HO 1 Content Literacy

Vocabulary

Expanding the 5E Model

A proposed 7E model emphasizes transfer of
learning and the importance of eliciting prior
understanding
Arthur Eisenkraft

Sometimes a current model must be amended to maintain its

value after new information, insights, and knowledge have
been gathered. Such is now the case with the highly successful
5E learning cycle and instructional model (Bybee 1997).
Research on how people learn and the incorporation of that
research into lesson plans and curriculum development
demands that the 5E model be expanded to a 7E model.
Published by the National Science Teachers Association, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA
22201-3000.

The 5E learning cycle model requires instruction to include the following discrete
elements: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. The proposed 7E
model expands the engage element into two componentselicit and engage.
Similarly, the 7E model expands the two stages of elaborate and evaluate into
three components elaborate, evaluate, and extend. These changes are not
suggested to add complexity, but rather to ensure instructors do not omit crucial
elements for learning from their lessons while under the incorrect assumption
they are meeting the requirements of the learning cycle.

Eliciting prior understandings

Current research in cognitive science has shown that eliciting prior
understandings is a necessary component of the learning process. Research also
has shown that expert learners are much more adept at the transfer of learning
than novices and that practice in the transfer of learning is required in good
instruction (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000).
The engage component in the 5E model is intended to capture students
attention, get students thinking about the subject matter, raise questions in
students minds, stimulate thinking, and access prior knowledge. For example,
teachers may engage students by creating surprise or doubt through a
demonstration that shows a piece of steel sinking and a steel toy boat floating.
Similarly, a teacher may place an ice cube into a glass of water and have the
class observe it float while the same ice cube placed in a second glass of liquid
sinks. The corresponding conversation with the students may access their prior
learning. The students should have the opportunity to ask and attempt to
answer, Why is it that the toy boat does not sink?
The engage component includes both accessing prior knowledge and
generating enthusiasm for the subject matter. Teachers may excite students, get
them interested and ready to learn, and believe they are fulfilling the engage
phase of the learning cycle, while ignoring the need to find out what prior
knowledge students bring to the topic. The importance of eliciting prior
understandings in ascertaining what students know prior to a lesson is
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imperative. Recognizing that students construct knowledge from existing

knowledge, teachers need to find out what existing knowledge their students
possess. Failure to do so may result in students developing concepts very
different from the ones the teacher intends (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking
2000).
A straightforward means by which teachers may elicit prior understandings is
by framing a what do you think question at the outset of the lesson as is done
consistently in some current curricula. For example, a common physics lesson on
seat belts might begin with a question about designing seat belts for a racecar
traveling at a high rate of speed. How would they be different from ones
available on passenger cars? Students responding to this question communicate
what they know about seat belts and inform themselves, their classmates, and
the teacher about their prior conceptions and understandings. There is no need
to arrive at consensus or closure at this point. Students do not assume the
teacher will tell them the right answer. The what do you think question is
intended to begin the conversation.
The proposed expansion of the 5E model does not exchange the engage
component for the elicit component; the engage component is still a necessary
element in good instruction. The goal is to continue to excite and interest
students in whatever ways possible and to identify prior conceptions. Therefore
the elicit component should stand alone as a reminder of its importance in
learning and constructing meaning.

Explore and explain

The explore phase of the learning cycle provides an opportunity for students to
observe, record data, isolate variables, design and plan experiments, create
graphs, interpret results, develop hypotheses, and organize their findings.
Teachers may frame questions, suggest approaches, provide feedback, and
assess understandings. Students are introduced to models, laws, and theories
during the explain phase of the learning cycle. Students summarize results in
terms of these new theories and models. The teacher guides students toward
coherent and consistent generalizations, helps students with distinct scientific
vocabulary, and provides questions that help students use this vocabulary to
explain the results of their explorations. The distinction between the explore and
explain components ensures that concepts precede terminology.

Applying knowledge

The elaborate phase of the learning cycle provides an opportunity for students
to apply their knowledge to new domains, which may include raising new
questions and hypotheses to explore. This phase may also include related
numerical problems for students to solve. When students explore the heating
curve of water and the related heats of fusion and vaporization, they can then
perform a similar experiment with another liquid or, using data from a reference
table, compare and contrast materials with respect to freezing and boiling points.
A further elaboration may ask students to consider the specific heats of metals in
comparison to water and to explain why pizza from the oven remains hot but
aluminum foil beneath the pizza cools so rapidly.
The elaboration phase ties directly to the psychological construct called
transfer of learning (Thorndike 1923). Schools are created and supported with
the expectation that more general uses of knowledge will be found outside of
school and beyond the school years (Hilgard and Bower 1975). Transfer of
learning can range from transfer of one concept to another (e.g., Newtons law of
gravitation and Coulombs law of electrostatics); one school subject to an- other
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(e.g., math skills applied in scientific investigations); one year to another (e.g.,
significant figures, graphing, chemistry concepts in physics); and school to
nonschool activities (e.g., using a graph to calculate whether it is cost effective to
join a video club or pay a higher rate on rentals) (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking
2000).
Too often, the elaboration phase has come to mean an elaboration of the
specific concepts. Teachers may provide the specific heat of a second substance
and have students perform identical calculations. This practice in transfer of
learning seems limited to near transfer as opposed to far or distant transfer
(Mayer 1979). Even though teachers expect wonderful results when they limit
themselves to near transfer with large similarities between the original task and
the transfer task, they know students often find elaborations difficult. And as
difficult as near transfer is for students, the distant transfer is usually a much
harder road to traverse. Students who are quite able to discuss phase changes of
substances and their related freezing points, melting points, and heats of fusion
and vaporization may find it exceedingly difficult to transfer the concept of phase
change as a means of explaining traffic congestion.

Practicing the transfer of learning

The addition of the extend phase to the elaborate phase is intended to
explicitly remind teachers of the importance for students to practice the transfer
of learning. Teachers need to make sure that knowledge is applied in a new
context and is not limited to simple elaboration. For instance, in another common
activity students may be required to in- vent a sport that can be played on the
moon. An activity on friction informs students that friction increases with weight.
Because objects weigh less on the moon, frictional forces are expected to be less
on the moon. That elaboration is useful. Students must go one step further and
extend this friction concept to the unique sports and corresponding play they are
developing for the moon environment.
The evaluate phase of the learning cycle continues to include both formative
and summative evaluations of student learn- ing. If teachers truly value the
learning cycle and experiments that students conduct in the classroom, then
teachers should be sure to include aspects of these investigations on tests. Tests
should include questions from the lab and should ask students questions about
the laboratory activities. Students should be asked to interpret data from a lab
similar to the one they completed. Students should also be asked to design
experiments as part of their assessment (Colburn and Clough 1997).
Formative evaluation should not be limited to a particular phase of the cycle.
The cycle should not be linear. Formative evaluation must take place during all
interactions with students. The elicit phase is a formative evaluation. The explore
phase and explain phase must always be accompanied by techniques whereby
the teacher checks for student understanding.
Replacing elaborate and evaluate with elaborate, extend, and is a way to
emphasize that the transfer of learning, as required in the extend phase, may
also be used as part of the evaluation phase in the learning cycle.

