Each school year, I like to implement a few new ideas into my practice. After reading Kelly Gallagher's Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It, I was struck by his Article of the Week (AoW) assignment. It reminded me of the Current Events articles assigned by my history teachers in high school, which helped spark my interest about the world beyond "my world".
In Readicide, Gallagher discusses his "students lack of background knowledge of the world." He uses the Article of the Week assignment to build their background knowledge, improve their reading skills, and help students tackle the challenging texts they often face on standardized tests.
The idea to use current articles to teach students how to do a Close Reading was something I'd overlooked. With the Common Core's heavy emphasis on nonfiction text, I realized this was one area of my practice I needed to improve in. Equally important factors in my decision:
- In previous years, I didn't expose my students to nonfiction as often as I woud have liked to.
- My students have limited experiences in reading nonfiction.
- My students struggle when reading texts written above their reading level.
- My students don't have the skills required to read such challenging texts.
Read. Question. Comment.
As Gallagher notes, the idea behind the Article of the Week (AoW) is to give students an article on Monday and have them read it by Friday. They must show proof that they've done a Close Reading of this text and answered the 2 focus questions at the end of the article. Following these steps will prepare them for the small group and whole class discussions that take place on Friday.
When I first introduced my students to the AoW, we read the article together as a class. Then, I modeled how to do a Close Reading for them in a Think-Aloud by:
- highlighting my confusion
- writing questions about the text
- writing comments about the text
Naturally, this required me to go back and re-read the article a few times. As I did, I highlighted words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs that confused me. In the margins of the article, I asked What, Why, and How questions so that my students would see how questioning the text allows me to have a deeper understanding of that text. My comments focused on:
- parts where I agreed/disagreed with something the author said.
- places where I had strong feelings about certain parts of the article.
- parts of the articles where I made connections (text-to-self, text-to-world, text-to-text).
After modeling these steps for my students, I asked them to do the same with their copy of the article. I walked around the room clarifying the directions, looking closely at what they were highlighting, while also reading their questions and comments. I noticed that many students asked questions about word meanings and there were very few, if any, comments.
I then asked several students to share their questions, which I wrote in the margins of the article displayed on my smart board. Without dictionaries or thesauri, we worked together to clarify our confusion. We did this by:
- using context clues to help us make guesses about confusing words/phrases
- substituting these guesses into the original sentences
- re-reading these sentences with our substitutions
- checking our understanding to see if our guesses sounded correct within the context of the sentence (going back through these steps when they didn't)
Following these steps allowed us to answer all of our questions. We then shared our comments and and answered the 2 focus questions at the end of the article. For first term, those focus questions included:
- What is the author's purpose?
- Who is the intended audience?
For second term, we're using these questions:
- What is the author's main idea (The one most important thing the author wants me to know is...)
- What types of details does the author use to support this main idea?
After our discussion, I modeled the final step for the Article of the Week assignment, which requires students to write a one-page Reflection about what they've read. With each article, I give 3 Possible Reflection Topics (2 of these questions are closely connected to the article in some way and the final question is generic). Here are examples from this week's AoW:
- What do you think of American companies who profit by employing immigrants because they're "cheap labor"?
- Would the American economy thrive without immigrant workers? Explain.
- Choose one word, phrase, sentence or paragraph and reflect. (Generic question that is included on each AoW).
On Fridays, students are given 10-15 minutes to discuss the AoW the week in their groups. They work together, to clarify their confusion. As they do, I walk around the room and check-in with each group. I ask them questions and give them feedback like:
- Is there something your group hasn't clarified that I can help you with?
- What do you think of ____________?
- How do you know you're right?
- Let's take a closer look at that. ________ will you read that sentence/paragraph?
- Why do you think the author chose that word/phrase?
- What do you think that means now?
After small group discussion, we discuss the Article of the Week as a class. During this time, I ask:
- What parts of the article are you still confused by?
Based on my "check-ins", I have some idea about which groups were able to clarify the parts of the article that maybe other groups haven't clarified. So, I ask these groups to share first. Anything that isn't clarified, we discuss and work through together. Students are also given the opportunity to share their comments as well.
The last 10-15 minutes of class, students are given time to write/share their one-page reflections. Students are then assessed on whether or not they've completed the Close Reading steps, written their one-page reflections, and participate in small group and whole class discussions.
Stronger Thinking = More Skilled Readers (and Writers)
- What does ____ mean?
They're now asking questions like:
How do expectations affect students?
Why do teachers give them special treatment?
How did he become a psychologist?
Why did they "shift"?
Why would he be unlikely to see that behavior as threatening?
How could they change their beliefs?
In the beginning, there were also very few comments and of those comments, many sounded like:
- I don't understand this part.
- I'm confused by this.
- I agree/I disagree.
Now, I'm seeing comments like:
I wouldn't be convinced either.
I'm disappointed they're not getting to the issues or doing anything about it because it seems like they don't care.
I think this is unfair. The wealthy should have their taxes raised, not the middle class.
The experiment that Rosenthal conducted was genius!
I've had that happen to me before, it got me mad because I wanted to participate.
These questions and comments show me students are reading their articles more closely, which is evidenced by the increased amount (and depth) of the questions and comments written on their articles. We've also added in Phrase Breaking to help break up longer sentences, making these sentences more manageable.
Student discussions have become more thoughtful. We're spending less time clarifying word meanings and more time discussing the issues brought forth by each author and are moving into debates.
In listening to/reading student Reflections, I've noticed that students are beginning to add in details from the article as support for their ideas. This is not something I've modeled for them or requested from them, it is the natural consequence that results from becoming a skilled reader.
And, of course, the majority of my students Reading/Language test scores improved between the Pre-Assessment and Mid-Term. Some gains were as high as 40%.
A Pitch to My Colleagues
As the Freshmen PLC Leader for my department, I pitched the Article of the Week idea to my team who agreed to adopt this assignment into their practice as well. This allows us to share the responsibility for finding articles, evaluate the impact the AoW is having on student learning, and troubleshoot problem areas.
Each person is assigned a week and the article must be emailed to the team by Thursday. This gives us just enough time to share our thoughts about the next week's article, check the readability level (we try to use articles 2-3 years above the average reading level of our students), make adjustments, if necessary, and have our copies made for Monday.
In our weekly meetings, the Article of the Week is always an agenda item and has led to discussions that include:
- readability levels of the articles
- a list of resources for finding articles
- what topics students are interested in/not interested in
- analyzing the types of questions/comments students are writing
- troubleshooting problem areas (students who aren't prepared, don't participate in discussions, etc.)
- improvements we've seen in reading/writing skills
- ideas for improving student-to-student interaction (Socratic Seminar, Jigsaw Method, Kate Kinsella's Sentence Starters)
- comparing student work
- analyzing how the Article of the Week has impacted our Reading/Language test scores
The Article of the Week is a shared practice that my colleagues and I hold each other accountable for. It has allowed us to add non-fiction texts into our teaching without compromising who we are or what we know is good for kids. And, our students are becoming skilled thinkers, stronger readers and better writers because of it!