"Thick Descriptions": Finally a success!

During this lesson yesterday, I finally felt like I had some luck with keeping my students engaged while incorporating science content and reading instruction.  Here are my notes from the observation, which also serve as my first bit of "thick description".  Please note: this is my first attempt at "thick description", and while I am getting the hang of it, I am not quite there yet...bear with me! 

The article the students read

Students were working with partners on reading the article “Why Can We Breathe on Earth?” and then completed an outline together with important ideas from the passage.  First, we previewed the article, and I asked students to identify words they were not familiar with or did not know by highlighting them.  After a few minutes, the students shared the words they had highlighted and we went over them.  I did this because during some of the other lessons, students were not familiar with words used in the reading and this became an obstacle for them.  At least now, the students were somewhat familiar with the words and had heard them before.

Afterward, students paired themselves up and read the article together, working to complete an outline I created.  The students seemed really bored during one of our last lessons when we read and discussed material from the science text book.  Using this article outline gave students a chance to search for relevant science information in the passage and use their non-fiction reading skills as well.  As the students read and discussed the article, I noticed how engaged they all were.

Students read with partners

I walked around the room, careful to avoid stepping on the pairs of students working on the carpet, in the floor, and on the bean bags.  Two students played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to determine who read the first part of the article.  Other pairs were already busy at work, using their highlighters to help them understand the passage better.  Some students highlighted important ideas, while others used the highlighters to find the information in their outline.  The room was filled with conversation as students read and discussed the article about Earth’s atmosphere.  One pair raised their hands frequently, asking what certain words in the passage were, even though we discussed those words before reading.  I wondered if they had paid attention during that part of the lesson.  Another pair chose to work on their outline separately, reading silently and then completing the outline individually before checking their answers together. Two boys who were working together surprised me as they sped through the outline page, getting all the questions correct.  They are best friends who tend to become more interested in talking to each other than in doing their school work.  Apparently, something about this assignment “worked” for them.  Students followed along with the article as their partners read and debated the answers to some of the questions.  I experienced one pair having this conversation about the answer to question #5 (Some of the gas in our atmosphere is oxygen, but most of it is _____________.):

     M: I think I found number 5.  It’s Nitrogen!
     S: (throwing her hands in the air) I told you that!
     Me: Why do you think it’s nitrogen?
     M: It said (pointing to the outline) “Most of it is a ‘blank’, most of it is, but in here (pointing to text) it said, um, most of it is a gas called nitrogen.

As I continued to walk around the room, I was amazed at how engaged the students were.  Most students were working diligently with their partners, either reading or completing the outline.  Several pairs, like the one described above, had different ideas on what the answers to the quesitons could be.  I heard students explaining their thinking and sharing their ideas.  When I checked the students’ outlines, I saw that most of the answers were correct, showing they read and understood the information. 

At the end of the lesson, I asked a few students whether they preferred this method of reading or reading out of the textbook better.  Of the six students I asked, all of them agreed it was better.  One student explained why:

     S: I like it better ‘cause, um, we get to work with a partner and we don’t have to just sit and listen and then go back to our seats and, like, do our work, and we can just read it and do our work.

This lesson showed me that my students can become engaged in this process.  The students really loved working with partners, especially since they were able to choose them.  Using the outline held students accountable for the new information they had to learn and required them to use the non-fiction reading skills we have talked about during previous lessons.  In addition, the outline really gave them a purpose for reading, making it more authentic than simply sitting and listening.  This gives me hope for future lessons!