Having co-workers, and extracting details.

The other day Hannah and I sat down over our after-school tea and hashed out a problem we'd been having with the oldest kids' school.  We needed to try a "new thing" and after tossing out a few scenarios and undergoing some careful self-examination, we thought of a different thing to try.  We aren't sure it will "work" (oh these poor  guinea pigs oldest children) but we can at least feel confident that what we'll  try will teach somebody something.

And afterwards, we agreed that it's really convenient to have a co-worker.  (This presumes that one gets along with one's co-workers.  We're not living in a Dilbert cartoon, thankfully.)

I know you're interested, if you are a homeschooler, so I'll explain the problem and our solution.  Some time ago, we wanted to start nudging the oldest kids (at the time, 9, 9, 11 years old) towards independently reading and discussing their World History lessons (we use the Story of the World textbook, though not the activity guide).  

I wrote in May about our first attempt:

Today I tried a new thing:  I delegated.

"Today you will each have a job," I informed them.  They looked at each other and made faces.

"The first person will be the Reader.  Can you guess what the Reader's job will be?"

"Um, to read the book?" "I want to be the first Reader!"  "No, me!"

"The Reader's job is to read the book, slowly and clearly, so that everyone can hear.   And if someone asks, 'What did you say?' the Reader has to repeat it."

"Is the other person the Writer?"

"Wait, I'm getting to that part.  The second person is called the Story-Hearer.  That person's job is --"

"To listen?"

"The Story-Hearer's job is to pay close attention to the events that happen in the story, and remember what happened in what order.  The Story-Hearer should be able to tell the story back at the end."

"Do they have to write down what they hear?"

"No, just listen.  The third job --"

"I know, the third person's job is the Go Get A Glass of Water And A Snack-er!"

"The third job is the Important-Thing-Noticer.  The Noticer --"

"Has to notice important things?"

"Important details.  Like the names of people and countries.  Dates.  Lists."

"Do they write it down?"

  "Uh, maybe.  We're going to try it a couple of different ways first."

This worked okay, but never very smoothly.  The distinctions between the Story-Hearer and the Important-Thing-Noticer were a bit muddied, and they would sometimes argue about whose fault it was that something was missed.  The Important-Thing-Noticer would interrupt the Reader to ask how to spell a name, and that  would slow everyone down.  And crucially, when we asked them afterwards to summarize the chapter, we learned that they had often not identified the same "important details" that Hannah and I would have identified... something like, they would remember Kaiser Friedrich and not Kaiser Wilhelm.

Hannah and I realized we had been taking too many things for granted.  When we adults read a historical passage, we apply all our skills honed over years in high school, college, and much postgraduate reading.  Not only that, but we already have in place filters that help us recognize "which people are important."  We know Kaiser Wilhelm is important because we have seen that name before.  And we also recognize style cues the writer puts in the story.  The kids don't know how to do that yet.  We have to teach them how to do that.

At first we thought we might look for a "study skills" curriculum, one that would teach specific skills of summarizing and skimming and note-taking.  I pulled down a large homeschooling supply catalog and flipped through it.  But after reading the reviews, we suspected that most of these curricula were readers supplying texts to practice on, rather than content telling how to read for information.  

We realized we needed to ask ourselves some questions.

How do WE do it?  How do we read for information?  How do we know which details are important and which can be left out of a summary?

I asked Hannah to think how she would read a chapter in SOTW about something she was unfamiliar with.  Next week's lesson is to be on Japan's Meiji Restoration, so that would do.  She slowly paged through the section, and spoke carefully about her thoughts.   We think there are two ways we identify "important details:"

  ---- First, by applying facts we already know from our previous education.  When we see a name we recognize from, say, college history classes, we think "Aha!  That is a Historical Figure!" and we take note of it.  When we see anything happening in, say, Europe between 1914 and 1918, we think "Aha!  This is probably related to World War I in some way!" and we take note of it.  

---- Second, by recognizing certain patterns of narrative that appear in history books.  Such-and-such a leader made a series of reforms, and the reforms are numbered 1, 2, 3, ... and the reforms had such-and-such a result.  This group gained power and that group lost power, and here are 1, 2, 3 ways it happened.  The population suffered this, that, and the other problem caused by bad government and so they revolted .  You see.  We recognize the pattern, and then we know that the Important Things are the facts in the story that fit the pattern.  (It's a simplified model, but we're dealing with a simplified history here, too.)

Can we expect children of ages 10, 10, and 12 to be able to do it the same way we do?

 ---- We definitely can't expect them to recognize very much in the way of facts, figures, names, and dates.  They have picked up some of this, of course, but most of the details they are seeing for the first time.  

---- We can't expect them to recognize the narrative patterns very quickly.  But maybe if we tell them the patterns ("In this story, a leader made three reforms, and something happened as a result"), they will be able to pick out the details ("As you read, write down the leader's name, a list of three reforms, and the result").  And perhaps over time, we can teach them to recognize the patterns.

What, exactly, are we wanting them to be able to do?  Can we clearly articulate that to ourselves?

---- We want them to read the chapter through once, understanding the story. 

---- Then we want them to read the chapter again, writing down the Important Things.  After some discussion, we unhappily concluded that, by "Important Things," we mean neither more nor less than "the things that WE think are the important things."  Perhaps we can work on that one.

---- Then we want them to put the notes away till the next day, and then, to be able to use the notes (and not the original text) to write a summary paragraph or to answer questions about the story.

That should do it.

So how to proceed?   We decided we'd continue dividing up the jobs of Reader, Story-Hearer, and Important-Thing-Noticer, with two crucial differences:

-- The kids would read the same text twice, with a different Reader each time.

-- The first time through, both other children would "be Story-hearers."  The second time through, both other children would "be Thing-Noticers."

Happily, by dividing up the jobs previously, we have already taught them how to be Reader, Story-hearer, and Thing-Noticer.

In between the two readings, we'll supply them with a Pattern that the chapter follows.  There's always a background section, and there's always a concluding sentence or two, and we'll tell them where those begin and end.  We'll give them the road signs to watch for in the middle part:  "In this chapter, one group was struggling for power with another group, and they each try several different things to gain power."  Then we'll tell them that, as they read through the second time, we want them to do these three things:

 - write a sentence to summarize the background section

 - write a list of facts that fit the pattern we gave them

 - write a sentence to summarize the conclusion.

I think this is worth a try.  Will let you know how it turns out.

Neither of us would ever have come up with this approach on our own.  Like I said:  it's nice to have co-workers.

Comments

[Deanna]

You may want to consider looking at 'Teaching Writing: Structure and Style' Seminar Workbook from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Although it is a writing program, the tools used for making keyword outline and summarizing narrative stories are invaluable. You don't need the DVDs and workbook is around $30.
Have fun! Deanna

[RealMom4Life]

I like the ideas. I am teaching American History to my 9, 11, and 13 year olds together and it is interesting what they pick out as important. I completely agree that we pick things out based on what we already know. I see that really coming into play with my 15 year old. She is studying Greek History for the 2nd time around and is much better able to analyze it than she did 4-5 years ago. Part of that is simply her age, but part of it is that she has a better overall understanding and a place to "hang the information" as they say.

[Kate]

Something that I did - because some kids are more auditory and some more visual - was to have everyone read the story silently first, then listen to it read aloud. Starting young with Charlotte Mason type narration also helps.