Enhancing the instructional model

Adopting a 7E model ensures that eliciting prior under- standings and

opportunities for transfer of learning are not omitted. With a 7E model, teachers
will engage and elicit and students will elaborate and extend. This is not the first
enhancement of instructional models, nor will it be the last. Readers should not
reject the enhancement because they are used to the traditional 5E model, or
worse yet, because they hold the 5E model sacred. The 5E model is itself an
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enhancement of the three-phrase learning cycle that included exploration,

invention, and discovery (Karplus and Thier 1967.) In the 5E model, these phases
were initially referred to as explore, explain, and expand. In another learning
cycle, they are referred to as exploration, term introduction, and concept
application (Lawson 1995).
The 5E learning cycle has been shown to be an extremely effective approach
to learning (Lawson 1995; Guzzetti et al. 1993). The goal of the 7E learning
model is to emphasize the increasing importance of eliciting prior understandings
and the extending, or transfer, of concepts. With this new model, teachers should
no longer overlook these essential requirements for student learning.
Arthur Eisenkraft is a project director of Active Physics and a past president of NSTA, 60
Stormytown Road, Ossining, NY 10562; e-mail: eisenkraft@att.net.

References

Bransford, J.D., A.L. Brown, and R.R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How People Learn.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Bybee, R.W. 1997. Achieving Scientific Literacy. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.
Colburn, A., and M.P. Clough. 1997. Implementing the learning cycle. The Science
Teacher 64(5): 3033.
Gil, O. 2002. Implications of inquiry curriculum for teaching. Pa- per presented at
National Science Teachers Association Con- vention, 57 December, in Alburquerque,
N.M.
Guzzetti B., T.E. Taylor, G.V. Glass, and W.S. Gammas. 1993. Promoting conceptual
change in science: A comparative meta- analysis of instructional interventions from
reading education and science education. Reading Research Quarterly 28:117159.
Hilgard, E.R., and G.H. Bower. 1975. Theories of Learning. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice Hall.
Karplus, R., and H.D. Thier. 1967. A New Look at Elementary School Science. Chicago:
Rand McNally.
Lawson, A.E. 1995. Science Teaching and the Development of Thinking. Belmont,
Calif.: Wadsworth.
Lawson, A.E. 2001. Using the learning cycle to teach biology concepts and reasoning
patterns. Journal of Biological Education 35(4): 165169.
Mayer, R.E. 1979. Can advance organizers influence meaningful learning? Review of
Educational Research 49(2): 371383.
Thorndike, E.L. 1923. Educational Psychology, Vol. II: The Psychology of Learning.
New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
Copyright 2003. The Science Teacher. Published by the National Science Teachers
Association, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201-3000. September 2003
59
Reprinted with permission from "The Science Teacher", Vol. 70, No. 6, Copyright
2003, by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

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cont., HO 1

Seatbelt lesson using the 7E model:

Elicit prior understandings
Students are asked, Suppose you had to design seatbelts for a racecar traveling at
high speeds. How would they be different from ones available on passenger cars?
The students are required to write a brief response to this What do you think?
question in their logs and then share with the person sitting next to them. The class
then listens to some of the responses. This requires a few minutes of class time.
x

Engage
x

Students relate car accidents they have witnessed in movies or in real life.

Explore

The first part of the exploration requires students to construct a clay figure they can
sit on a cart. The cart is then crashed into a wall. The clay figure hits the wall.
x

Explain

Students are given a name for their observations. Newtons first law states, Objects
at rest stay at rest; objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by a force.
x

Engage
x

Students view videos of crash test dummies during automobile crashes.

Explore
Students are asked how they could save the clay figure from injury during the crash
into the wall. The suggestion that the clay figure will require a seat belt leads to
another experiment. A thin wire is used as a seat belt. The students construct a seat
belt from the wire and ram the cart and figure into the wall again. The wire seat belt
keeps the clay figure from hitting the wall, but the wire slices halfway through the
midsection.
x

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Explain
Students recognize that a wider seatbelt is needed. The relationship of pressure,
force, and area is introduced.
x

Elaborate

Students then construct better seat belts and explain their value in terms of
Newtons first law and forces.
x

Evaluate

Students are asked to design a seat belt for a racing car that travels at 250 km/h.
They compare their designs with actual safety belts used by NASCAR.
x

Extend

Students are challenged to explore how airbags work and to compare and contrast
airbags with seat belts. One of the questions explored is, How does the airbag get
triggered? Why does the airbag not inflate during a small fender-bender but does
inflate when the car hits a tree?
x

HO 2
Implementing Marzanos Strategy
Please read the scenario to the participants.
Scenario:
As the teacher, you decide the unit on motion can be extended to include real-world
research. The article (HO 3) contains several terms that are important in understanding
what the research is suggesting as to how the suit can work to power the iPod. Because
of this, you, as the teacher, decide to frontload select vocabulary to assist in the
students understanding of the article.
The terms you have decided to explicitly provide instruction/definition on are the
following: nanofibers, nanometers, nanotechnology, piezoelectricity, and polyvinylidene
fluoride.
Procedures:
The presenter will follow the first three steps of Marzanos strategy using the word
piezoelectricity.
1. Provide a description or explanation or example of the new term.
- Piezoelectricity- electricity produced by mechanical pressure on certain crystals
OR the ability of some materials (notably crystals and certain ceramics, including bone)
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to generate an electric field or electric potential in response to applied mechanical stress.

(Definitions taken from wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity, respectfully.)
2. Have the students restate in their own words. General Definition could be: Electricity
is created when two objects, like certain crystals or even bone, are rubbed together.
3. Ask the students to construct a picture that represents the term. (If the audience is
struggling to come up with an image, an example is provided below.)

