Assignment 1: Double-Entry Reading Journals

Dear Colleagues,

We’ve put together a number of assignment models that can be used with any CRE book. All you need to do is substitute the passages we’ve chosen below with passages from the currentCRE book that are appropriate for your class subject and/or theme. These assignments can be specifically connected with TRS 90 and 91 learning outcomes as noted below, but we believe they would serve equally well for broad literacy outcomes in other courses.

Assignment 1: Double-Entry Reading Journals

TRS 90 Outcome 1: “Develop and demonstrate college level vocabulary skills.” NOTE: We have some reservations about the applicability of this outcome with the CRE books used to date as we do not believe they contribute to a vigorous study of “college level” vocabulary.

TRS 90 Outcome 2: “Apply basic reading comprehension skills to college level reading.” NOTE: As with the vocabulary outcome above, we have reservations about the applicability of this outcome with most CRE books, as we do not view them as “college level reading.”

TRS 90 Outcome: “Develop reading as a process through pre-reading exercises; annotation; reading logs; analyzing purpose, audience, and point of view.”

TRS 91 Outcome: “Demonstrate an understanding of basic grammatical concepts to

Construct grammatical sentences
Write effective sentences
Use effective words
Use correct punctuation and mechanics.”

TRS 91 Outcome: “Develop critical thinking and reading skills through careful analysis of professional and student essays and other reading selections.”

Double-Entry Reading Journals

Double-entry reading journals allow you to fully engage with what you are reading. They demand that you read more carefully and with a critical eye, while teaching you the critical art of close reading. The main idea behind these journals is that we retain more and we learn more deeply when we reflect on our thinking. The journal gives us a place to do that.

Set up your journal this way: On loose leaf paper, divide your sheet into two columns, labeled “Summary” and “Reflection.” As you read, in the first column you should record your notes (a brief summary of the passage you are commenting on). In the second column, you should think about the passage: consider the author’s purpose, the intended audience, implications of the reading, connections you make with it, and questions the reading provokes.

As you read, listen to the questions and observations your mind makes and capture those on paper.

You may want to use one or more of these to help you create your notes:

a paraphrase of a complex segment of text
a possible explanation of a confusing material
a main idea from the resource and why it is important
a strong positive or negative reaction and an explanation of that reaction
a reason for agreeing or disagreeing with the author/producer
a comparison and/or contrast of a passage with another resource or with prior knowledge
a prediction based on evidence from the resource
a question generated as a result of reading, viewing, or hearing the resource
a description of a personal experience that relates to the resource

(Brown & O’Brien)

After you finish the process, re-read your notes. At this point, you might write down any answers you've found. You might write down any further thoughts, comments, or questions that jump into your mind as you re-read your initial notes. Follow your thoughts. Note things you might want to research or study further.

Adapted from Brown, Kimberly & O’Brien, Michelle. “AP Language and Comprehension Summer Reading 2009.” Hershey High School. 2009<

Assignment 2: Paraphrase Practice

TRS 90 Outcomes:

Paraphrase Practice

Working collaboratively with a partner, please complete the following four tasks. One goal here is for you and your partner to talk about the author’s ideas, to hear how someone else interprets the reading, and to negotiate a common understanding. In other words, you and your partner should be working on this together.

ANNOTATE this passage from The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens:

On the frontlines—in humanitarian crises, in wars overseas, and around some kitchen tables here at home—I’d seen that peace is more than the absence of war, and that a good life entails more than the absence of suffering. A good peace, a solid peace, a peace in which communities can flourish, can only be built when we ask ourselves and each other to be more than just good, and better than just strong. And a good life, a meaningful life, a life in which we can enjoy the world and live with purpose, can only be built if we do more than live for ourselves (11).

PARAPHRASE each section, “translating” the author’s wording into your own alternative wording, capturing the essential meaning in your own words and style.

a. On the frontlines—in humanitarian crises, in wars overseas, and around some kitchen tables here at home—I’d seen that peace is more than the absence of war,

b. and that a good life entails more than the absence of suffering.

c. A good peace, a solid peace, a peace in which communities can flourish, can only be built when we ask ourselves and each other to be more than just good, and better than just strong.

d. And a good life, a meaningful life, a life in which we can enjoy the world and live with purpose, can only be built if we do more than live for ourselves.

