn of events in a movie or book. Sometimes, we need to bring subconscious cognitive processes to our conscious awareness so that we can exercise specific strategies or skills and hone habits of the mind or remediate unproductive reading strategies.  Serravallo (2015) believes it is crucial that these strategies that we give conscious attention to should become automatized and return to a tacit state of operation while Harvey & Goudvis (2017) seem to support that comprehension strategies should always be consciously accessible, like tools in a toolkit, and that readers should be able to pay specific strategic attention to the skills they employ while reading to comprehend.  Ultimately, I would think that an awareness of our inner thoughts would fade as our reading and comprehension skills are strengthened and we have less conscious awareness of the strategies we tacitly employ. - A. Collins

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Both Serravallo (2015) and Harvey & Goudvis (2017) stress the importance of students feeling a sense of control as learners and readers.  Harvey & Goudvis (2017) recommend “process-based” comprehension instruction, teaching kids to articulate the processes they used to make meaning” ( p. 21). If we can teach students to “think-aloud” about their cognitive processes during reading, we can name and reinforce the strategies they are employing effectively while reading, which boosts student confidence and allows peers to become models for other peers. When we model through read-alouds and think-alouds how to read with a strategic purpose in mind, students see a model of cognitive clarity and can witness how such purpose guides the reading experience. When we make such purposes and strategies explicitly clear to students, we add mental models to their schema of reading strategies and skills that they can later draw on for support. Serravallo (2015) suggests that we involve students in the goal-setting process so that they can articulate and understand their focus and purpose when reading. When we make goals, skills, and strategies explicit to students and enhance their mental models of such through explicit instruction and modeling our thoughts during reading, students can approach texts with vision and direction and increasing autonomy, independence, and success. - A. Collins

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Plot and setting comprehension strategies like those in Goal 5 of Serravallo (2015) are intended to help students make a movie in their minds while they read an engaging fiction text. Ironically, in Fish in a Tree Ally makes "mind movies" often when she is picturing the future or an alternate present but does not have the reading skills to use this same powerful tool when approaching a book (Hunt, 2017, p. 73). It's interesting that the similarity in language about comprehension and mind movies from a professional reading strategies text also applies to the young protagonist whose identity is centered around difficulty in school. Ally makes fantastic prediction mind movies and escape fantasies during her time in school. While reading often serves the same two functions, Ally has yet to connect her current creative mind movies to the unlimited possibilities that lie within the pages of currently inaccessible and challenging text. In order to reach a mind movie sourced from a book, Ally would first need to be able to decode the text and then know the WHAT, WHO, and WHERE of the action.
-E. Jorgenson

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Characteristics of a Helpful Chart or Tool

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Characteristics of a Helpful Chart or Tool

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1. clear and as simple as possible

2. often low on text

3. have icons, pictures, or color coding

4. appropriate for age and readability level of students for which they're intended

5. clear headings that tell you what the chart is about

Options include: exemplar charts, individual tools, process charts, repertoire charts, and content charts

(Seravallo, 2015, p. 15-18)
-E. Jorgenson

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I too was struck with the wealth we have in these resources!  And I appreciate how Serravallo (2015) calls for teachers to be innovators in our classrooms just as chefs would experiment and expand upon tried and true recipes to add their own unique flavor and flair.  Serravallo's (2015) book truly is, as she puts it, "A comprehensive collection of good ideas from experts that you can use right away and from which to inspire your own innovations" (p. 1).  This personalization and adaptation is particularly important when working with students who are striving readers and writers and students with diverse abilities as we know a "one size fits all" approach doesn't exist.  I am excited to begin to experiment with these strategic recipes for success, adapting to materials and students' levels.  - A. Collins

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Both Harvey & Goudvis (2017) and Cole (2003) stress the concept that teachers must play a role in beefing up students' MENTAL MODELS... that is, if we expect students to leave tracks of their thinking while reading, or think about their thoughts while reading, or engage in meaningful conversations with others about a text, we must ensure they first have an appropriate and successful COGNITIVE MODEL and schema in their minds.  In most cases, especially for striving readers, we need to explicitly model these skills and mindsets through "Thinking Aloud" while we read.  We need to present models of effective literary conversations, and invite students to engage in observation and analysis of the different elements of the skills or strategies that make them effective and meaningful.  - A. Collins

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Internal v. External Dialogue around Reading 

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Internal v. External Dialogue around Reading 

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Harvey & Goudvis (2017) emphasize the importance of making students aware of their internal conversations and thinking while reading while Cole (2003) emphasizes the importance of external conversations with peers for building and enhancing conversation.  - A. Collins

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Views of the goal/strategy/skill relationship 

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Views of the goal/strategy/skill relationship 

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Harvey & Goudis (2017) view reading strategies as very thinking-based with a focus on engagement and awareness of the reader's inner voice. Seravallo defines strategies as "deliberate, effortful, intentional, and purposeful actions a reader takes to accomplish a specific task or skill...a means to an end, not an end unto themselves" (Seravallo, 2015, p. 8-9). Seravallo takes strategy instruction into a scaffolding perspective and has a mastery view of strategies and in turn the goal they are connected with. Harvey & Goudvis have more of a "toolbox" mentality with a goal of equipping readers with a plethora of possible options to engage with and comprehend text. The authors of both professional texts use action-oriented language when describing strategies (the language which led to the creation of a class superhero dubbed the "Strategic Spirit" based on Harvey & Goudis chapters 1-3). "Strategies make the often invisible work of reading actionable and visible" (Seravallo, 2015, p. 8). - E. Jorgenson
[Image from Seravallo, 2015, p. 5]

