In this weeks reading, I really enjoyed learning about how we make connections to text. Buehl raises some interesting points about how much our prior knowledge and general interest on a topic affect our satisfaction in comprehension when reading texts. When students read a text, they might know the meaning of certain vocabulary words, where some places are located, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll understand what the text is talking about. They can read and re-read a passage and still not comprehend it because they don't have any prior knowledge on the subject. According to Buehl, we bring three types of knowledge to a text:
Text to Self Knowlege- Direct knowledge occured from ones personal lives and experiences.
Text to Text knowledge- Indirect knowledge resulting from ones reading and study.
Text to world knowledge- Vicarious based on our impressions of how things are, often obtain secondhand.
I think this is certainly true, if the author of a text doesn't necessarily speak to me I am so quick to blank out and my mind will start to wonder. However, if I identify with the authors stance and I have a good amount of prior knowledge on the topic, then I'm all in. To quote Buehl "When a reader is well matched with an author, it seems that the reader is exactly whom the author had in mind when writing the text." To add to that, when authors and readers are matched comprehensions seems like it occurs naturally. However, when we don't know much about the text, and were not interested in the topic, we're saying "BYE FELICIA"
For those of you who haven't seen Friday, "Bye Felicia" means I don't care about your existence or purpose.
Anyways, how do we apply this to our history students? Well Buehl has a few pointers. In order for our students to make sense of the text we give them, they need to have a general knowledge on the topic. We cant give them a text and expect them to make sense of it right away. We need to teach them what's going on, what time period we're talking about etc. After we spend some time talking about the context then, they can read the text with the knowledge they have built up and hopefully come to a better understating of the meaning of the text.
So much of what students know about history is through what they've seen in movies, and as teacher I think we need capitalize on that. We can use that to our advantage to build knowledge. However, we also need to let our students know and remind them that the representation of historical events that movies offer do not necessarily tell the whole story accurately (e.g dramatization, over-acting)
First off, I appreciate the context and background of Bye Felecia, it angers me when people do this and have never seen Friday. Secondly, I agree with you on relating to an author. If i disagree or don't exactly know what the author is arguing I sometimes space out, or I research (it all depends if I'm lazy that day). As college students we often receive readings and texts and are forced to contextualize on our own, but for high school students I agree with you we have to provide general knowledge or background information or we lose them. I can remember "bye Felecia-ing" all the time in high school when texts weren't given following any background information or how the text related to a theme of the course. As history teachers at the high school level we are going to have to provide background information and why the text we assign is important, or students will either skim the text, not read, or be seriously confused and give up reading. I like the strategies you wrote and I feel I would use them as well.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a valuable problem in the concluding paragraph. Pop culture depictions of historical events like movies are very popular, but we can avoid their more problematic aspects by having students criticize them from a historian's perspective. Cultural criticism is frequently used to gauge the mindset of a group. Encouraging students to compare their more careful investigations in class in contrast to sensationalized entertainment in the theater can also make them less susceptible to a lot of the substance-less sloganeering of politics. That makes them better citizens. I know this reaches pretty far beyond literacy, but I think we should recognize literacy and critical thinking's role in the promotion of a democratic society.
ReplyDeleteCindy, first off I would like to say that I enjoyed your blog post. Second, I feel that utilizing historical films in the classroom would prove beneficial for a teacher to provide some context to an event, but I would have to second Patrick's notion that hollywood could distort or portray historical events in an inaccurate light. I would however, take his suggestion of having students look at films from a historian's point of view and take it a step further by suggesting that a productive in class assignment would be for students to highlight both historically accurate and inaccurate elements of a film. For example, take the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, point out its flaws and strong points, and compare it to an accurate pearl harbor documentary would prove to be advantageous.
ReplyDeleteHi Cindy, I really enjoyed reading your post! I connected to your explanation of how your mind will start to wonder off when you are not interested in the text you are reading. I think many of our students will have the same problem. I think if we start of class off with something that will grab our students attention, then hopefully they will be more interested in what they will learn that day. I liked how you explained how, as history teachers, we can apply what Buehl suggests. Refreshing our students memory will enable them to engage or connect with the readings or texts. one strategy I think that can be helpful is reading out loud and explaining some things to our students. Also encouraging our students to question the text will be beneficial so they feel comfortable if they understand a certain concept or event.
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