Or The Yellow Brick Road to Comprehension and Critical Thinking?

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Patterns of Organization

• Or The Yellow Brick Road to Comprehension and
  Critical Thinking?

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Patterns of Organization, Text Structure,
Rhetorical Modes, Oh, My!
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Relax, Dorothy! These Are Synonyms for Our Old
Favorites

• Compare/contrast
• Cause/effect
• Process
• Problem/solution
• Narrative

• Argument
• Classification / division
• Example
• Descriptive

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Why Explicitly Teach Patterns of Organization?

• Writing and reading are two very different
  cognitive functions
• Essential in note-taking across the curriculum
• Reading vs. Writing process
• Formats in which claims and evidence are
  presented

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Why Explicitly Teach Patterns of Organization?

• Establishes, the relationship between the claims
  and the evidence
• When the relationship is clear, evaluation of the
  text can occur
• We cannot expect automaticity in critical reading
  without explicitly teaching patterns of
  organization

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What Do You Mean by automaticity?

• What the reader recognizes automatically
• Facilitates anticipation
• Anticipation facilitates comprehension

Ahh, so this is a visual of what reading looks
like! What happens if a gear gets stuck?
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So How do I get my students to the Emerald City
of Reading Comprehension?
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Know What They Need to Know! According to The
National Education Association

• Teachers may assume a proficient reader of
  literature will, in turn, be a proficient reader
  of expository texts. That is not necessarily so.
• Many good readers of literature tend to have
  trouble comprehending expository texts partly due
  to
• Text structure how the text is organized. For
  example
• 1. A cause and then its effects, an effect and
  the causes,
• 2. A text might present a main idea and then
  details,
• 3. Two different views of a topic, etc.

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Know What They Need to Know! According to The
National Education Association

• While most pieces of fiction follow the same or
• similar general organizational patterns,
  different
• Expository texts can have very different text
• structures. Therefore, it is important to teach
• students to recognize common text structures
• found in expository texts.
• National educational association, using text
  structure

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Expectations of Readers

• As early as third grade, students are expected to
• recognize expository text structures such as the
• following sequence, description,
  compare-contrast,
• cause-effect, and problem-solution. The ability
  to
• identify and analyze these text structures in
  reading
• helps make expository text easier to understand
• Kristi Orcutt, reading consultant, Essdack.Org

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Expectations of Readers

• While the understanding of text structure is
  important at the lower grades for reading and
  writing proficiency, it is crucial for our
  students to understand the complicated and varied
  demands of high school and college reading.
• While we may label expository texts as C/C or
  C/E, the truth is that writers vary text
  structure, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph
  or even sentence to sentence!

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So How Do I Get Them to See What the Author Is
Doing???
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By Teaching Patterns of Organization, You Can
Pull Back the Curtain to Show Your Students What
the Author Is Doing!
You go, Toto!
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The Intersegmental Committee of the Academic
Senates of the California Community and State
University, the University of California
Reports

• 81 of faculty say that the lack of analytical
  reading skills contributes to students lack of
  success in a course
• Faculty respondents concur with CERT standards,
  which call for students comprehension of
  academic and workplace texts
• Reading instruction ends early in students K-12
  education (research indicates direct instruction
  in reading ends in the 4th grade. After that,
  students are expected to move from learning to
  read to reading to learn without explicit
  instruction)

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The Intersegmental Committee of the Academic
Senates of the California Community and State
University, the University of California
Reports

• Teachers in all disciplines must help students
  develop effective critical reading strategies
• We must teach our students to be active makers of
  meaning and teach them the strategies all good
  readers employ to think critically, to argue, to
  compare, to own an idea, and to remember.
  Reading is a process that requires time and
  reflection, and stimulates imagination, analysis,
  and inquiry.

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O.K. but how does this fit in with everything
else weve been doing this week? Is this just
one more thing on an overflowing plate?

• Sadly, the discipline of reading is recursive
  why couldnt I teach something linear??? ?
  However, the good news is teaching the rhetorical
  modes or patterns fits in perfectly with

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O.K. but how does this fit in with everything
else weve been doing this week? Is this just
one more thing on an overflowing plate?

• Reading with and/or against the grain
• Everyones favorite . . . CHARTING!!! As a matter
  of fact, try to do the doing part of the chart
  without the patterns! Its impossible!
• And lastly . . .

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Evaluation!!! Fun stuff Micah and Cali can teach
you!

• E.g., Comparison
• 1. "Why is the author comparing these items?
  What is the author trying to prove by this
  comparison?"
• 2. "Does the author make any claims based on this
  comparison?

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Evaluation!!! Fun stuff Micah and Cali can teach
you!

• 3. Does the comparison support the claims made?"
• 4. Does the author provide other evidence to
  support this claim?
• 5.Would the intended audience believe this
  evidence?

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Reading Comprehension doesnt have to be
somewhere over the rainbow! With a little direct
instruction, your students can get here too!
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Scaffolding for Black Men and Public Space by
Brent Staples

• Example
• Description
• Narration
• Contrasting
• Process
• Comparison
• Note main claim is cause and effect!

Scaffolding is used to extend reach, is task
specific, and is temporary!
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Patterns of Organization by Paragraph

• Paragraph 1 Example
• Paragraph 2 Narration
• Paragraph 5 Contrast
• Paragraph 6 Description Example
• Paragraph 7 Example Narration
• Paragraph 9 Process

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Patterns of Organization by Paragraph

• Paragraph 10 Example, Classification Division
• Paragraph 11 series of Examples
• Paragraph 12 Narration continues series of
  example began in paragraph 11
• Paragraph 14-15 Process
• Paragraph 15 Comparison

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Main Claim

• Because they are often unfairly perceived as
• violent, black men often change their behavior
• in public to appear less threatening to avoid
• becoming victims of violence themselves.