Chapter Nine: Vocabulary

This chapter focuses on the use of vocabulary and how we can teach new words to students. It shows us how to make these words stick, and how to make students forget them. I loved the 'Vocabulary Casserole' and the 'Vocabulary Treat' recipes on the first few pages. They were very true, and it was nice to see how if you make the students apply and actually use the words, they will remember them, versus just regurgitate them in the text. 
I really liked the Word Scroll worksheet that Beers has provided for us. It not only shows the definition, but also has students fill in both synonyms and antonyms for the words as well. I think that this is a great way to help them learn. It they know what it is, what it isn't, and what it is like, they can easily use it in future writing and reading. I know that instead of repeatedly typing the same word in an essay, I really enjoy using synonyms to convey my message. I think this is important for students to know too because then they will not be using the same word over and over again. Not only could this exercise help spice up their writing, it will also improve their reading. I really think that vocabulary is important, and I feel that students do not learn as much of it in high school as they did in middle school. I think that if we continue to give students an arsenal of new words to use, their speech, conversation skills, reading and writing will improve.

Chapter Eight: Extending Meaning

One of the things I really liked about this chapter was how Beers suggested using scales as either anticipation guides or as assignments for after reading. I think that this was a great idea because there really is no right or wrong answer as long as the student can back up their answer. I feel that you could really see if the students are understanding the text or not, and that the various forms of scales she shows us could help with this. I also like how Beers seems to always provide a model to show the students. She says that she will do a scale on something she read with the students in class and defend her answers with things she found in the text. 
This will show students how to do the assignment and to draw their conclusions from evidence provided in the text.
I also enjoyed the 'Sketch to Stretch' strategy a lot. I feel that students can incorporate art into this as well as understanding what they read. After they do this, Beers suggests putting the students into groups and having them discuss why they drew what they did and wrote what they wrote. Also, you could even hang these on the wall afterward and maybe keep them up as a study guide for a quiz or test. If you had the students write their response to the picture on the back, I think it would be neat to have them remember what their peers said. This I think would be helpful because students could be reminded of their discussions as well as have to remember what the drawing meant. -Katie May

Chapter Seven: Constructing Meaning

I would be lying if I said I was not horrified when I read what the student Lavern's perceptions were about reading. He thinks that you just read the words of a text and that is it. He feels that if you can 'answer all of the questions' then you are a good reader. He did not understand that reading is deeper than that, and that it takes work to understand and think about what you read. For instance, I don't read or speak French but I could sit there and read a passage in it, probably not pronouncing things correctly, but I could actually read the words, even though I have no idea what was going on. 

Beers precedes to tell us that if you have students do something like reread the text and tell you why it makes more sense the next time, they will be able to understand why rereading helps. I really liked the paper that the student Brad wrote about rereading. His score went up after he reread the text, and Beers made him write down why. I think that is a good idea because it lets the students apply the knowledge to themselves, and they will better understand why it helped them. -Katie May

Chapter Five: Learning to Make an Inference

     This chapter has several good ideas that will help teach students how to make inferences. This is something that came quite naturally to me, so I would really have no idea how to teach this. There was certainly a vast difference in the attention and comprehension of the activity between the two classrooms. Beers first showed the 'movie theater' lesson to eleventh grade honors students, then she had to show the same lesson to C and D students. Their responses were very different, and unfortunately what I expected before reading their actual responses.

      I really liked Beers' idea of having the students kind of dissect cartoons/comic strips. This is such a good idea because kids know to laugh and they "get it", but how do you explain why you "got it" or how you automatically understand the joke? I think this is a great idea because kids can laugh and look at something that they relate to, but they can also learn from it as well. The last part of the chapter with the bumper stickers was pretty interesting, too. -Katie May

Chapter Six: Frontloading Meaning

     This chapter is primarily about pre-reading learning strategies, and it gives us several great examples of strategies we can use in a classroom. The K-W-L chart seemed great for younger kids, but I think that the Anticipation Guide would be a great pre-reading activity to do with older students. I absolutely loved the way Mr. Davidson prepared his students for Anne Frank. He really got them thinking deeply on the subject before they even knew what they were reading.

     Something else I enjoyed was the Probable Passage. I think that is a great way to have students work in groups, kind of predict the text, but more importantly they are able to recognize words that are in the text. I just think that they will truly want to read it to see if their prediction came true, and although it probably won't, I think it's neat that they will want to read it anyways. 

     I can most definitely see myself teaching with some of these ideas in my future classroom, and I really will be keeping this book to help me. -Katie May