The Textual Lineage Project is an activity for students to share a text (novel, poem, essay, etc) that resonated with them in a significant way and in turn, influenced the student to seek out literature that continues a theme or relevance to the student. That literature then goes on to influence a subsequent piece of literature. This was a project that our cohort completed at the start of U of M – TC course CI 5451.

 

This project can illuminate the subjects/themes/identities that are important to students which can help direct an instructor towards personalized learning strategies. Building relationships and identifying the things that students care about is essential for creating a reading list. I also see this project as an opportunity to see unexplored ideas or themes.

 

 

This project could be used at the very start of the year (or semester, depending on class duration) to identify who’s read what and identify themes. An instructor could apply this project in a number of ways:

- Book groups that allow students to pick which book they would like to read

- Identifying co-teachers (students who have already read a class text and want to lead a discussion)

- When choosing a book for full group discussion, determining how it might (or might not) resonate with students based on their Textual Lineages. Is it doesn’t fit in with most of the group’s interests, is this book more appropriate for small groups?

In this activity, the teacher reads from a text whether it be a paragraph, a passage, or a chapter from a book. This is a strategy I learned from a high school teacher who read my 10^th grade English class for a few minutes at the end of each class.

 

Teachers reading aloud for students is an exercise in fluency in lieu of “popcorning” and having the students read the text aloud in front of the general class. Students who are developing fluency or reading skills in English have the opportunity to read along with the teacher without the anxiety of performing in front of the whole class. This is also an activity appropriate for modeling reading strategies. Also, it’s fun, and older students do not usually have the joy of someone reading to them when they reach high school.

 

This could be used when starting a new novel. Potentially a teacher could simply read a text aloud as an oral storytelling exercise. 

 

https://www.edutopia.org/article/reading-aloud-middle-school-students 

The RAFT strategy is a post-reading technique in which students write from a perspective other than their own in a creative way. This strategy encourages students to view a topic from a different lens and consider the audience they are addressing. A partner and I demonstrated this strategy during a microteach lesson for our colleagues and turned the activity into preparation for a mock trial of King Claudius in Hamlet.

 

RAFT stands for Role of the Writer, Audience, Format, Topic

 

RAFT accomplishes many things – one, it reinforces reading comprehension, but two, it also gives students the opportunity to engage critically with the text. 

 

Post-reading strategy

Prompt students to write from a particular point of view on a specific topic addressed to a specific audience – this can be done with most or any texts

Would be fun to do with Shakespeare!

 

This is a strategy for learning vocabulary. Students each receive a notecard with a vocabulary word and definition. The student studies the vocabulary word in order to teach another student. The student teaches the next student their word, the other student teaches their word, and then the students trade words. This activity continues until all students have encountered each word. This was a strategy that I came across in Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction and couldn’t get out of my head.

 

This strategy gives students ownership over their words, and they have the opportunity to be the expert and teach others, sharing their mastery. 

 

This is a great strategy for learning new content words or even exercises on syntax!

 

Bromley, K. (2014). Active engagement with words. In K.A. Hinchman & H. K. Sheridan-Thomas (Ed.).  Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction (2^nd ed., p. 125). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Use this strategy to help students to understand how words are formed. For example, a teacher of any content area could demonstrate how root words can help us determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. Understanding how prefixes and suffixes can change meaning of words and transform them into different parts of speech is also valuable in vocabulary instruction. This was another strategy that sparked my curiosity from Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction.

 

This explicit instruction on how words are created give students a better idea of how to surmise the meaning of a word by understanding how a new word was constructed.

 

Identify roots and have students find other words with that root and draw connections between words

An instructor could introduce various prefixes and suffixes and challenge the students to generate as many words as they can out of a root word

This instruction can be used across content areas

 

When reading in large group, an instructor might choose to have the entire class and the teacher read together instead of popcorning or doing a round-robin style. This was a strategy that I had heard of somewhere but couldn’t recall exactly where. My partner for our second microteach lesson featured this strategy during a reading of a poem.

 

Choral readings are helpful to encourage students to read aloud and practice fluency without having the spotlight on them. It can also be beneficial to students who need more practice reading aloud to listen and read with students with higher fluency.

