A short Introduction to
Using Scrolls and Textmapping
to Teach Reading Comprehension Skills and Course Content

R. David Middlebrook | The Textmapping Project | .

What to Expect in this Workshop

• You will learn a new way to see, work with, and think about text.
• The term "active reading" will take on new meaning for you.
• The timing on this workshop is tight. We will sprint through five case exercises, outlined below, followed by discussion.
• This is new material, and we will be moving rapidly. You can expect to feel confused for the first half-hour or so. After that, things will fall into place.
• Please be ready to get up from your seat. You will be standing and moving around a lot during this workshop.

Important Definitions

• Typography: "...deals with all matters that affect the appearance of the page, and that contribute to the effectiveness of a printed message: the shapes and sizes of letters, diacritics, punctuation marks, and special symbols; the distances between letters and words; the length of lines; the space between lines; the size of margins; the extent and location of illustrations; the use of colour; the selection of headings and sub-headings; and all other matters of spatial organization or configuration."
  Crystal, David; "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language", p.190; Cambridge University Press (1987) ISBN 0-521-42443-7
• Textstream: The linear flow of words in a text. Illustrations are not part of the textstream. By way of analogy, illustrations are like boulders in a stream bed; the textstream is like the the water that flows around the boulders and down the stream bed.
• Internal Structure: the connotative/expository/rhetorical/conceptual structure of a text - i.e., the flow and shifts of ideas within the textstream.
• External Structure: the literal, typographic structure of a text, imposed upon the text by the author and/or publisher to illuminate the text's internal structure.

Case Exercise: Magazine Article

Allotted Time: 10 minutes

Text Recommendation: Something substantive, comprising 6-10 pages, from a monthly magazine - leaning towards text-heavy but with a few good illustrations - or a weekly magazine that fits this description (i.e., not one of the popular newsweeklies).

Type of Lesson: Instructor demonstration of a pre-reading process.

Instructional Goal: This exercise focuses on preparing an individual to read and understand a short article. By the end of the exercise each participant will be able to:

• accurately and completely describe the article's external (literal, typographic) structure - its features and organization.
• draw reasonable inferences about the internal (connotative, expository, rhetorical, conceptual) structure.
• draw reasonable inferences about the article topic and sub-topics.

Steps

• Read the title. Question/infer.
• Brown or Grey marker: Box the illustrations. Look at the illustrations and read any captions. Question/infer.
• Black marker: Box the textstream.
• Green marker: Box each section.
• Red marker: Read the first paragraph of each section. Question/infer. Where possible, combine sections by inference. Box combined sections.
• Blue marker: Select the longest section, and read the first clause of each paragraph in that section. Question/infer about possible ways to sub-divide the section into smaller chunks. Box the inferred smaller chunks within the section.
• Repeat last two steps until all sections that can be sub-divided, are.
• Infer the article outline and summary.

Case Exercise: Textbook Chapter

Allotted Time: 20 minutes

Text Recommendation: Either a textbook with rich typography and plenty of ancillary materials such as questions, side bars, and a review section, or (regardless of the above criteria) a textbook that everyone in the workshop is currently using in class. Note that the instructions below are generic - that the textbook you select may lack some of the features discussed, and/or may have other features not discussed. Handle these instances in a way that makes sense to you.

Type of Lesson: Collaborative survey/pre-reading of the chapter.

Instructional Goal: This exercise covers a number of pre-reading strategies intended to prepare an individual to read and understand a textbook chapter. By the end of this exercise each participant will be able to:

• accurately and completely describe the chapter's external structure - its features and organization.
• draw reasonable inferences about the chapter topic and sub-topics.

General Instructions

The instructor will model the activity. Then five volunteers will map the chapter while the other participants skim the chapter, write comments on sticky notes, and post them on the scroll. The comments may be of two kinds:

• pre-reading observations, questions, and speculations - i.e., the kind that a skilled reader might come up with during the pre-reading process
• implementation questions - i.e., questions, asked from the teacher-perspective, which address nuts-and-bolts implementation issues

Steps

• Instructor will model the following actions:
  • Black marker: Box the textstream.
  • Red or Orange marker: Divide the text into three sections: introduction, main body, and review. Also mark off any side-bar materials.
  • Colors as specified below: Model a single example of each of the remaining mapping steps.
• Participants will then complete the mapping:
  • Brown or Grey marker: Box the illustrations.
  • Green marker: Circle each heading and box its corresponding section.
  • Blue marker: Circle each sub-heading and box its corresponding sub-section.
  • Purple or Pink marker: Box all review questions (if any) in the main body of the text.
  • Yellow marker: Highlight the vocabulary words in the main body of the text.
• Questions and Discussion:
  • Outline the chapter.
  • What do you expect to learn about in this chapter?
  • Review and discuss sticky note comments.
  • How can you confirm that you have highlighted all of the vocabulary words?
  • How can you use the chapter review to test your comprehension?
  • How can you use the questions in the main body of the text to test your comprehension?
  • Indicate how each illustration relates to the text.
  • Indicate how each side-bar relates the the text.

