Deeper Reading, Chapters 2 and 3

Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading Chapters 2 and 3 focus on teaching challenging texts and focusing the reader on the text at hand.  In my Reading in the Content areas course, we talked a lot about various strategies for creating meaning in text and tackling challenging texts.  Gallagher's book almost feels like a continuation of that same discussion, which was largely driven by Chris Tovani's text I Read It But I Don't Get It. 

In chapter 2, Gallagher essentially describes how he sets up his class for the reading of a text and walks readers through the lesson that he uses with students.  Each piece of the lesson is specifically crafted to touch on various levels of comprehension and reflection of learning.  In particular, I was specifically drawn to page 17 where Gallagher drives home the importance of collaboration in making meaning and identifying how a text works.  We comprehend 70% of what we discuss with others.  If this is true, than we need no other evidence for giving students ample opportunity to discuss, reflect, and create with one another.  I particularly like the idea that students collaborate as a group to make sense of literary devices by actually creating sentences using those devices.  The lesson described in this chapter is a strong approach to increasing comprehension and helping students read deeply without frustration.

Chapter 3 focused on the how to get the reader centered on the reading.  In particular, I appreciated the focus on capitalizing on students' previous learning and making learning relevant.  I believe these key elements are essential to the success of literally any lesson.  The section of suggestions for framing new texts was extremely useful.  Although I have been exposed to many of these strategies, I thought it was really useful to see how they can be applied to readings in creative ways.  For example, I loved Gallagher's idea to have student's locate references to "Big Brother" in various genres of art and media in beginning a unit on 1984.  When beginning a reading with a kind of scavenger hunt of media, you give students a chance to approach text with a sense of background knowledge which is rooted in pop culture.  I think one of the best ways to increase interest and focus the reader's attention is to put the subject and ideas in a text in a language students understand and bridge personal interests with academic learning.