“Modeling one lesson, one session, is only going to make a connection in students’ brains that probably is going to get trimmed away. But if you model over and over, and students practice on their own, that pathway becomes stronger and stronger. And, that is when students develop a habit.” –Dr. Doug Fisher
On Day 24, Dr. Fisher revisits the importance of teacher modeling to close the gap between what students can currently do and what they need to be able to do so they can process more deeply the thinking required to access complex text.
Select a piece of complex text, either a familiar piece or a new text. Read the text once to get a sense of the meaning, then read it a second time to plan out what you will model.
Write notes directly on the piece of text based on patterns of errors in students’ performance during previous close reading sessions or their work and annotations.
Then, use this new text to model for students and engage them in the thinking that is needed to access complex text.
After mapping out your teaching points and modeling for students, consider using the Learning Log to reflect on the process.
This log can be used to capture new learnings as you develop close reading techniques.