Image taken from http://www.vectorious.net/index.php (This image was used with

permission. It is a royalty free image.)
Instructors notes:
1. Explain to the participants the only term that will actually be addressed will be
piezoelectricity during the workshop.
2. If this has occurred in a classroom, the teacher would have covered each of the
terms individually to ensure student understanding.
3. During the procedures, please feel free to modify the wording from the first three
steps, but not the three steps themselves.
4. For the remaining three steps, explain to the audience that these last three steps
can be implemented at various times through a lesson plan and do not have to be
done in sequential order. They are intended to enhance and sharpen
understanding. The teacher should use his or her discretion as to when these
activities should be implemented to best assist in the learning.
Marzanos Six-Step Process for Learning New Terms
1.Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new
term.
2.Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or
example in their own words.
3.Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic
representing the term.
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4.Engage students periodically in activities that help them add

to their knowledge of the terms.
5.Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one
another.
6.Involve students periodically in games that allow them to
play with terms.

HO 3 One day your pants may power up your iPod

Content Literacy
Vocabulary/Questioning

One day your pants may power up your

iPod
UC Berkeley researchers are perfecting microscopic fibers
that can make electricity from simple body motions. The
nanofibers may soon be woven into clothing, creating the
ultimate portable generator.
May 20, 2010|By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times, reporting from Berkeley

Need juice for a dying iPod? You may soon be able to plug the gadget
into a shirt, dance the electric slide and be good to go.
Researchers at UC Berkeley are perfecting microscopic fibers that can
produce electricity from simple body motions such as bending,
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stretching and twisting. The filaments, which resemble tiny fishing

lines, may soon be woven into clothing and sold as the ultimate
portable generators.
It could take three years or more before it hits the store shelves, but
the technology is already being hailed as a breakthrough.
The so-called nanofibers "will have very significant implications," said
Mihail Roco, senior advisor for nanotechnology with the National
Science Foundation, which recently gave a $350,000 grant to the
project.
In addition to helping reduce electricity demands on local utilities, new
industries could spring up to manufacture the tiny personal generators,
he said.
Researchers are envisioning hikers powering up their digital cameras
while trekking up a mountain or a jogger charging up her cell phone in
mid-run.
The Pentagon is hot for it too: Soldiers would no longer have to carry
heavy batteries to power their gear. Along with the National Science
Foundation, the Pentagon's secretive advanced research agency is
helping fund the project.
For now, the "smart power suit" is still a lab experiment, said UC
Berkeley mechanical engineering professor Liwei Lin, who is
overseeing the development of the fibers.
Lin and his team, including researchers from Berkeley, Germany and
China, recently were able to demonstrate the fibers' capacity to
harness the energy from minute body movements.
Working in a small, two-room lab on the Berkeley campus, the
researchers were able to convert energy from finger motions into
electricity using fibers attached to a surgical glove.
At roughly 500 nanometers thick, a strand is barely noticeable to the
human eye. It's one-tenth the width of a cloth fiber and one-hundredth
the width of a human hair.
It would take about 100,000 fibers to produce enough power for an
electrical watch and 1 million fibers to generate enough current to
power an iPod. But a bundle of 1 million fibers would be only about the
size of a grain of sand.
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Lin said the fibers can soak up the untapped energy produced by the
human body, a remarkably efficient natural generator. The more
vigorous the motion, the more power can be harvested, making knees
and elbows and other joints prime spots for the strands.
The strands take advantage of piezoelectricity, which produces energy
through "applied stress," similar to the heat generated when rubbing
hands together.
Multiple dips in the washing machine won't hurt the fibers are
flexible and resistant to heat and chemicals. They're also small enough
to blend unobtrusively into most garments.
And static shouldn't be a problem, Lin said.
The filaments are made from a cheap, organic plastic called
polyvinylidene fluoride. The material, known as PVDF, also cameos in
fishing lines, insulation for electrical wires and paint on buildings such
as the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan.
Lin's team produces the fibers using a technique it pioneered called
near-field electrospinning. A syringe filled with a polymer solution is
suspended over a moving, electrically conductive silicon wafer. An
electrical field pulls the solution out, forming fine fibers on the wafer in
regular patterns. Think of a baker applying very thin lines of frosting on
a very small cake.
Generating electricity from tiny components has been a distant dream
for scientists for decades, said Roco, who also leads the National
Nanotechnology Initiative.
"Up until now, there were too few ways to effectively do this, too far
away to really have a discussion," he said. "Now, there's finally a
technical solution. Now, people may finally start to think more seriously
about it."
Lin's work builds on several years of efforts to mix clothing and
electricity.
A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology developed fibers
similar to Lin's several years ago using synthetic Kevlar strands coated
with zinc oxide rods. The resulting filaments, which look like hair
rollers, produce energy when rubbed together.
Led by professor Zhong Lin Wang, the researchers have also produced
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electrical currents from fingers typing on cell phones, hamsters running

on exercise wheels, even vibrating vocal cords. Tiny modules could
eventually be implanted in the human body to harvest energy from
muscle movement or blood vessels, Wang said.
But the fibers from Lin's team are made with organic matter that can
be spun to infinite lengths, while the Georgia strands used inorganic
materials and were limited to just a few millimeters in length.
At rival Stanford University, researchers are developing fabric-based
batteries, or eTextiles, that could potentially store the energy produced
at UC Berkeley.
Ordinary cloth becomes rechargeable batteries and capacitors when
immersed in a special ink formula and then oven-dried. A piece
weighing about an ounce can retain up to three times the amount of
energy that a cell phone battery can, while remaining lightweight and
flexible.
Berkeley's Lin said he might seek venture capital funding within three
months, though he hasn't decided whether he wants to start his own
company with the technology or license it out to other firms.
If the product can be cheaply mass-produced, the lack of competition
would give nanofibers an easy way to conquer the market, Roco said.
"It will be determined by economics if the nanofibers cost $10,000,
nobody will buy them," he said. "But if they're $2, everyone will buy.
People will use nanotechnology not because it's fancy but because it's
economical."
tiffany.hsu@latimes.com

- 11 -Copyright 2011 Los Angeles Times

HO 4 Prefixes and Suffixes

Content Literacy
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Vocabulary
Scientific Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefix/Suffix

