Ways to Help Students "Hold Their Thinking"

Source: Cris Tovani, 2001

  1. Give students a specific purpose for their reading and writing. Give them something to look for and write as they read. Model how readers mark text and use sticky notes.
  1. Show students how to use a Double Entry Journal. The left side of the page holds words lifted from the text. The right side of the text holds the readers' thoughts about the words.

·  Confusing parts in the text

·  Personal connections to the piece

·  Places indicating character traits

·  Reasons for an event

·  Steps in a process

·  Words evoking questions

·  Interesting facts that support thinking

  1. Share with your students what you do to help yourself remember what you read. Perhaps you write in the margins or maybe you jot notes to yourself. Notice how you as an "expert reader" remembers what you read and share that with your students.

Double-Entry Diary

Quote or description from a scene in the reading / Record of the strategy being taught - What are you are thinking, wondering, visualizing, or inferring from the words in the left column?


Double-Strategy, Double-Entry Diary

Name:

Quote or word/s from article/reading / Connection to quote
Quote or word/s from article/reading / Question/s


Inner Voice Sheet

An Inner Voice Sheet is a way of capturing and holding thinking. Cris calls her “bad voice” her reciting voice – like the Charlie Brown adult characters ("Wa Wa Wa Wa Wa"). Turn your reciting voice off and your conversation voice on by reading with a purpose – you’re talking/interacting with the text. If you’re reading with your reciting voice, you’re not reading. The tools for holding text are great assessment devices.

No matter how good we are as teachers, we can’t make anyone get anything.

Cris did an Inner Voice Sheet with a book that she’d been avoiding. She shared this as a model with her students. The kids were riveted by this model. She then named the thinking by using different colored highlighters, for example:

Blue: Make a statement or comment about the book

Green: Make a connection

Orange: Pull out quotes and respond to them

Red: Ask a question that is curious (one that you don’t know the answer)

If the kids are filling out their Inner Voice Sheets, you don’t have to read the book to know whether the kids are reading. The kids can take their inner voice sheets to their book groups and have an authentic conversation. They don’t need the literature circle roles. It works with all grade and ability levels. See next page for a blank Inner Voice Sheet.

Conversation Calendars

The kids write in the top box and Cris writes in the bottom box. 20 points a day – it’s a strong motivator. This is a way for us to get to know each other. If you have questions, you can ask them here. She rates them on their behavior in class and what they write to her. It’s very subjective. They self-evaluate and Cris evaluates them. The kids are upset when she doesn’t do the conversation calendars. See page after next for a blank Conversation Calendar.

“School should not be a place where young people go to watch old people work.”

Hang Wong

Name: ______Date: ______
INNER VOICE SHEET
(for during reading or re-reading)

Source: Cris Tovani

Title of Text: ______Author: ______

Section of Text (chapter #, page #’s) ______

Directions: Record the conversations you have in your head as you read in the boxes below.* Stop yourself at least 4 times during your reading to make notes about these conversations; the times you stop should be spaced throughout the text. Be sure to have at least four (4) sentences per box. Work to write these sentences clearly.

Inner Voice Conversation on page: ______/ Inner Voice Conversation on page: ______
Inner Voice Conversation on page: ______/ Inner Voice Conversation on page: ______

* Note: Some purposes for reading or for re-reading are:

·  ask a question/ask several questions
·  look for the answer to a question
·  make a connection between what you’re reading and something you already know / ·  look for clues to help yourself draw an inference (inference = not explicitly said in the text)
·  react to what has been read and explain your reaction
·  visualize a picture

Jane Cook’s Notes from Cris Tovani Presentation at the AIC Literacy Conference – Page 1

Conversation Calendars

Source: Cris Tovani

Name ______Period ______Week of ______

Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday

Jane Cook’s Notes from Cris Tovani Presentation at the AIC Literacy Conference – Page 1