Teaching+Talking+To+The+Text

__** Strategies for Teaching Talking to the Text **__

1) **Modeling** (using overhead, In Focus or working directly with individuals or small groups)

2) **Exemplars**: students look at, analyze and critique exemplars

3) **Learning Walks**: students look at the work of others and leave a note about what each has done well (especially effective at the beginning as it shows reluctant students just how much other students are writing)

4) **Paired Talking to the Text**: i. One student reads the first paragraph aloud, while the other reads along and marks up that paragraph. Then, the students switch readings and roles.

ii. Students read together and determine what is important.

5) **Marking up Markups**: students read and mark up text. Then, they exchange readings and comment on the comments already recorded. In essence, this launches a written dialogue about the reading.

6) **Self-Analysis or Self-Evaluation**: It is critical that students be given time to look at what they have done and assess how they did. If the goal is to have at least 12 markups, they should count their own and see if they have met this goal. How many markups did they actually have? With self-evaluation, it is also important to give students time to change a deficiency. For example, if they find that they only had 7 markups, it is important to give them time to go back and make more markups. Self-evaluation should not always be an endpoint; it should be part of the process.

7) **Discussion, Think-Pair-Share, Exit Tickets**: Use these strategies to get students to think about and describe how to do each strategy. More importantly, prompt students to explain why each strategy is important. 8) **Learning Log or Learning Journal**: Students can record their thoughts about the different strategies they are learning, why each is important and how each is helping them. This type of activity aims at driving students to become more cognizant of their learning and promotes metacognition.