Case Exercise: Short Fiction Novel

Allotted Time: 40 minutes

Text Recommendation: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Sarah MacLachlan; (1985) HarperCollins, NY; ISBN 0-06-440205-3. This is a children's novel (fifth grade reading level), but it serves well for teachers at all levels as an introduction to using Textmapping with fiction. If you choose a different novel, be sure to adjust the number of volunteers (see the General Instructions, below) to accomodate the number of chapters in the novel.

Type of Lesson: Collaborative survey/pre-reading of the novel.

Instructional Goal: This exercise covers a number of pre-reading strategies intended to prepare an individual to read and think critically about a novel. By the end of this lesson each participant will be able to:

• accurately and completely describe the novel's external structure - its features and organization.
• speculatively describe the internal structures created by the section structure, plot line, setting, characters, characterization, and themes.

General Instructions

Nine volunteers (one for each chapter) will map the novel while the other participants skim the novel, write comments on sticky notes, and post them on the scroll. The comments may be of two kinds:

• pre-reading observations, questions, and speculations - i.e., the kind that a skilled reader might come up with during the pre-reading process
• implementation questions - i.e., questions, asked from the teacher-perspective, which address nuts-and-bolts implementation issues

Steps

• Black Marker: Box the external structure. Focus on typography. Each chapter should be boxed, as well as any typographically-distinct features or blocks of text which stand out visually from the rest of the text.
• Map the internal structures:
  • Red or Orange marker: Box the section structure. The question here is: "Which chapters can be bundled together?" This is speculative, so don't worry your decisions to death. One way to get at this is to read the first and last paragraphs of each chapter; then stand back, confer with your colleagues, and decide how to bundle the chapters. Box the bundles - i.e., the section structure.
  • Brown or Grey marker: Draw the plot line - i.e., the progress from introduction through conflict, climax, and resolution. This is speculative, so don't worry your decisions to death. The plot line might track the section structure - or it might not. Stand back, confer with your colleagues, and decide how to draw the plot line. Then draw it.
  • Green marker: Mark cues for setting, i.e., time and place, social and economic context. Don't worry about getting all of them; just mark as many as you can. Then stand back, confer with your colleagues, and decide if the story can be chunked on the basis of these setting cues. If you think it can, box the chunks. This could result in one or more chapters being divided into smaller chunks and/or being bundled together - all on the basis of setting.
  • Blue marker: Mark references to the characters (mostly, mark their names). Don't worry about getting all of them; just mark as many as you can. Then stand back, confer with your colleagues, and decide if the story can be chunked on the basis of the presence or absence of certain characters. If you think it can, box the chunks. This could result in one or more chapters being divided into smaller chunks and/or being bundled together - all on the basis of character-instances. An interesting alternative to this - one which we will not do today - is to assign a different color to each character, and plot where each character is present. This can spark some interesting speculative discussions.
  • Purple or Pink marker: Mark cues that might indicate something about characterization i.e., How are the characters described? and What are their qualities?
  • Yellow marker: Mark cues that might indicate something about the theme(s) in this novel. Stand back and discuss with your colleagues what these themes might be, and how they might be woven together with the story.
• Review and discuss sticky note comments.

Case Exercise: Newspaper Article

Allotted Time: 10 minutes

Text Recommendation: An article from a good daily newspaper. Choose either a long and detailed article, or a substantial, well-written, and intellectually challenging opinion piece.

Type of Lesson: Individual/independent survey/pre-reading of the article.

Instructional Goal: Each participant will be prepared to read and understand the article. Specifically, by the end of this lesson each participant will be able to:

• accurately and completely describe the article's external structure - its features and organization.
• speculatively describe the internal structure.
• describe what he/she expects to learn from the article.

General Instructions

Each participant will pre-read and map his/her own copy of the article. Then the class will discuss the article and the exercise.

• Use one color, either pencil or pen.
• Start by mapping the article's external structure.
• Then map the article's internal structure. One way to accomplish this is to read the first clause of each paragraph, and on the basis of the information there, bundle the paragraphs into coherent chunks.

Questions and Discussion

Allotted Time: 10 minutes.

Ask questions, share observations, and complete the workshop evaluation forms.

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The instructional goal of this workshop was to expose you to a new way of seeing, working with, and thinking about text. It is likely that you will leave this session with many unanswered questions. We hope that you will visit The Textmapping Project web site, and that you will feel free to contact us with your questions. We would like you to find success with scrolls and Textmapping.

We encourage you to conduct training in your district on how to use scrolls and Textmapping. Visit our website for printer-ready training resources [http://www.textmapping.org/teacherTraining.html] and information about workshops [http://www.textmapping.org/workshops.html].