Sinatra’s article focuses on scaffolding learners to think, read, and write in varying content areas. Sinatra states that the teaching-learning construct incorporates three specific parts; examining text structure, concept mapping, and implementing teaching styles that help learners achieve reading and writing connections (Sinatra p 266). Understanding the organizational patterns within an expository text aids in student reading comprehension and understanding. Through examining text structures we are able to easily identify the main ideas and supporting concepts throughout the reading. The largest part of the article deals with concept maps and graphic organizers that can be used to help students better categorize and understand the text they are decoding. Sinatra emphasizes that it is important to not just give students the map to complete, but for the teacher and students to first work through the mapping process together so that the students will have a proper model as to how the mapping should take place. Teacher guidance and support is imperative for student understanding and mastery over the mapping strategy.
I love the idea of the graphic organizer. Being a visual learner myself, I think they are a great way for students to physically see how a text can be broken down into specific categories. Although typically lower level language classes are not reading large or difficult texts, I do believe that these strategies could be implemented in a higher language literature class. I found this article to be interesting but not too helpful in my own content area.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Sinatra's article. I agree that modeling is extremely important to concept mapping because students may develop misconceptions if a concept is not properly modeled. Graphic organizers are an amazing way to map a concept for students.
ReplyDeleteI think we can (and do) use concept mapping and graphic organizers in lower division language classes. I am thinking in particular about vocabulary trees and other ways of grouping like information into categories. Sometimes what we do in lower division classes seems so basic to us that we forget it is still large amounts of foreign information to our students and every new tool or trick we can provide them with, even if it is just categorization or organization, it can be extremely helpful to them.
ReplyDeleteThese strategies are teaching students how to approach multiple aspects of academic difficulties for students. If students can learn to dissect problems with proper thinking strategies, then they can attack almost any problem in any subject. These strategies can apply to reading or mathematics. Understanding organization strategies will help students to get the "big picture". Students who can see the big picture will be able understand the more difficult aspects of a text.
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