Comparison of the Strategy to Other Content Area Reading Activities
I returned at the end of the month to watch the culminating activities
. From the planning stages, these performances had evolved to elaborate presentations.One culminating activity stood out from the rest. One group did performance art. It was listed on the possibilities for culminating activities, and the group had taken the time to research what performance art was and apply it to this chapter. One student would yell out the important vocabulary word and then the rest of the students would illustrate the meaning of the word with their bodies. It was effective and hilarious at the same time!
As the first round of Textmasters drew to a close, Mrs. Stelkan provided an exit slip for students to write their thoughts about the new strategy. She asked students to respond to the question, What do you think of the Textmasters strategy?
Students were opinionated in their reactions to the strategy. After reading through all responses, three themes emerged: response to the roles sheets, comparison of the strategy to other content area reading activities, and improvements made in their reading. The themes were checked using interpreter reliability: Two outside readers read through the student responses and coded them using the three themes to provide validity of 90% or above.
Students had several interesting opinions about the roles. Most students felt that the Discussion Director was an enjoyable role. "I really like Discussion Director because I love making questions," said one student.
Another stated, "Discussion Director is fun since you kind of lead and extend the discussion." Other students commented on the difficulty of the Summarizer role: "I don't really like doing the Summarizer role sheet because it takes so long." Another said, "My favorite job is the Webmaster because it's fun making different kinds of graphs to show what I know." One student asked for more variety: "Maybe we should add a few different roles," while others were satisfied with the roles used: "I like the fact that we never do the same job twice." commented on how they enjoyed participating in something different in a science class: "They're funner [sic] than worksheets," "It is definitely better than the types of learning in previous years," and "I'm learning more by doing this then [sic] just reading and doing a big writing thing.
You are also thinking outside the box." A few students talked about the new use of the book: "I like how the questions are not in the book" and "I really like it because we are reading out of our textbook but in a much funner [sic] way." Finally, students also mentioned the learning aspect of the strategy: "It seems easier but I know I am learning something." And "I like Textmasters. It gets you to really think and wonder."
Improvements Made in Reading. The final theme that emerged through the student exit slips came from student comments about connecting the strategy to reading. Students talked about vocabulary: "It helped me understand how to look carefully in the text for the definitions of words I don't know."
Students also mentioned the short reading assignments: "Reading a couple of pages made it easier to understand the stuff." Others talked about focus and time management: "I'm staying on task more because of the roles" and "It helps me work slower instead of rushing and messing up." Finally, other students wrote about how their peers helped them improve their skills: "The Summarizer is helping me in reading and retelling the story" and "It helps you understand it better by you getting to listen to other people's explanations."
Comparison of the Strategy to Other Content Area Reading Activities
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