Meaning

aoran

notornon

meso

middle

endo

inner,inside

aero

needingoxygenorair

anti

against

amphi

both,doubly

aqua

water

arthro

joint

auto

self

bi

two,twice,double

bio

life,living

cephal

head

chloro

green

chromo

color

cide

killer,kill,killing

cyto

cell

derm

skin

di

two,double

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ecto(exo)

outer,external

endo

internal

epi

above

gastro

stomach

genesis

origin,beginning

herba

plants

hetero

different

homo

alike,similar

hydro

water

Word

Meaning

hemo

blood

hyper

above

hypo

below

intra

within,inside

itis

disease,inflammation

lateral

side

logy

studyof

lys

breakdown

meter

measurement

mono

one,single

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13

morph

form

micro

small

macro

large

multi

many

pod

foot

phobia

dislike,fear

philia

like

plasm

form

proto

first

photo

light

poly

many

synthesis

tomake

sub

lesser,below

troph

eat,consume

therm

heat

tri

three

zoo,zoa

animal

HO 5 Reflecting as a Reader
Content Literacy
Questioning
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Reflecting as a Reader
Do you like to read? Why or why not?
When you are reading, what do you do when
you come to something you dont know?
What do you do when you read something that
doesnt make sense?
What do you do when come to a word you
dont know?
What do you like best, reading aloud or
reading silently? Why?
Do you read at home? How often?
What is a good reader?

HO 6 Rethinking the Role of Literacy in the Content Areas

Content Literacy
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Questioning

Literacy Instruction in the

Content Areas:
Getting to the Core of Middle and High School
Improvement
Rafael Heller and Cynthia L. Greenleaf June 2007

RETHINKING THE ROLE OF LITERACY IN THE CONTENT AREAS

Section 1
Theres much more to reading than the basics, and that becomes
especially clear as soon as students start to study the academic
content areas. After the elementary years, not only do reading
assignments become longer and more full of content; they also
become increasingly varied in their style, vocabulary, text structure,
purpose, and intended audience. For instance, science textbooks differ
from textbooks in history and math, and all textbooks differ from the
whole universe of other materials that teachers might assign, from
newspaper columns to historical documents, reference materials,
Internet-based hypertexts, and on and on.
Middle and high school students must learn that in some classes
they are expected to follow written instructions to the letter, while in
others they are expected to read skeptically, or to question the
authors assumptions, or to analyze the writers style. Moving from one
subject area to the next, they must tap into entirely different sets of
vocabulary and background knowledge. They must learn to write well
in many genres, as well as realize that chemists, historians,
mathematicians, journalists,
and members of every other profession have their own unique ways of
sharing information, getting peoples attention, debating, responding
to criticism, reporting facts, and establishing authority.
Section 2
It has become common among literacy researchers to describe the
distinct ways of reading and writing and communicating among
different groups as social practices (Barton, 1994, 2003; Greenleaf,
1994; New London Group, 1996; Scribner and Cole, 1981; Street,
1995). That is, researchers have challenged the assumption that
literacy learning is basically a solitary activity. Rather, people learn by
interacting with others (especially with people who are more
knowledgeable in the area than they are), gradually becoming familiar
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with and internalizing their ways of doing things (their practices).

Every academic discipline, or content area, has its own set of
characteristic literacy practices. Students wont learn how to read and
write and become comfortable in the field of biology, for example,
unless they spend a lot of time reading, writing, and talking about
biology, ideally with interested peers and well-trained teachers.
To enter any academic discipline is to become comfortable with its
ways of looking at and communicating about the world. Algebra, for
instance, focuses on interactions among real or imagined objects, and
it translates those interactions into a simple shorthand language that
permits description of how any given A relates to a B or a C. By
contrast, historians choose to zero in on events rich in human
significance, and instead of condensing those events into a formal
shorthand, they prefer to elaborate on them by means of description,
narrative, and logical exposition, so as to flesh out an overarching
thesis. Chemists, on the other hand, tend to prize an extremely precise
sort of description and narrative, meant not to elaborate a thesis but to
compose an accurate record of a procedure and its results. In each
case, writers choose particular sorts of words, arrange them in
particular sorts of ways, imagine a particular sort of audience, and
otherwise bend their language to suit the particular purposes and
values of the discipline.
Section 3
Over the last few decades, education researchers have become
increasingly aware of the varied ways in which people use written
materials to communicate with one another, define themselves as
individuals, and identify themselves as belonging to particular groups,
both in and outside of the classroom. Gradually, it has become clear
that being literate means very different things in differing contexts
and content areas (Barton et al., 2002; Borasi and Seigel, 2000; Saul,
2004; Wineburg, 2001). Yet educators often take a somewhat narrower
view of what it means to be literate. Over the last few decades,
appeals to teach reading across the content areas have tended to
translate into courses, textbooks, and workshops that encourage all
content area teachers to help their students learn a core set of reading
comprehension strategies, and writing across the curriculum has
tended to mean instruction in a single, all-purpose writing process.
Less common have been efforts to help teachers address the literacy
demands that are specific to their content areas. Research suggests
that the teaching of generic reading comprehension strategies does
have merit, and that students can learn a number of routines that can
help them comprehend many different kinds of written documents
(reviewed in Kamil, 2003; Biancarosa and Snow, 2004; RAND Reading
Study Group, 2002; Brown, Palincsar, and Armbruster, 1994). These
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include pre-reading activities such as reviewing vocabulary to be found

in the text, making predictions as to what the text is likely to say, and
identifying text features such as tables of contents, headings,
illustrations, and authors biographical statements. These strategies
also include things that students can do while reading, such as drawing
a visual representation of the unfolding argument, or asking questions
about main ideas as they unfold, or making note of unfamiliar words,
concepts, or ideas to research after reading. And they include postreading activities such as summarizing and restating the texts main
points, or comparing notes with other students.

Section 4
Moreover, numerous studies over the past few decades have
demonstrated that it is most helpful to teach comprehension
strategies, text structures, and word-level strategies while students are
engaged in reading challenging, content-rich texts. Such skills dont
stick when practiced for their own sake. Rather, students learn those
skills best when they have compelling reasonssuch as the desire to
make sense of interesting materialsto use them (Alvermann, 2002;
Guthrie and Wigfield, 1997; Vacca and Vacca, 1998; Wilhelm and
Smith, 2002).
Given that content area reading materials are often quite difficult
in fact, many of the most popular middle and high school textbooks
rival the complexity of college-level materials in their syntax,
vocabulary, content, and presentationit makes good sense to
encourage all teachers to become familiar with these strategies.
Students will need advanced literacy skills in order to do the sorts of
intellectual work that the academic disciplines require, such as
conducting and reporting scientific experiments, analyzing historical
sources, or proving mathematical theorems. If teachers want their
students to be able to handle such assignments, they would do well to
help them become more competent in reading difficult texts in general.
However, a sole emphasis on generic reading comprehension
strategies may also lead students to believe that all academic texts are
more or less the same, as though the reading that students do in math
class were identical to the reading they do in history, or as though
good writing in biology were identical to good writing in English.
Section 5
Not all literacy skills can be transferred easily from one field to
another (Alvermann and Moore, 1991; Hynd, 1998; Bazerman and
Russell, 2003; Moje, 2006). The ways in which successful students read
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algebra textbooks (for example, working to translate word problems

