Standard Instruction Set: Textbook Skills
Overview
This Standard Instruction Set contains important information needed to understand and use the Textbook Skills lesson guides [http://www.textmapping.org/lessonGuides.html#textbookSkills]. It includes the following:
This standard instruction set is copyrighted under the CCPL [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0]. It is offered here for free and may be printed, copied, republished, redistributed, and improved upon provided you give proper attribution [http://www.textmapping.org/copyright.html#properAttribution] and do not charge a fee to others to whom you provide either copies or derivative works. For more about this, read the Guidelines for Using Our Content [http://www.textmapping.org/copyright.html#howToUseContent] on our copyright [http://www.textmapping.org/copyright.html] page.
Materials
You will need access to a photocopier or scanner, and the supplies listed below - many of which you may already have on hand:
- The textbook you are currently using in your classroom.
- A photocopy of the unit or chapter that your students will be reading. [see Get Started, below.]
- glue stick or clear cellophane tape
- colored highlighters, markers, or crayons
- a flat working surface, such as:
- a wall-mounted blackboard, whiteboard, or bulletin board
- one or more walls in your classroom
- one or more rows of tables or desks - butted against each other, end-to-end, to form a continuous surface.
- the floor of your classroom
- any combination of the above
- chalk (if you will be working on a blackboard)
- whiteboard markers (if you will be working on a whiteboard)
- masking tape (if you will be taping the scroll to a blackboard, whiteboard, or wall)
- thumbtacks (if you will be hanging the scroll on a bulletin board)
Get Started
Choose the textbook portion - such as a unit or chapter - to present to your class.
Photocopy all of the pages of the chosen portion.
The copies should be single-sided.
Be sure to include all relevant front and back matter - for example, in the case of a textbook chapter, include the chaper introduction and chapter review.
For information about photocopying copyrighted material for classroom use, see our discussion of copying and fair use [http://www.textmapping.org/fairUse.html].
Use glue stick or clear cellophane tape to attach the photocopied pages together in a left-to-right scroll.
For more on this, see Making a Scroll [http://www.textmapping.org/making.html].
Hang the scroll on your classroom blackboard, whiteboard, bulletin board or wall; or unroll it on a long row of tables, or on the floor.
Wherever you place it, make sure that all of your students will be able to see it - don't worry about them being able to read the text from a distance; it is more important that they get a clear, birds-eye view. They should be able to see the general layout as well as features such as headings and illustrations. If they want to read something, they'll need to get up from their seats and walk up to the scroll. To accomodate this, be sure that there is walking and working room along the entire length of the scroll.
Try to keep the scroll intact as a single, continuous strip. This is important, as it relates directly to a number of Textmapping's key instructional benefits [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html]. Depending upon the length of the textbook selection you have chosen, the scroll may be long enough to wrap partially around your classroom. This is a good thing. The visual effect of the scroll wrapping around the classroom makes a powerful point.
If you must break the scroll into smaller segments, be sure that the segments comprise logical chunks - for example, you can logically break the scroll of a chapter into sections and sub-section segments, as defined by headings and sub-headings. Having said that, the goal should be to keep the scroll intact as a single, continuous strip.
Give your students a walk-through of the scroll.
"Today we are starting on [unit or chapter number and title]. Here's what it looks like." Walk back and forth along the length of the scroll as you talk.
Ask your students what kinds of information they can see. You are looking for them to recognize features such as introductory text and review text, headings and sub-headings, illustrations, vocabulary words, inline questions, sidebars, and the like.
Ask your students what kinds of spatial information they can see. For example: Are certain sections longer than others? Is this textbook "text-heavy", or are there a lot of illustrations? Are the illustrations clustered, or evenly distributed?.
Use colored markers, highlighters, or crayons to mark the text.
Highlight, circle, or underline every feature that your students identify. For example, circle block-level features such as sections, sub-sections, illustrations, and pre-reading cue lists; highlight inline questions and key (bold print) words.
For more on this, see Mapping a Scroll [http://www.textmapping.org/mapping.html].
The lesson guides [http://www.textmapping.org/lessonGuides.html] you are using will tell you which features to mark, and how to mark them.
Guidelines
Have your students put away their books. You want them to pay attention to you and the scroll. You do not want them to follow along in their textbooks - the scroll serves as the common text and should be the focus for everyone in your classroom.
