Critical Reading Process

Pre-mark the text, provide background or a common experience for all students to access the text. What will you do with students so they are ready to read and understand the article?

1. Read the poem

2. What's the poem about?

Poised between going on and back, pulled Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker, Fingertips pointing the opposites, Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on, Running a scattering of steps sidewise, How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases, Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird, He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him, Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate—now!

3. Watch the video

Play

4. How might you have understood the poem differently if you watched the video first?

Interacting with the Text is "Marking the Text"... and more

• Each content area will have common conventions, but differences in what is being marked
• Circle key vocabulary, box the thesis/opposing viewpoints/question

• Marking the text is one way students can interact with the text. We have to think about what do we want them to do with it after it's been marked.
• Do we want them to identify the author's claim?
• Do we want them to find evidence that supports a core idea?
• Do we want them to identify a strategy to solve a problem? (BUCKS)
• Do we want them to decipher the scale of a blueprint or piece of art?

Extending Beyond the Text

Some strategies here will overlap and/or occur after students read the text. These engage students in higher order thinking (Costa's level 2: Processing and Costa's level 3: Output)

Four Academic Thinking Skills for Extension

Examples

Mind map Says, Means, Matters 5 Why's Socratic Seminar

"Reading" is anything from which student will obtain information. This figure refers specifically to text reading.