Working with a small group of students I leaned in and said in a quiet voice, “I have something I need to tell you.” I quickly had the attention of all 8 of the 8th graders gathered around the large table. As they leaned in with me, I shared, “Sometimes, I have voices in my head,” and I watched the expressions change on their faces and noticed several of them giving one another strange looks. Still having their complete attention, I continued, “I listen to most of them, but there is one that I sometimes need to just tell to shut up!”
For the last few years this has been how I’ve launched into my lesson on monitoring my thinking while reading with the students who would have a second chance at taking the 8th grade STAAR test, our state reading test. While they are still not quite sure if they need to quickly find an adult to save them from the lady with voices in her head or listen to what I have to say next, I launch into my explanation of those voices.
“While I read, there’s a voice that asks questions, one that makes connections, and one that sums it up and makes sure it’s all making sense as I read.” There is usually a collective sigh as they realize I’m talking about the thinking strategies that they’ve heard about since they were in elementary school. I then tell them about the 4th voice, the one I really have to manage. While I’m reading this is the voice that says things like, “I wonder what’s for lunch today?” or “I wonder what those 2 girls were talking about when they were pointing at me while they walked down the hallway earlier?” I call this my distracting voice. It takes me away from my reading rather than improving my understanding of what I’ve read.
The idea of this distracting voice is something they clearly relate to, and they’re surprised that I have this distracting voice. They assume that good readers don’t have that problem, but I assure them that good readers have that annoying voice; good readers just have a way of making sure that voice doesn’t take charge of the reading.
I then pull out a passage and begin a think aloud of a selection each of them has sitting in front of them also. I place my selection under the document camera and ask them to mark up their papers just as I mark up mine as I read. As I read along, I verbally share my thoughts connected to the selection, and purposefully stop at the end of every few paragraphs to sum up my ideas. I might model how I underline the 5-8 most important ideas or phrases in this selection and then go back and jot a main idea statement in the margin.
I purposefully share a distracting thought and then when I stop at the end of that section, I share my realization that I have no idea what to underline, because while I was pronouncing the words and fluently sharing what I read, my thinking was taking me away from the selection. I brag on my ability to read successfully while I think about something totally different. Many quickly share they have the same ability. I also share that sometimes my sum it up voice isn’t in charge, and I get all the way to the end of the selection before I realize I had no idea what I just read. It’s so much better if I stop every few paragraphs to make sure the right voices are in charge. I then share though, that since reading comprehension is thinking, and I’m not thinking about what I’m reading, am I really reading? Is saying the words correctly really reading, or to be really reading, does comprehension have to happen? They quickly agree that reading is about thinking.
I then share with them that if reading is thinking, then in order to assess their reading comprehension, I have to be able to know what that thinking is. The problem is thinking is invisible. A I learned from Cris Tovani in a workshop, we have to teach our students how to make thinking visible. I let them know that the notations they make related to their thinking makes their thinking visible for me. I tell them about my idea for inventing a machine that I could hold over their heads while they read and capture all of their thoughts. I ask them, “Wouldn’t that be great? I could see everything going on in your head and you wouldn’t have to take the time to make it visible for me? Just think what I’d learn!” They quickly agree that writing it down for me is just fine. After this lesson, students who previously either refused to record their thinking or did it very reluctantly start to buy in to the idea that this can be a worthwhile task.
Last year, the day after I did my voices in my head lesson, I was sharing a story with this group of students and as I shared, I strayed away from the point of my story. One young man shared, “Uh, don’t you think it’s time to turn that annoying voice off?” The rest of group immediately got silent and looked at me to see how I would respond to this seemingly inappropriate comment. He followed up quickly with, “You know, it’s that annoying voice in your head you were telling us about yesterday. He’s taken over again.” How right he was! My own feeling quickly changed from one of being bothered to feeling success. I knew at least this one student got it! And isn’t that what we’re after?
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