Textmapping gives you a new set of tools - visual, spatial, kinaesthetic, and tactile communication tools - that you can use to reach out to your students [see Working with learning-disabled students, below]. Use these tools to show your students what active engagement looks like:
- Be active. Be physical. Move around [benefit #3 http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#active].
- step back from the scroll to take in the full view.
- step close to the scroll to get to the details.
- pace back and forth along the length of the scroll as you are talking about it.
- When discussing key features on the scroll, use gestures. For example, point, poke, and prod at headings, questions, and pre-reading cues; slap your palm down on illustrations, sections, and paragraphs. Such gestures make clear the connection between your words and the text - and they make things interesting for your students: "This is a key paragraph" [slap]; "This illustration..." [poke, poke] "...relates to this whole section over here" [lean on it]
- Mark everything you talk about. Make a point of it. Drive the point home by doing it consistently and repeatedly. If you talk about a feature, mark it. If you talk about a certain type of feature, mark all instances of that feature. Marking is the essential activity in Textmapping. If you aren't marking, you aren't mapping. For more on this, see benefit #3 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#active] and benefit #5 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#traceableRecord].
Once you have modeled the process for them, let your students take over the mapping. Now it's time to play "devil's advocate". Ask them hard questions. Challenge their answers. Push them to cite the text. Always ask them to show you where...and explain to you how they know.... For example:
- "Show me where it says that. Explain to me how you knew to look there."
- "Show me where the headings (or sub-headings, key words, maps, pre-reading questions, etc.) are. Did you find all of them? Explain to me how you know that you found all of them."
- "Might there be more? Show me where you plan to look. Explain to me how you knew to look there next."
- "Show me where in the text you found the evidence to support your answer. Explain to me how you knew that this evidence was relevant"
- "Is this all the evidence? Might there be more? Show me where you plan to look. Explain to me how you knew to look there next."
The best way to tap into the instructional benefits [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html] of Textmapping is to ask students to show you where...and explain to you how they know.... Have them walk right up to the scroll and mark the relevant information. For more on this, see benefit #2 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#wholeView], benefit #3 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#active], benefit #4 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#linksComprehension], and benefit #5 [http://www.textmapping.org/benefits.html#traceableRecord].
Working with learning-disabled students: Scrolls and Textmapping tap into "global" - i.e., visual, spatial, kinaesthetic, and tactile - learning abilities. Learning-disabled students are often gifted global learners; many demonstrate a strong affinity for the Textmapping approach because it is a good fit with their learning style. So when working with LD students, set aside more time for them to explore and stretch their global learning abilities in the service of reading. Consider increasing the opportunities for tactile and kinaesthetic interaction with text and exploring alternative visual-spatial arrangements of text. For example:
- Let them make and map their own scrolls (for a more "hands-on" experience).
- Have them work with their scrolls on the classroom floor. Have them take off their shoes and walk back and forth, directly on their scrolls, as they study them and map them. In effect, they are placing themselves "in" the text. Their connection to it becomes more concrete as they walk across it: They feel, against their feet, the paper scroll and the floor underneath it. They become aware of where they are - where their bodies are - in the text. They experience the text as an area of fixed dimensions through which they moving - crouching closer, stepping back, moving from the middle to the end to the beginning and back again. For a student who has had difficulty getting past basic decoding problems - and as a consequence, for whom the notion of comprehending a text has been a frustratingly distant dream - the experience of visually and physically comprehending a scrolled text (an experience not available to individuals who are reading from a book) can be particularly powerful; the notion that global learning abilities can be used to compensate for visual deficiencies and auditory deficits can be liberating.
- Have them use scissors to cut the scroll into logical pieces. For example cut a chapter into introduction, main body, and end matter pieces. Then cut from the main body text all ancillary features such as illustrations, side bars, pre-reading cues, question-boxes and the like. Then cut the main body text itself into logical chunks, such as paragraphs or sections. Now you have puzzle pieces. Mix them up and try to reassemble them.
- Have them work in teams to map a scroll. Tape a "prize" (pocket change, candy, pens, or the like - pick your favorite bribe) to the blackboard. Have the teams compete for the prize by playing a fun game [http://www.textmapping.org/1010.html].
- Have them take an "open scroll" (as opposed to an "open book") test.
Copyright © 2002-2007 R. David Middlebrook
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