INTRODUCTION!!!!!

The book I chose to read is Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D.  I was really interested in learning new way to engage my students who are struggling with comprehension and are considered ‘’high risk” because of their socioeconomic factors.  I teach in a small school in a rural part of Los Lunas that is highly populated with Mexican immigrants. 

                This book discusses enactments and how they benefit students.  I’m really looking forward to reading this book because it claims that enactments are …particularly motivating for those students considered at-risk or unsuccessful in normal school settings (p. 14).  This is the type of resource I’ve been searching for. 

                The Introduction of this book discusses the benefits of enactment strategies.  There are seven main benefits. 

1.  Enactments make reading a transformative experience:  This is a way to get students’ minds to move to new places in order to be transformed.

2.  Enactments can be used flexibly:  individually, silently, in writing, through pair work, in large group, spontaneously, with little preparation, 30 seconds, one hour. 

3.  Enactments assist Students before, during, and after reading

                a. before:   activates prior knowledge sets purpose, builds motivation

                b. during:  evoke the textual world, use appropriate reading strategies, enliven reading,

                                motivate, engage imagination.

                c.  after:  reflect meaning, reflect on text structure, so what? And now what?

4. Enactments Harness the Power of the Social Nature of Learning: 

a. require students to work together, requires active involvement of all parties,

develops new interests in students.

                b.  gives everyone a voice, enable students and teachers to construct meaning together

5.  Enactments Invite students to think and imagine which promotes inquiry.

6.  Enactments are motivating:  They give students a reason to learn, a purpose for learning, and a belief that they will be successful. 

                These enactments are ways to support a deeper learning and motivating for students.  This book leads me to reflect on my teaching as a whole.  What strategies do I already have in place to motivate students?  I know that I try to stay positive and encouraging.  I believe that all students can learn and I try to focus on their background knowledge in order to build their curriculum.  I confess that I often fall into the rut of focusing on their weaknesses instead of their strengths, but this is something that I’m afraid I will always struggle with.  I look forward to reading the rest of this book and trying out some of the strategies contained within.  I will share one strategy that I read about that is an example of what an enactment is: 

                Before sharing Ronald Wallace’s poem “Grandmother Grace” with her seventh graders, Kylene Beers cuts up lines from it and gives one to each student.  For ten minutes they walk around, share their lines, and try to stitch together an idea of what the poem may be about.  Their voices rise with their building curiosity.  Kylene smiles.  She’s got them hooked.  She then asks them to sit down and imagine they are one of the characters in the poem, and to talk about their feelings and what may happen to them.  Then Kylene hands out the poem and begins to read it aloud (p.7).

                This idea hooked me into the book!  I can’t wait to read more about it. 

Until next time….I’m Salina