into an understanding of the problem being posed and a representation
of the problem in algebraic terms, then working to arrive at a single,
correct mathematical solution) dont apply to reading and interpreting
modern poetry (which calls for sustained attention to word choice,
tone, the relationship of form to content, narrative voice, the use of
metaphor and symbol, and other aspects of language that dont often
come into play when studying algebra). And the ways in which
students write up their chemistry notes (crafting a detailed,
impersonal, accurate record of steps taken and reactions observed)
may not be helpful when trying to write a history paper or a literary
analysis.
To become competent in a number of academic content areas
requires more than just applying the same old skills and
comprehension strategies to new kinds of texts. It also requires skills
and knowledge and reasoning processes that are specific to particular
disciplines.
By way of illustration, consider two of the core subject areas,
science and history. To some extent, the challenges involved in reading
the texts of these disciplines are the same. For example, whether
students have to read a chemistry paper or a political speech from the
Civil War, they will probably need to learn new terms and phrases, pay
close attention to detail, and work their way through long, complex
sentences, written in a style that sounds nothing like contemporary
spoken English. Likewise, when assigned to write a term paper on
either of these subjects, they will probably want to generate ideas and
organize what they intend to write, write more than one draft, and cite
prior sources and include them in a bibliography. In many other ways,
though, science texts are very different from texts in history, and each
discipline emphasizes particular kinds of language and particular
approaches to reading and writing. In chemistry textbooks, for
example, language tends to be extremely precise with respect to
things and events in the physical world, and students must learn to
read those parts of the text with exactitude, taking care to note
whether a reaction occurred at 31.9 degrees Fahrenheit or 32.1
degrees Fahrenheit, or whether a solution turned orange or yellow.
However, students likely will have no reason to ask whether a
particular experiment was conducted in New Hampshire or Georgia, or
whether it happened to occur in 2001 or 2003.
Section 6
At times, historians may pay close attention to these sorts of
physical details, too, but their reasons for doing so are different from
those that motivate chemists (Wineburg, 2001; Wilson and Wineburg,
1988). In particular, historians tend to be more exacting readers than
chemists when it comes to details that made an important difference in
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peoples lives, and they tend to take a special interest in the

circumstances in which written documents were produced, particularly
when reading primary source materials. Here, the context in which
materials were written matters as much as the literal meaning of the
text itself, and students need to know that it is crucial to take note of
who wrote the given document, under what circumstances, for whose
eyes and ears, and to what ends. To fully comprehend the significance
of a Civil Warera speech, for example, students must understand that
it matters greatly whether it was composed in 1860 or 1862, or
whether it was delivered by a senator from New Hampshire or one from
Georgia.
All teachers, in every discipline, have reasons to emphasize certain
kinds of reading and writing over others, depending on the nature of
the specific content and skills they want their students to learn. Some
kinds of details matter more when reading in history class than in
chemistry, or in biology class more than in algebra. Certain forms of
writing (interpretive essays, for example) tend to be required in
American Literature even though they would be considered
inappropriate in Earth Science, where an extended scientific
explanation of data would be expected.
If the goal of content area instruction were simply to get students to
memorize facts and crunch numbers, there would be little reason to
show them that they need to pay attention to different things when
reading algebra textbooks and geometry textbooks, or that a lab report
requires a different narrative voice than a historical essay. However,
the goal of content area instruction is instead to introduce students to
the ways in which experts in the core academic disciplines look at the
world, investigate it, and communicate to one another about what they
see and learn.
Section 7
This is not to say that middle and high school students should be
expected to become fully expert in the ways that scientists, historians,
and other disciplinary specialists read and write. To produce an expert
level of fluency in the literacy of any profession or content area is a
goal better left to professional training programs, college majors, and
graduate schools.
But as adolescents move up through the middle and high school
curriculum, they will have to read and write in increasingly varied ways
in various content areas. And in the best of circumstances where the
secondary school curriculum is properly aligned with authentic
disciplinary endeavors and builds the academic dispositions and skills
that will be important to postsecondary pursuits students reading
and writing assignments become increasingly similar to the ones they
will encounter at college and in the workforce.
Moreover, even if students still need help developing fluency,
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increasing their vocabularies, and learning reading comprehension

strategies, they must receive content area literacy instruction at the
same time. Teachers may be tempted to take them out of the regular
curriculum and to drill them in basic literacy skills (or to dumb down
their assignments or even to excuse them from coursework
altogether). However, abundant evidence shows that students tend to
be ill-served by having to do basic, skills-focused reading exercises at
the expense of time spent engaged in reading, writing, and talking
about academic content. Such empty, remedial exercises tend to be
intellectually bland, and they only reinforce certain common
misconceptions, such as the notion that skillful reading amounts to
nothing more than pronouncing the words on the page (Allington,
2001; Alvermann and Moore, 1991; Carbonaro and Gamoran, 2002;
Hull and Rose, 1989; Knapp, 1995).
Section 8
The role of knowledge and domain- specific vocabulary in reading
comprehension is well known (Alexander and Jesson, 2000). If students
do not have the opportunity to learn subject area concepts and
vocabulary, their word knowledge and capacity to read a broader
range of texts will be further diminished. In fact, research sponsored by
ETS found that inequalities in students access to a rigorous academic
curriculum contribute significantly to the achievement gaps that
separate relatively affluent and/or white students from low-income and
minority students (Barton, 2003). Likewise, research from ACT (2006)
found that exposure to rigorous, well-written materials in science,
history, and other disciplines is the best available predictor of students
ability to succeed in introductory college courses.
It is certainly challenging to work with students who need help
understanding textbooks, but rather than excusing those students from
demanding assignments, teachers would do better to find ways to
engage them in reading, writing, and talking about compelling issues
and problems related to the particular academic discipline. They can
do this by, for instance, providing materials that are related to the
subject matter and are written at a level of complexity that the given
students can manage; such texts are becoming increasingly available
today, now that the major textbook companies have begun to respond
to the current attention to adolescent literacy. And instead of focusing
only on students deficiencies in reading and writing, teachers would
be well advised to look for the cognitive, social, and personal strengths
students bring with them from home, which can be used to build
connections to academic content and interest them in the reading and
writing that go on at school (Greenleaf, Brown, and Litman, 2004;
Guthrie, 2004; Moje, 2006). Simply put, teachers should assume that
all students are capable of doing rigorous academic workeven if they
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struggle with fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, or decoding