State the author’s THESIS. This should be 1 sentence only, following the 3-part thesis format.

CONNECT the ideas in the passage to other ideas or events: personal, community, national, global. Write a paragraph explaining your connection.

Criteria:

+ 10for annotations that break down and clarify the author’s ideas: complicated phrases and sentences, and unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts.

+ 10 for capturingall the ideas in the original; your paraphrase is complete

+ 10for accurately capturing all the ideas in the original; you have represented the ideas as the author most likely intended

+ 10 for explaining the ideas in a clear and easy-to-understand way

+ 10 for elaborating on the ideas so they are explained in more detail than the original (without adding any new information)

+ 10for making the source of these ideas clear with frequent signal phrases

+ 10for “translating” the original text into your own style of expression

+ 10 for a complete 3-part thesis

+ 10for making a clear distinction between your objective summary of the source material and your response (connection) to it

+ 10 for an insightful connection with the material

Short Summary Practice

ANNOTATE these passages by Lisa Schiffman, who is writing about Lynell Schalk, a ranger for the Bureau of Land Management with the important job of protecting ancient cultural sites.
SUMMARIZE each paragraph, pulling out the main ideas, “translating” the author’s wording into your own alternative wording, capturing the essential meaning in your own words and style.

Riding for the Brand by Lisa Schiffman, August 18, 2005

In the course of her 30-year career fighting archaeological crime, Lynell Schalk showed grit and determination in her mission to preserve this country's Native American cultural heritage. From the rugged canyonlands of southeastern Utah, to the arid landscape of the California desert, she doggedly tracked down criminals who plundered ancient sites for profit. On horseback, by jeep, in helicopters, and during undercover operations--she pursued them at great personal risk. The first law-enforcement officer appointed to the Bureau of Land Management, Schalk had to work twice as hard as her male colleagues in order to prove her worth. "When apprehending someone she would stand her ground in a confrontation," recalls Seth Rigby Wright, retired sheriff of San Juan County, Utah, who first met Schalk in the early 1970s, "She didn't wait for an order."

Schalk, 55, traces her interest in archaeology back to her youth. Back then, growing up along the Columbia River in southwestern Washington, archaeology was a family affair both her parents were members of the Oregon Archaeological Society, and her brother graduated with a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of New Mexico. "We were surrounded by archaeology," she recalls. "I spent all of my waking hours outdoors as a child." She remembers family outings, seeing rock art and watching Indians from the Yakama tribe fish for salmon by Celilo Falls on the Columbia, as their ancestors had done for centuries--before 1957 when construction of the Dalles Dam ended the Indians' traditional way of life.

In 1972, after graduating from the University of Washington with a philosophy degree, Schalk worked as an aquatics instructor for the Seattle public schools and parks and recreation department. One afternoon, while wandering down the aisles of a local bookstore, she came upon Edward Abbey's memoir Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, recounting his two summers as a ranger at Arches National Park, in southeastern Utah. The pictures on the cover attracted her attention--she had vacationed in Utah the previous summer and had fallen in love with the Four Corners region. Reading the book changed her life. "It motivated me to get a ranger job. I decided if Abbey could do it, so could I."

State the author’s THESIS. This should be 1-2 sentences only, following the 3-part thesis format.
CONNECT the ideas in the passage to other ideas or events. Write a few sentences explaining your connection.

Criteria:

+ 5 for annotations that break down and clarify the author’s ideas: complicated phrases and sentences, and unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts.

+ 10 for accurately and completely capturing the main points of the author

+ 10 for explaining the ideas in a clear and easy-to-understand way that is in your own style of expression

+ 5 for presenting an objective and neutral explanation of the topic , citing the author for his/her ideas

+ 10 for a complete thesis

+ 10 for an insightful connection to the material

+ 50 for work that meets the basic requirements, being a complete attempt of all four tasks

Long Summary

You have practiced many summaries of short readings. A summary of a longer piece of writing requires additional preparation, so you should follow these steps:

Read the assignment carefully. Annotate as you read, locating the essential information in each paragraph.

State the author’s thesis in one or two sentences in your own words. Your thesis statement should include three bits of information:

The author’s overall opinion
The author’s elements of support
The author’s antithesis

Reread the chapter or article, this time dividing it into sections, or major points. Explain each section’s major point in a complete sentence. These sentences will be your topic sentences.

