Struggling Students/Difficult Text : Before-Reading Sample

In my last posting about struggling students and difficult text, I addressed before-reading components. After reading it, someone asked if I could give a specific example of what the vocabulary lesson, the vocabulary front-loading, making connections/activating prior knowledge, and setting a purpose might look like when connected to a real text.

Let's use the article, Scorpion King's Wines from National Geographic. It will be the basis of the before-reading activities included in this blog.

While planning, I need to ask myself several questions:

1. Which words should be part of the vocabulary development for this unit?
2. Which words should I front-load because students might not know them, and therefore, comprehension might be interrupted when reading?
3. How can I get students to connect what they are going to read to something about which they already have knowledge and how can I get students to activate their prior knowledge about this subject?
4. What purpose will I give them when they begin to read?

Choosing the Vocabulary Terms

If I were a science teacher doing a unit on chemistry, I might identify the following words: residues, resins, substances, additives, synthetic, alkaloids, pharmacopoeia, empirically, collaborating, biomolecular, and analysis.

When looking from an ancient civilization perspective, I might choose: Scorpion King, Scorpion I, pharaoh, archaeochemist, archaeology, anthropology, and papyrus.

Now that I've identified words that my students might not know but need to know for my area of study, I have to choose which are most important for the unit being taught. Since this text is short and it might only take a day to read, I might only choose the word(s) that are relevant to my objective, are thought to be academic vocabulary for my content, and/or are used in other texts the class will read throughout the week. For example, in a history class that is studying Ancient Egypt, I will choose only the words that connect to my unit, are academic vocabulary in Ancient Civilizations, and will be present in other information the class will read during the week. Therefore, the 4 vocabulary words I have chosen are Scorpion I, pharaoh, archaeology, and papyrus.

I will discuss the instruction of the vocabulary terms in another blog.

Choosing Words to be Front-loaded and Front-loading

Besides Scorpion I, pharaoh, archaeology, and papyrus in my unit on Ancient Egypt, I have identified a host of other words that I am afraid will break down comprehension. Here is the entire list of words about which I'm concerned:

spiked, relation, archaeochemist, colleagues, residues, herbs, resins, substances, additives, anthropology, synthetic, alkaloids, tipples, ailments, advent, pharmacopoeia, mixology, empirically, biomolecular, analysis

This list is too long! Therefore, I need to whittle it down. I ask myself: Which of these terms might the students have some knowledge of and therefore, they will probably be able to deduce their meaning without any instruction? Which of these terms' meanings are embedded in the text or students might be able to figure out using word parts? Which of these terms are not necessary to understand the author's message? Here are my thoughts:

• I think the students will understand relation in its context. If they don't it is not necessary to the author's message. I will eliminate that word.
• Students should be able to figure out residues from the context of the sentence.
• I think the students will be able to see chemist in archaeochemist. I think I will get rid of it. Also, when we talk about archaeology, I will point out the archaeo- affix.
• I think the students will understand the word herb. Many of our adolescents have heard this term in life or on television in relation to marijuana. I think I will eliminate it.
• I hope from science class, from word parts, and from the world around them, students will have some understanding of substance, additives, synthetic, biomolecular, and analysis.
• Students should be able to use context clues to understand ailments.
• They will be able to use word parts and context to understand mixology.
• If students don't understand alkaloids completely it won't take away from the main idea.
• If they don't understand colleagues it will not take away from the author's message.

After thinking through the long list of words, I have chosen these words to front-load:
spiked, resins, anthropology, tipples, advent, pharmacopoeia, empirically

Now that I have chosen these words, I need to front-load their meanings. I want to do this as succinctly as possible. One way to do this is to have pictures or objects to illustrate concrete terms. Examples of what I would do or say to quickly introduce these words:

• I might have a piece of resin for the students to see.
• I might have a bottle of Dr. Pepper handy to illustrate a tipple.
• For spiked, I might tell a quick story. "I was at a party and I didn't know that they had spiked the punch. Someone put vodka in the punch. I thought it was just punch. So, if we spike something, it means we add something extra to it."
• Anthropology: "If I was an anthropologist, I would study the history of groups of people - their culture, their environments, their physical characteristics, and even how they got along with others."
• Advent means the same as arrival. The advent of spring means the arrival of spring.
• You will see this word pharmacopoeia. You probably notice pharma- at the beginning just like pharmacy where we get medicine. It is important in this story to know that this means the medicines they had stored up.
• Empirically - You might have seen this word in science. When someone studies something, empirical evidence is what has actually been seen or observed.

Making Connections and Activating Prior Knowledge

There are a couple of ways that I can connect this to the lives of students. First, the author has already made a connection with his comment on "the Rock" and the Scorpion King. Many of our students will have seen this movie and will be able to automatically put it in some kind of context. Therefore, I might have the students turn-and-talk: "Tell everything you can remember about The Scorpion King starring "the Rock" that you think was based in history."

I could also go in a different direction. For example, this article is about things we learn from the past. To make a connection and to activate prior knowledge, I could have the students think about things we have learned from history. For example: "With a partner, make a list of all of this things you think we use today that are based on something that was discovered somewhere in history."

When activating prior knowledge we want to build schema. To do this, we have to first set the stage so that students think: "Oh, this is about..." or "Oh, this is like..." Once the students have some picture in their head, we can begin to refine it a bit more. Perhaps in this lesson, I might use a clustering activity.

1. The students write the "nucleus" term or phrase Egyptian History at the center of their paper and circle it.
2. Around the center circle, the students write any subtopics that come to mind. For example they might write: mummies, pyramids, pharaohs, etc. The students circle the subtopics and draw lines to what they connect to.
3. After a few minutes, allow students to discuss so knowledge is shared. This activity should be very quick and you should accept all thoughts.
4. The teacher records a group cluster from a quick share out.
5. After reading the passage, come back to the cluster to see what ideas emerged from the reading and what new learning occurred.

Setting a Purpose
I have just looked at CNN on line. The latest news stories are listed as:

• Weeding the budget of $17 billion
• Manny tests positive
• Pakistan to scrap peace deal, launch offensive, source says
• 13,000 flee as California mansions go up in flames

I am going to choose to read: Weeding the budget of $17 billion. When I read it, I want to find out: What are they going to cut out of the budget to save $17 billion?

I have just set a purpose for myself. This is what we must teach our students to do. We know that "setting a purpose" is an important thinking skill. It is also imperative that teachers support students by supplying them with a purpose. The teacher usually has an agenda. She knows what she wants her students to learn from a reading.

In the example about the discovery in the tomb of the Scorpion King, we might choose one of the following:

• Read this article and find out how discoveries in the tomb of the Scorpion King have affected or may affect our lives.
• Read this article and find a connection to the discovery in the tomb to a development of medicine that leads all the way to today.

Instruction Model

The vocabulary instruction, the front-loading, the activation of prior knowledge/making connections, and the setting a purpose should take as little time as possible. We want to save the time for students to read and learn. If the students have a 45 minutes period, I suggest this instructional model:

• 8 minutes - vocabulary development
• 10 minutes - Before-reading (3-4 minutes - front-loading, 4-5 minutes - making connections/activating prior knowledge, 1 minute - setting a purpose)
• 17 minutes - During-reading
• 10 minutes - After-reading

I hope these specific examples are helpful. When I talk about this next, I will discuss the importance of teaching students to interact with text with during-reading activities.

Let me know if you have any questions about what is written here. I love to have conversations about these important instructional topics.

Jimi