and they should provide every student with meaningful and
interesting opportunities to learn high-level skills by reading, writing,
and talking about rich intellectual content.
Teachers need to understand that literacy proficiency grows through
developmental processes that continue over a lifetime (Alexander,
2007).
In order for students to become proficient in the long term, they must
be willing to ride out short-term mistakes, take risks, accept a certain
amount of confusion and error, and remain confident that things will in
time come to seem easier and more natural (Bartholomae, 1985;
Lave and Wenger, 1991). Content area teachers must be patient in
supporting students as they make their way through a complex reading
assignment, learn the vocabulary specific to the content area, or
compose a thoughtful and well-constructed essay.

HO 7 Questioning the Author

Content Literacy
QtA
Questioning the Author (QtA)

Questioning the Author: An Approach for Enhancing Student Engagement with Text
(Beck McKeown, Hamilton, & Kugan)

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Background
Question the Author (QtA) is a comprehension strategy that requires
students to pose queries while reading the text in order to challenge
their understanding and solidify their knowledge (Beck et al., 1997).
Primarily used with nonfiction text, QtA allows students critique the
author's writing and in doing so engage with the text to create a
deeper meaning.
Benefits
QtA aims to engage all students with the text. Although it requires a bit
of prep work, you will reap the rewards of your labor through the
student interactions and discussions in your classroom.
Create and use the strategy
Beck et al. (1997) identify specific steps you should follow during a QtA
lesson:
5.
6.
7.
a.
b.
c.

Select a passage that is both interesting and can spur a good

conversation.
Decide appropriate stopping points where you think your students
need to delve deeper and gain a greater understanding.
Create queries (questions to encourage critical thinking) for each
stopping point.
Ex: What is the author trying to say?
Ex: Why do you think the author used the following phrase?
Ex: Does this make sense to you?
To introduce the strategy, display a short passage to your students
along with one or two queries you have designed ahead of time. Model
for your students how you think through the queries. Invite individual
students or small groups to read and work through the queries you
have prepared for their readings. Remember that your role as the
teacher during this strategy is to facilitate the discussion, not lead it.
When students ask questions that go unanswered, try to restate them
and encourage students to work to determine the answer.

The Russian Traveler

Content Literacy
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QtA
The Russian Traveler
The day is Friday, October 4. The year is 1957. People in
many parts of the earth turned on radios and heard
strange news. Russia has used rockets to put a new moon
in the sky, said one station. The tiny moon is a metal
ball. It has a radio in it. The radio goes beep! beep! beep!
as the moon travels along. The new moon is named
Sputnik. Sputnik is a word that means traveler in
Russian.
A month later, radios sent out more exciting news.
Russian rockets have carried a small spaceship into
space, they said. The ship is just big enough to carry a
little dog. The ship sends out signals about the dog. The
signals will help us learn if animals can live in space.
Everywhere people became interested in rockets and
spaceships.
Authors do not intentionally make text difficult to understand but
rather involve the reader and the readers thinking as they process the
text.
Explicitly teaching students that they are going to be thinking about
text in a new way is an important first step in implementing QtA. Using
a think-aloud-demonstration is one way to do this directly. Classroom
arrangements can also cue students to collaborate and involve their
own thinking when reading difficult text.
The strength of QtA discussions is derived from the modeling of
appropriate problem-solving questions that help readers think about
their comprehension as they read.

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Trainer
Questioning

Questioning the Author (QtA)

from Beck, I.L., & McKeown, M.G., Hamilton, R.L., & Kugan, L.
(1997). Questioning the author: An approach for enhancing
student engagement with text. Newark, DE: International
Reading Association.
Background
Question the Author (QtA) is a comprehension strategy that
requires students to pose queries while reading the text in
order to challenge their understanding and solidify their
knowledge (Beck et al., 1997).
Primarily used with nonfiction text, QtA allows students to
critique the author's writing and in doing so engage with the
text to create a deeper meaning.
Benefits
QtA aims to engage all students with the text. Although it
requires a bit of prep work, you will reap the rewards of your
labor through the student interactions and discussions in
your classroom.
Create and use the strategy
Identify specific steps you should follow during a QtA lesson:
8.

Select a content-specific passage that is both interesting and

can spur a good conversation.
9.
Decide appropriate stopping points where you think your
students need to delve deeper and gain a greater
understanding.
10. Create queries (questions to encourage critical thinking) for
each stopping point.
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Example questions:
What is the author trying to say?
Why do you think the author used the following
phrase?
Does this make sense to you?
To introduce the strategy, display a short passage to your
students along with one or two queries you have designed
ahead of time. Model for your students how you think
through the queries. Invite individual students or small
groups to read and work through the queries you have
prepared for their readings. Remember that your role as the
teacher during this strategy is to facilitate the discussion,
not lead it. When students ask questions that go
unanswered, try to restate them and encourage students to
work to determine the answer.
Model QtA - passage for grades 5-8:
The purpose of presenting A Russian Traveler is to begin to
help students become aware of the kinds of thinking and
work it takes to construct meaning from text. The
demonstration is intended to help students understand what
is different about QtA reading and to emphasize that authors
do not always communicate information clearly, which can
make text difficult to understand.
Authors do not intentionally make text difficult to understand
but rather involve the reader and the readers thinking as
they process the text.
Explicitly teaching students that they are going to be
thinking about text in a new way is an important first step in
implementing QtA. Using a think-aloud-demonstration is one
way to do this directly. Classroom arrangements can also
cue students to collaborate and involve their own thinking
when reading difficult text.
Introduce The Russian Traveler:
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When we read something, if were really going to put the

ideas together so we understand what we read, we have to
work and figure it out as we go along. You can think of it as
a little like talking to yourself about what youre reading and
deciding whether the ideas are clear. Lets read this short
piece of text, because it has some things in it that seem
pretty confusing at first.
The Russian Traveler
The day is Friday, October 4. The year is 1957. People in
many parts of the earth turned on radios and heard
strange news. Russia has used rockets to put a new
moon in the sky, said one station. The tiny moon is a
metal ball. It has a radio in it. The radio goes beep!
beep! beep! as the moon travels along. The new moon
is named Sputnik. Sputnik is a word that means traveler
in Russian.
A month later, radios sent out more exciting news.
Russian rockets have carried a small spaceship into
space, they said. The ship is just big enough to carry a
little dog. The ship sends out signals about the dog. The
signals will help us learn if animals can live in space.
Everywhere people became interested in rockets and
spaceships.
A Russian Traveler - Hmmsomeone from Russia must be
going somewhere. The day is Friday, October 4. The year
is 1957. Ok, so I know something about a date and time.
(Continue is this same way, reading and then stopping
to think aloud.)
People in many parts of the earth turned on radios and
heard strange news. I think the author is trying to tell us
that something important happened.

