Engaging With Literature - Learner

Annenberg/CPB Video Library Guide

Engaging With Literature:

A Video Library, Grades 3?5

A nine-part professional development video library for grade 3?5 literature and language arts teachers

Produced by Maryland Public Television

Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3?5 is produced by Maryland Public Television ? 2003 Corporation for Public Broadcasting All rights reserved. ISBN: 1-57680-685-5

Funding for Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3?5 is provided by Annenberg/CPB. Annenberg/CPB, a partnership between the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. Annenberg/CPB funds educational series and teacher professional development workshops for the Annenberg/CPB Channel. The Channel is distributed free by satellite to schools and other educational and community organizations nationwide, and streamed via broadband on the Web. The notable series, workshops, and activities of Annenberg/CPB include American Passages: A Literary Survey; Conversations in Literature; English Composition: Writing for an Audience; The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School; In Search of the Novel; Literary Visions; Making Meaning in Literature: A Video Library, Grades 6?8; Making Meaning in Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grades 6?8; News Writing; Signature: Contemporary Writers; Teaching Reading K?2: A Library of Classroom Practices; and Voices & Visions. To purchase copies of our videos and guides, or to learn more about our other professional development materials and the Annenberg/CPB Channel, contact us by phone, by mail, or on the Web.

1-800-LEARNER P.O. Box 2345 S. Burlington, VT 05407-2345 info@

Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................1 About This Video Library......................................................................................................1 Viewing Suggestions ............................................................................................................4 Tips for Facilitators................................................................................................................5 About the Contributors ........................................................................................................7

Video Clip 1. Signposts ..............................................................................................................17 Video Clip 2. Voices in the Conversation ....................................................................................27 Video Clip 3. Starting Out ..........................................................................................................33 Video Clip 4. Responding to Literature ......................................................................................39 Video Clip 5. Sharing the Text ....................................................................................................47 Video Clip 6. Building Community ............................................................................................55 Video Clip 7. Book Buddies ........................................................................................................63 Video Clip 8. Finding Common Ground ....................................................................................69 Video Clip 9. Discussion Strategies ............................................................................................77 Appendix ....................................................................................................................................85

Credits ................................................................................................................................85

About This Video Library

Overview

Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3?5 presents a series of eight classroom visits introduced by an overview video that explains the basic principles upon which the eight teachers have built their classrooms. The visits were taped as they occurred, presenting one lesson with commentary from the featured teachers explaining what they hoped to accomplish and evaluating their success.

The eight classrooms were selected for several reasons. These third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classes represent a cross-section of the American educational fabric. There are classes in rural, suburban, and urban locations. There are small, medium, and large classes, with students drawn from an assortment of cultures and socioeconomic levels. The students themselves range widely in their abilities.

However, all of these classrooms do have one thing in common.

In all eight classrooms, students have been empowered to engage with literature in the most active way possible. They know that they can rely on their logic and intuition to enter into and move around the world of a text, formulating ideas and opinions about what is happening there and what it means to them. They know their ideas and opinions are important to others in the class, and they feel confident in sharing them with others. They expect that their own ideas and impressions may grow or change as they are shared. Most importantly, they are all deeply engaged in the text, and turn back to it at many points to validate opinions and ideas in its explicitness.

In short, they are students in classrooms that celebrate this process of learning, called envisionment building by Dr. Judith Langer, Director of the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement. Through years of research with readers of all ages, Dr. Langer has found that effective readers engage with works of literature in just this manner. They enter into the world of the text, and uncover information as they travel through its words. They compare what they find with what they already know, forming hypotheses that are tested and often revised as they continue to engage in the text. Finally, they accumulate their experience with those of others through discussion and writing to form a picture of the text that remains constantly open for revision, long after they have put the text down.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Langer's research, you can consult other libraries and workshops in this series, including Conversations in Literature, Making Meaning in Literature: A Video Library, Grades 6?8, and Making Meaning in Literature: A Workshop for Teachers, Grades 6?8. These are all available through Annenberg/CPB. See for information.

Engaging With Literature Library

-1-

Introduction

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download