RM Winter 2017

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and written text using the text, Save Our Earth (Stewart, 2005) [ CCSS: RI.4.7, RI.4.8]. Nicole introduced the reading strategy by displaying a phone message which had been half-eaten by her dog on a document camera, explaining how she had tried to read it, and asking students to try to help her read it. Then Nicole explained that the half-eaten phone message and words in persuasive text both tell only half of the message. Nicole said, “Writers put the rest of the ‘message’ in the graphics. We need to ‘read’ the graphics and think about what else they can tell us about why writers believe what they believe.” Nicole set the lesson purpose and explained the writer is going to share why he believes in recycling. Nicole read aloud the first page and modeled her thinking about the meaning of the first graphic and its connection to the words on the page, by saying, “I see two girls in the graphic. That’s a pump, and it looks like when they push on the handle, water comes out into the bucket. The written text just talked about how people need water. I think the graphic is showing us that some people get their water for drinking, cooking, and washing straight from the ground. It’s easy for water from the ground to get polluted.” As the read aloud continued, students shared their thinking about the graphics. Nicole supported students’ attempts to integrate graphics and ideas in written text with questions such as, “The author already said something about this earlier. What was it?”, “How is that similar to what the author just said? Different?”, and “How does this idea connect to what we have already read?” Once the chapter was finished, Nicole and the students compiled a list of the writer’s reasons for believing in the importance of recycling on the whiteboard. Then Nicole passed out photocopied pages of other persuasive texts. Pairs of students collaborated to read graphics, articulate writers’ reasons for supporting recycling, and add them to the class list. Nicole ended the lesson by reviewing the additional reasons, reminding students of the focal strategy, and inviting them to “read” the graphics and think about what else can be learned about the writer’s reasoning when doing research for their “Let’s Use Renewable Energy!” project. Lessons such as these may support elementary students’ understanding of the role of graphics in persuasive text and ability to integrate graphics with ideas from the written text. The lessons may lead to students’ increased comprehension of persuasive text. Conclusion Teaching students to focus appropriately on graphics in persuasive text holds potential for addressing the surprising gap that Michael and his peers revealed to us when we asked them to read and recall persuasive text (Martin & Myers, 2016). Addressing students’ uneven attention to graphics in persuasive text may strengthen public education, enabling K-5 teachers to increase students’ comprehension by helping them to recall more ideas from the written text and graphics in persuasive text and use these ideas to make informed decisions in and out of school. We must all work together to close the gap in elementary students’ comprehension of persuasive text.

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