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Russia has used rockets to put a new moon in the sky, said
one station. Hmm. I dont know what the author means.
How can you put up another moon?
The tiny moon is a metal ball. It has a radio in it. The radio
goes beep! beep! beep! as the moon travels along. I dont
know what the author is trying to tell us abouthow can a
metal ball with a radio in it be a moon?
(At this point in the text, students should be given an
opportunity to say if the passage seems confusing to
them as well. Continue with Guided Practice, asking
students to generate questions with support.
Example thinking aloud follows.)
The new moon is named Sputnik. Sputnik is a word that
means traveler in Russian. Now I think I know what the
author is getting at. You might not know this, but I
remember that there was a Russian satellite or spaceship
called Sputnik. Maybe thats what the author means when
he says new moon---a satellite in space! I think the author
could have explained this better because kids are going to
be reading this and they may never have heard of Sputnik
before.
A month later, radios sent out more exciting news. Russian
rockets have carried a small spaceship into space, they
said. Here, the author is being clearertalking about a
spaceship rather than a moon with a radio.
The ship is just big enough to carry a little dog. So it must
not be a very big spaceship.
The ship sends out signals about the dog. Oh! There is a
dog on the spaceship! I thought they just meant thats what
size it was ---big enough for a dog.
(At this point, students might be asked if they
understood there was a dog on board or thought the
reference to the dog was just an indicator of size.
Then, continue reading.)

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The signals will help us learn if animals can live in space.

Hmmm, what does the author mean, signals could help us
learn if animals could live in space? He doesnt say what
kind of signals ---what kind of signals could do that, do you
think?
Everywhere people became interested in rockets and
spaceships. This last sentence seems like a big jump from
talking about the dog. I guess maybe the author is trying to
connect the ending sentence with the beginning sentence
about people all over the world turning their radios on.
Trainer: Did that offer us ideas about how things are
written sometimes? Sometimes, authors make things very
clear, and then other things are not written in a very clear
way at all ---like calling the satellite a new moon. Did
anyone have any other questions or see anything confusing
as we read along? The strength of QtA discussions is derived
from the modeling of appropriate problem-solving questions
that help readers think about their comprehension as they
read.

Lesson Plan for Teaching QtA

Materials

Direct Explanation
Explain what the
strategy is and why
and when to use it.

Model or
Demonstrate
Show how to use the
strategy.

Text: Select a passage that is both interesting and can

spur good conversation. For this lesson The Russian
Traveler
What: Today we will practice the strategies of
Questioning the Author and Question/Answer
relationships as we read The Russian Traveler.
Why: This strategy prompts critical reading that
skilled readers use in order to deeply understand texts
. Questioning the Author keeps a reader thinking and
monitoring his/her own reading. When: We use
questioning when we need to read for deep
understanding and as we problem-solve during
reading.
How:
When we read something, if were really going to put
the ideas together so we understand what we read,
we have to work and figure it out as we go along. You
can think of it as a little like talking to yourself about
what youre reading and deciding whether the ideas

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are clear. Lets read this short piece of text, because

it has some things in it that seem pretty confusing at
first.
To introduce the strategy, display The Russian
Traveler to your students. Model for your students
how you read and think through the passage. Using a
think-aloud-demonstration is one way to do this
directly. Read aloud and then stop to think aloud. Use
explicit language to explain your thinking as you apply
the strategy. For example:
People in many parts of the earth turned on radios and
heard strange news. I think the author is trying to tell us
that something important happened.
Russia has used rockets to put a new moon in the sky,
said one station. Hmm. I dont know what the author
means. How can you put up another moon?
The tiny moon is a metal ball. It has a radio in it. The radio
goes beep! beep! beep! as the moon travels along. I
dont know what the author is trying to tell us abouthow
can a metal ball with a radio in it be a moon?

Guided Practice
Scaffold the use of
the strategy.
Apply
Use the strategy

Have students work together in small groups to read

another section of the short passage and create
questions. Students practice and the teacher provides
feedback.
Have students practice creating questions with other
short passages.

