Talking to the Text - a Written Description

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Write a description of what you see in the class session from Talking to the Text (WestEd, 2001). “Talking to the Text” – A Description “Talking to the Text” (WestEd,2001), is a five minute audiovisual recording in which Ms. Rita Jensen presented a lesson to her seventh and eighth grade English Language Development (ELD) class. The objective of the lesson was to analyze the poem “Old Man” by Ricardo Sanchez, by way of “talking to the text”. The video showed the classroom as a print rich environment in which seating was arranged in collaborative groups. The teacher and students were properly attired and were ready to begin the lesson. First, each student was presented with a photocopy of the poem and Ms. Jensen began by setting the purpose of the lesson. She began with a whole class activity, in which the she instructed the students to take three minutes to quickly scan the poem and write down the details of the first thing that came to their mind. She used direct, simple and concise language to make clear the expectations and purpose. This was evident when she said, “Remember now, we are not reading the poem. I just want you to scan the whole thing, like you are looking at it from an airplane overhead (0:24).” The video showed the students using various methods to record their questions, predictions, new vocabulary words and connections. After completing the task, in a teacher-student interactive segment, Ms. Jensen presented students with the opportunity to share their thoughts, impressions or anything that “jumped” at them. Secondly, as the teacher and students continued their interaction, Ms. Jensen modelled the process of talking to the text using a series of questions. Through the use of probing questions, the teacher got the students to think aloud about the poem. Guiding the discussion, Ms. Jensen used higher level thinking questions that allowed

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