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PINK: how Harvey & Goudvis (2017) and Serravallo (2015)
think about "strategies" differently
ORANGE: connections between professional texts
GREEN: Fish in a Tree connections
WHITE: Important quote, note, or thought from a single text

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"Once the reader becomes skilled, the process, the strategy, becomes automatic and something to which the reader no longer needs to give conscious attention" (Serravallo, 2015, p. 9). Serravallo refers to automaticity on the strategy level while Harvey & Goudis' connection to automaticity is on the single-word level: "He had committed himself single-mindedly to decoding the word already and had lost all track of meaning in the process" (Harvey & Goudis,  2017, p. 14). Harvey & Goudis' view of automaticity lines up with Darrell Morris' theory of automaticity - there is a limited amount of brain capacity/attention which leaves little room for comprehension if the reader requires a lot of brain capacity to decode the words on the page. Once the words are automatic and require little effort from the reader, the reader has a much larger capacity to attend to meaning. The words must be largely automatic for the reader to devote attention to understanding what they are reading. Serravello extrapolates this theory to another level when she says that strategies become automatic as well. The reader initially uses a lot of brain capacity to apply the strategy to the text (the words are already automatic), but with practice the strategy becomes more automatic. The reader can then move on to new strategies once the old ones are automatized and there is now capacity to devote the reader's attention elsewhere. -E. Jorgenson

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CONVERSATION can be the VEHICLE through which the transformation of INFORMATION into KNOWLEDGE occurs.  

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CONVERSATION can be the VEHICLE through which the transformation of INFORMATION into KNOWLEDGE occurs.  

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Cole (2003) teaches us that conversations can be structured to teach students basic comprehension strategies such as questioning, predicting, connecting, inferring, assigning importance, evaluating, and synthesizing.  Not only are students' inner conversations important (Harvey & Goudvis, 2017), but also students' external and collaborative conversations are critical to the transformation of information into deeper, meaningful knowledge.  "Talking helps students clarify and organize their thoughts" (Cole, 2003, p. xiii)... this is critical to deepening comprehension... and "literature conversations provide a platform for deep, rich comprehension of text" (Cole, 2003, p. xiv)  - A. Collins

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Both Serravallo (2015) and Harvey & Goudis (2017) emphasize the importance of reading with a purpose. Serravallo suggests making the reading goal tangible by using a goal card, goal sheet, or other means to make  it EXPLICIT to students what and why they are learning something (Serravallo, 2015, p. 2, 8). Dr. Koppenhaver also stressed the critical importance of reading for a purpose in his course on teaching literacy to students with ASD. Cole  (2003) also connected to reading for a purpose on page xiii: "children reading for real reasons- digging to the depths of meaning and captured by the experience!" Regardless of the purpose being a reading goal, a real-world connection, a specific meaning, or a child's interest, the purpose should be explicit and understood by both the teacher and the reader.
-E. Jorgenson

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Both Harvey & Goudvis (2017) and Cole (2013) stress the importance of focusing our efforts on comprehension toward higher level thinking skills.  Though basic comprehension such as retelling serve as the foundation for deeper, further comprehension, Cole (2003) asserts, "We need to change the present school culture of regurgitation into a mindful, creative one where higher levels of thinking (related to application of facts, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) move readers into constructing their own knowledge" (p. xiv).  Harvey & Goudvis (2017) talk about this crucial process of transforming information into knowledge through critical thinking (see Professional Response 1 below), and dialogue is one strategy that requires students to think about their thoughts, defend their ideas with the text, and revise their perspectives while honoring the thoughts and ideas of others.  - A. Collins

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"A clear concise cookbook is a great model for what on-the-go teachers might need to pick and choose strategies, to target what each reader needs, and to support their differentiated instruction" (Serravallo, 2015, p. xii).
Yes!!!! Books that are practical and accessible beyond academia are the books that I am so thankful to have as textbooks in our program - thrilled to have so many strategies at my fingertips and delicious reading strategies to create sumptuous, complex, multiple course meals. - E. Jorgenson

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Cole, A. D. (2003). Knee to knee, eye to eye: circling in on comprehension. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2017). Strategies that work: teaching comprehension for understanding, engagement, and building knowledge, K-8. Portland, ME: Stenhouse , Pembroke.

Hunt, L. M. (2017). Fish in a tree. London: Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Serravallo, J. (2015). The reading strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Cole (2003) writes about the power of collaborative talk in building community spirit and fostering higher level comprehension around literature as well as real-world connections. When I think about the two areas that govern a meaningful conversations, speech and silence, I remember that we have to teach students how to hold space with one another, honor the voice/thoughts/ experiences of others.  I think that literature conversations, when done effectively, can help connect students who are estranged from peers and academics through providing a platform through which to champion their thoughts in front of peers.  Connection to Fish in a Tree (Mullaly Hunt, 2015):  When Mr. Daniels had students work in groups and discuss the mystery items, this provided a platform for Ally to gain credibility and confidence in front of peers.  Teaching students who dominate class when to listen and helping striving students take the mic through conversation ultimately benefits all students and learners socially, emotionally, and intellectually.  - A. Collins