Content Literacy
Questioning
HO 10 Question-Answer Relationships
Content Literacy
QAR
QuestionAnswerRelationships(QAR)Whatisit?
QAR(Raphael,1982;1986)isastrategythatisdesignedtodemystifythequestioning
process,providingteachersandstudentswithacommonvocabularytodiscussdifferent
typesofquestionsandsourcesofinformationforansweringthesequestions.Thereare
fourlevelsofquestionsduringstrategyuseandpractice.
TwoaretextbasedQAR's:
"RightThere"questionsaskstudentstorespondonaliterallevel;thewordsusedto
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formulatethequestionandtheanswercanbefound"rightthere"inasentenceofthetext.
"RightThere"questionsbeginwithwordsorstatementssuchas"whois,""whereis,"
"list,""whenis,""howmany,""whendid,""name,""whatkindof."Thesequestions
usuallyelicitaonewordorshortresponseandrequireonerightanswer.Sample
questionsare"WhodiscoveredAmerica?"or"Whowasthefirstmantowalkonthe
moon?"
"ThinkandSearch"questionsrequirestudentstoknowhowtheinformationorideasin
thetextrelatetooneanotherandto"search"throughtheentirepassagetheyreadtofind
informationthatapplies."ThinkandSearch"questionsbeginwithwordsorstatements
suchas"summarize,""whatcaused,""contrast,""retell,""howdid,""explain,""findtwo
examples,""forwhatreason,"or"compare."Asamplequestioncouldbe,"Which
strategiescouldtheindividualdescribedinthischapterusetoimprovehisfinancial
situation?
TheotherQAR'scouldbecalledknowledgebasedbecausestudentsmustusetheir
priorknowledgetoanswerthequestion.
"AuthorandYou"questionsrequirestudentstoanswerwithinformationnotinthetext;
however,studentsmustreadthetextmaterialtounderstandwhatthequestionisasking.
Asamplequestionis,"Thetopicofthepassagewascloning.Inwhatinstances,ifever,
doyouthinkcloningshouldbeused?"
"OnMyOwn"questionscanbeansweredwithinformationfromthestudents'
backgroundknowledgeanddonotrequirereadingthetext.
Studentswhobecomeskilledatthisstrategyrecognizetherelationshipbetweenthe
questionsteachersaskandtheanswerstheyexpect;therefore,theyknowwheretofind
informationneededforacorrectresponse.Althoughteachingthisstrategycantaketime,
RichardsonandMorgan(1994)reportthatstudentswholearnedandpracticedthis
strategyforaslittleaseightweeksshowedsignificantgainsinreadingcomprehension.
AnthonyandRaphaelassertthatQARcanalsofacilitatethetransferofcontrolofthe
questioningprocessfromteachertolearner.Thatis,whenstudentsbecomeskilledat
QAR,theyneedtorelylessontheirteacherbecausetheyareabletogeneratedifferent
levelofquestionsthemselvesduringindependentreading.
Howtouseit:
1.Introducethestrategybygivingstudentsawrittenandverbalofeachquestionanswer
relationship.
2.Assignshortpassagestobereadfromthetextbook.Asstudentsfinishreadingeach
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passage,askthemonequestionfromeachQARcategory.Pointoutthedifferences
betweeneachquestionandthekindofansweritrequires.
3.AfterstudentsdemonstratethattheyunderstandthedifferencesamongthefourQAR
levels,assignseveralmoreshortpassagestoberead.Again,askonequestionforeach
categoryofQARperpassage,providestudentswithanswers,andidentifyeachquestion's
QARtype.DiscusswhythequestionsrepresentoneQARbutnotanother.
4.Next,assignshorttextpassages,andprovidethequestionsandtheanswers.Thistime,
however,havestudentsidentifyeachquestionasaparticularQARandexplaintheir
answer.Repeatthereadingandquestioningprocess,buthavestudentsworkingroupsto
determinewhichQAReachquestionrepresentsandwriteouttheiranswers,accordingly.
5.Atthispointhavestudentsreadalongertextpassage.Givethemseveralquestions,not
necessarilyoneperQARlevel.HavestudentsindividuallydeterminetheQARandwrite
theiranswers.ContinueassigninglongerpassagesandvariousQARsforstudentsto
identifyandanswer.
6.Eventually,whenreadingisassignedinclass,studentsshouldgeneratevariousQARs
ontheirownthattheypresenttotherestoftheclassforidentificationandanswers.

HowcouldQARbeusedinscienceinstruction?
Thisstrategyfocusesontherelationshipbetweenquestionsandanswers.Itteaches
studentsthatansweringdifferentkindsofquestionsrequiresdifferentreadingbehaviors
andthoughtprocesses.Thatis,somequestionsrequirestudentstoexploretexttofindan
answer;somequestionsrequirestudentstoexplainsomethingtheyhaveread;some
questionsrequirestudentstoelaborateonwhattheyhavelearned;andsomequestions
askstudentstoevaluatetheirownthinkingaboutatopic.

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QARExamplesthatapplytosciencecontent:
RightThereQuestions
Whatisawarmbloodedanimal?Namethedevicethatchangessolarenergyinto
electricalenergy.Whatisthemovementofairfromlandtowatercalled?Listthethree
typesofmuscles.
ThinkandSearch
Describethecharacteristicsofareptile.Compareandcontrastsolutionandsuspension.
Explainthefourkindsofairmasses.Summarizehowthebloodmovesthroughthebody.
AuthorandYou
Basedontheauthor'sdescriptionofmollusks,identifyanimalsthatyouhaveseenthatfit
thatclassification.Whatevidencehaveyouseenoverthepastthreeyearsthatconfirms
orrefutestheinformationthatyoujustreadaboutglobalwarming?Basedontheauthor's
informationaboutenergysources,whichresourcewouldbemostefficientforyoutouse
ifyouweredesigningahome?Relatewhatyouhavereadaboutpotentialandkinetic
energytoexperiencesthatyouhavehadatanamusementpark.
OnMyOwn
Describeaboneormuscleinjurythatyouhaveexperienced.Whatcanyoudotohelp
stopwaterpollution?Identifyconstellationsthatyouhaveobserved.Whatareyour
thoughtsaboutnuclearenergy?

Trainer
QAR
Demonstrating QAR: Question and Answer
Relationships

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What is it?
Taffy Raphael developed QAR as a tool for clarifying how
students can approach the task of reading texts and answering
questions. It helps them realize the need to consider both
information in the text and information from their own
background knowledge. Without QAR instruction students often
over rely on text information or background knowledge.
Why use it?
This strategy: *explicitly shows the relationship between
questions and answers; *categorizes different types and levels
of questions; *helps student to analyze, comprehend and
respond to text concepts;
and *helps refute the common misconception held by students
that the text
has all the answers.
The gradual release of responsibility:
How will I release the responsibility for learning from the
teacher to the student?
The easiest way to describe this is by using Jeff Wilhelms
model of show me, help me, let me. First, the teacher models
the desired behavior. In this case, the desired behavior is
asking questions, finding answers, and then categorizing the
question-answer relationship. Then, the teacher guides
students as they practice the desired behavior, gradually
releasing the responsibility for learning to them. Finally, the
teacher provides opportunities for the students to try the
strategy on their own as he/she observes and evaluates
student performance to inform instruction.
Example passage and questions:
Tom has lived in Marysville his entire life. However, tomorrow,
Tom and his family would be moving 200 miles away to Grand
Rapids. Tom hated the idea of having to move. He would be
leaving behind his best friend, Ron, the baseball team he had
played on for the last two years, and the big swing in his
backyard where he liked to sit and think. And to make matters
worse, he was moving on his birthday! Tom would be thirteen
tomorrow. He was going to be a teenager! He wanted to spend
the day with his friends, not watching his house being packed
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up and put on a truck. He thought that moving was a horrible

way to spend his birthday. What about a party? What about
spending the day with his friends? What about what he
wanted?
That was just the problem. No one ever asked Tom what he
wanted.
1. How long has Tom lived in Marysville?
2. What is the name of the town where Tom and his family are
moving?
3. What might Tom do to make moving to a new town easier
for him?
4. Does Tom like playing on the baseball team he has played
on for the last two years?
5. In what ways can moving to a new house and to a new city
be exciting?
6. What is Toms best friends name?

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