Do you already do this in your class and if so how?
This is something I need to utilize more when I teach. Students that I have taught seem to have difficulty picturing what is happening in the book in their mind while they read. One activity in the book I was shocked to see, but thought was wonderful, is teaching morphemic analysis. My supervising teacher had these as a bell ringer exercise when students first came to class. Very useful. I've also done movie versus the book activities, but it was wonderful how the author of the text created the journal entry. This reading definitely made me reconsider how I do this and what more I can do for my students.
How can we help YA's return to using their imaginations? And why is that important?
I think one way to help with this is by not giving our viewpoint so often in class. Has anyone experienced students asking or waiting for you to tell your point of view or your interpretation? And if you do, how they stop thinking about differently possibilities and just take your own? This may sound sadistic, but I find it hilarious to choose times where I don't help with this at all (with a few exceptions depending on students' needs) and see what students come up with. This is when I've seen them more creative/imaginative, frustrated, but thinking outside the box. During these times, I also help them "step into" the situation. How would they see the events if it happened to them? How would it play out? For high schoolers, it is also nice to let them do more creative activities. They might be older, but crayons are still cool. For reading and writing. . . have options where they can do the same. It seems as if students' metaphoric field of vision is becoming very narrow and it can cause many missed opportunities both local and global.
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Hmmm, it can be difficult sometimes, Amanda, because they do seem to expect a viewpoint to be spoon fed to them. When you can get them to say what they think first, it is pretty funny (but enlightening!) what they come up with.
ReplyDeleteI honestly struggle to describe visualization to students because it is something I have always done. I think in pictures. I make up stories in my head to fall asleep at night, a trick I learned when I was 11 or 12. So, visualization is second hand to me.
I do think activities that involve them using a creative means of their choice can help. Pictures, a mini-play showing what they think will happen next, a cake baked and set up to represent a scene, etc. The cake was a particularly yummy idea by one of my former students. It was about Laura Ingalls Wilder, "On the Banks of Plum Creek". My student made the dugout, the cow, Ma, the creek, everything. I think it helped students visualize what a dugout looked like.
Great post, Amanda!
I think it is great that sometimes you do not help your kiddos with things. When did it stop be okay to make your students think in school or at least explore all possibilities? I do the same thing all the time with other things in class. They always want me to tell them answers, but I always make a point to mention to them that I will not be around to tell you answers your whole life and that part of my job is to teach to you to find answers by yourself.
ReplyDelete(Don't get me wrong...when they have tried everything and they still aren't getting something, I of course hint and encourage) :)