Turn each topic sentence into a paragraph by elaborating on the idea in the topic sentence, using your annotations. You should discuss the author’s ideas in your own words, in your own pattern of thought. Each section summary may cover several paragraphs or one, depending on the points the author is making. Include significant details where needed in order to capture the main parts of the author’s message completely. Drop minor details and repetition. Be sure to include frequent signal phrases.

Check your summary against the original to make sure you covered all the main points accurately and completely. Your summary should give your reader a good picture of the entire article: the author’s thesis and all the main points. Be sure to check for the 5 Rules of Summary:

Accurate: You cover all the main points precisely and completely.
Objective: Your attitude stays out.
Cited: You give frequent credit to the author.
Translated: You explain the chapter in your own words and your own pattern of thought.

Criteria:

+ 50Selection: You have summarized the key points (the essential information: the main claims and secondary information) the author is making in most paragraphs

+ 20Accuracy: Your summary information is an accurate restatement of the author’s message

+ 10“Translation:” You have “translated” the author’s ideas into your own style of expression: not just copied the author’s phrases and not just substituted synonyms into the original sentence pattern

+ 10Clarity: Your summary clearly explains the complete text

+ 5Logic: You have made clear connections between the author’s claims and his/her evidence

+ 5Citation: You have included frequent signal phrases and parenthetical citations

Interview with the Author

With your partner, prepare an interview with the author of the text we have just read. Each partnership will present their interview to the class. Your interview can be taped in advance or presented to our “live studio audience.” You will also turn in a written version of your prepared interview, which includes your primary questions, follow-up questions, and the author’s scripted answers.

General Guidelines:

Your interview preparation should include at least 5 open-ended primary questions, 5 follow-up questions, and the author’s scripted answers. It’s okay to ask more questions if you’d like.

Open-ended questions: Open-ended questions are ones that require more than a simple yes/no or a single word or two. Instead, they invite the interviewee to talk at length. For example, imagine the answers to the questions that follow. Which would draw out a more interesting answer?

Do you get on well with your boss? OR Tell me about your relationship with your boss.

Who will you vote for this election? OR What do you think about the two candidates in this election?

Your primary questions should touch on the main points of the reading. Good primary questions demonstrate that you have identified the author’s big sections of thought that form the fundamental structure of the reading.

Follow-up questions: The best kind of follow-up questions are ones that help the author elaborate on his/her answers, ones that probe for deeper insight, such as Why do you think that? How did you discover that? Can you give an example? etc…

You should assume that your audience has not read the material. Imagine the audience for this as an informational TV talk show audience interested in the reading topic.

As with any presentation, you can refer to some notes to a slight extent, but do not read them to your audience. Your author’s answers should be more like an informative discussion with the interviewer.

Criteria:

+ 5 for a welcome to the audience and a brief introduction to the author

+ 5 for a conclusion to the interview

+ 5 for a professional appearance and manner

+ 5 for evidence of careful preparation and rehearsal—no reading

+ 10 for summarized material from the reading that follows the 4 rules of summary

+ 20 for questions and answers that amply cover the main points of the reading material

+ 50 for work that meets the basic requirements

- 10for late work

Vocabulary Assignment

One of the goals of this course is to improve your vocabulary. As you do this, your reading comprehension, retention, and analysis will improve.

For each reading assignment, you will be expected to use your dictionary to look up unfamiliar words and references. For each word, circle or underline it, look it up in the dictionary, write a synonym definition in the margin of your text, and finally, write the complete definition in your vocabulary journal* along with something that helps you remember its meaning, such as a sentence that uses the new word, a mnemonic device that you have created, or a visual reminder. The number of vocabulary you choose is relative to the reading assignment, but a general guideline might be 1-3 words per page.

Your vocabulary choices should include many kinds of “unfamiliar” words:

Words that are completely unknown to you
Words that you have a vague, but not completely certain, idea about
Words that you think you’ve figured out by context clues
Words that you understand in your total vocabulary but that haven’t transferred to your working (used in speaking and writing) vocabulary

After you’ve read the text once and defined vocabulary and terms, re-read the text! This will help you retain your new knowledge and to better understand the text.

You will turn in your vocabulary journals with your annotations.

I encourage you to review your vocabulary journal often to cement the new words in your mind and to use the new vocabulary in your writing assignments!