 

As an instructor, choose appropriate passages or poems to read aloud. Be careful not to pick anything too long – it can be a jarring experience (often it sounds like eerie chanting), but beneficial if done well!

 

Students choose the book/text they would prefer to read and form groups around these texts. These texts should be appropriate for students’ reading levels but also provide voice/choice. Students change roles each week and are assigned different tasks – summarizing, gathering quotes, and generating discussion questions. These are to prepare students for discussion in their small groups. I came across this strategy from a 5^th grade elementary school teacher who found it helpful in getting students to read more books throughout the year. 

 

Instead of large group reads, small group reads allow for more freedom which can lead to higher engagement. These small groups also give students the opportunity to work independently and collaboratively. A teacher could easily provide differentiation by providing and suggesting books to students who have similar reading strengths and challenges.

 

Book clubs are a good way to have students read entire books outside of large group. This could be done in tandem with a writing unit. 

 

The Frayer Model is a graphic organizer that requires students to define the meaning of a word or concept and then generate examples and non-examples to show their understanding. This was an instructional strategy demonstrated for the class by two colleagues. 

 

This activity helps students to define unfamiliar terms but also apply their understanding. This also draws on students’ existing knowledge about particular concepts or words.

 

Vocabulary instruction – use this model when introducing new vocabulary or have students find unfamiliar words in texts

 

Students chart out in three columns and title the first column K(now), the second W(ant to know), and the last L(earned). Instructors present a theme or idea and prompt students to come up with words or ideas that they associate with that theme in the K column. While reading, students write down the questions they have while reading the text into the W column. Following their read of the text, students write in the L column the answers they found to the questions in the W column. They can also write whatever they found interesting in this column as well. This was demonstrated for me and my colleagues during a microteach lesson, but I also read about its application in Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction.

 

This is a great way to tap into what students already know. It is also a way to introduce “talking to the text” while reading and help students develop the habit of making notes while they read. 

 

An instructor could use this strategy for pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading almost any text

 

Birr Moje, E., & Speyer, J. (2014). Reading challenging texts in high school. In K.A. Hinchman & H. K. Sheridan-Thomas (Ed.).  Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction (2^nd ed., pp. 219-227). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

This pre-reading activity asks several tasks of students – identify vocabulary words, make predictions based on vocabulary what they believe will happen in the story, and write a very short story using those words. 

1. Students categorize vocabulary words 

2. Using these words, students make predictions about the story

3. Finally, students use the vocabulary words to construct a short story

This strategy was modeled for CI 5451 by Anna McNulty Taylor.

 

The Probable Passage activity is a great pre-reading strategy that introduces vocabulary and encourages students to be creative in preparation for a text. This can generate motivation to read the text and see if their predictions come true. Also, it is fun!

 

Pre-reading strategy for novel or short story

 

https://projects.esc20.net/upload/page/0300/docs/Probable%20Passage%20TEA%20Approved%2012.16.pdf 

Steps:

This activity can be modified to be a longer assignment or it can be a simple warm-up activity. A great activity for before a break or interrupted class period.

Potential uses: identity units, a precursor to personal narrative units, poetry writing/reading units

What I particularly like about this activity is that it can be whatever a student needs it to be. It can address a student's traumas or it can be a humorous exploration of the student's communities.

This activity is a strategy to offer practice writing dialogue and demonstrate understanding of characterization. Within this activity, students will write a story or scene using only dialogue. 

Writing dialogue is a skill, and writing dialogue that moves the plot along is one that can be difficult to master. This also challenges students to think about what each person in the story is thinking when they respond to what the other character is saying, inviting them to roleplay via writing. It’s also a great perspective-taking exercise!

Optional: invite students to share their paragraphs with the whole class.

Adapted from:
https://www.socrative.com/blog/instructional-content/random-emoji-generator-power-paragraph/

The challenge: write 50,000 words of a story in a month. 

Although the contest officially runs from November 1st to November 30th, this could be an exercise used any time of the year. Maybe the challenge is to write 10,000 words in a month. The point is simply practice and persistence.