Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst

why: I have been wanting to read this for a while, but it's also a text I need to review for the course I'm teaching at CU this fall.

when: start 7/17, end 7/19

how: I read this in hard copy once again. I did lots of reading sitting outside at Grand Teton National Park with the dogs while my traveling companions were checking out attractions in the park that the dogs could not visit. I finished reading it in the passenger seat of the car en route from Grand Teton to Grand Mesa, Colorado.

thoughts: I'm impressed by the process that became this book. Beers and Probst read dozens of the novels typically assigned in high school and middle school and kept note of when they paused as readers to think about what they were reading. From these notes, they identified six common signposts where engaged readers may stop to think about a text and ask questions of it (for example, when there is a contradiction from something expected or when a character has an aha moment or when something in the text repeats again and again). The idea is that you can use these signposts to teach students to do more than just decode the words--you can use them to teach students to really think about a complex text, which is something that students absolutely must be able to do on their own. I think this will be a very useful text for my CU students, and I'm looking forward to integrating this work into my own classroom. The signposts may replace the tricks of successful readers I've been using for the last few years. The signposts are way more concrete and specific and really show students what to do.

Click on the book image to read more about this book.

review haiku:
notice and note your
questions, connections, and thoughts
unpack complexity