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 * 3.1 Monitoring Understanding**
 * How do you monitor understanding?**

I try to look at student work on a daily basis to make sure students are understanding.

When students read, they are either marking up a text or writing down their thoughts in a reader's notebook. As I check off the homework, I will try to take a look at the thinking of the students. I also have student run discussion a few times a week. Using their marked up text or reader's notebooks, they share their thinking about the text in pairs or small groups. I walk around and listen in to all the groups, keeping track of participation and trying to get a sense of the understanding of the class as a whole. After about 15 minutes, I have a few pairs or groups share something they talked about. Often students will bring up the parts of the text they are struggling with and we as a class can go back to the text, re-read, and clarify.

When we are working on a writing assignment, I try to look at student work throughout the process. I always look at each student's thesis statement before they actually start writing. I look at their outlines. I look at drafts. As we work together on the assignment, I can give individual students the help they need in one-on-one writing conferences and I also look for things that the whole class is struggling with - look for student examples in the work of the class - and develop lessons with modeling and guided practice to help the whole class with a certain part of the assignment for example integrating textual evidence or analyzing textual evidence.


 * How might that practice change as you implement more technology?**

I am so excited about using the virtual notebook and other online tools. I will have more opportunity to access and think about student work. I will be able to give more feedback and encouragement throughout the reading and writing process.

If students are keeping a virtual notebook, I will have more than 30 seconds during homework check to think about and respond to their work. I will be able to actually give it some thought and post in the discussion tab.

If we are using an online writing program that allows for collaboration, using the comment function students could ask questions and I could make comments. On the one hand, I am really excited about this possibility because I will be able to give more thoughtful, meaningful, constructive feedback. On the other hand, I am worried about how time consuming this might be.


 * 3.2 Before, During, and After Reading**


 * Summary**

This article is about before, during, and after reading activites that help students understand the content and become more strategic readers. The article provides charts of teacher instructional practices and possible student activities for all three stages of the reading process. It encourages teachers to plan strategic lessons strategically. The article provides a step-by-step way of thinking through the before, during, and after activities. It emphasizes the importance of thinking about purpose and content and trying to make thoughtful choices when planning activities.


 * Discussion**

I always do before, during, and after reading activities. I try to think about the text - its particular challenge - and create engaging activities that will help students understand the text and/or add to their strategic reading tool box.

Before __Night__ - KWL about the Holocaust, brainstorming on the word Night, pre-teaching of vocabulary related to Judaism
 * Some examples of before reading activities:**

During __The Odyssey__ - multiple draft reading - re-reading the text three times using three different colored pens - first reading for literal understanding - work on vocab, summarize/paraphrase what is literally going on, second reading for deeper understanding-make inferences, ask questions, make connections, react, etc., third reading-think about author's purpose and use of literary techniques to achieve purpose; students finished the first half of The Odyssey over Feb. vacation, when they returned I wanted them to review what they had read so far so I showed them a clip from the beginning of a tv show "Previously on Pretty Little Liars" and had them write "Previously on The Odyssey" basically summarizing all of the important events of the first half in a brief, punchy, engaging way.
 * Some examples of during reading activities:**

Usually a writing activity that forces students to go deeper into the text-to re-read and re-think the text and that shows their understanding - often academic writing - long composition or critical essay; sometimes writing from the perspective of the character - George's letter to the district attorney at the end of Of Mice and Men; sometimes trying to show understanding of genre by writing their own memoir or their own epic adventure for Odysseus. I sometimes have students do art projects - a character collage of one of the characters from Great Expectations or a performance of scene from Macbeth or Midsummer Night's Dream.
 * Some example of after reading activities:**


 * 3.3 Wordle as a Before Reading Strategy**
 * What does it seem that Wordle can do for the user?
 * How useful does Wordle seem to be as a before reading strategy for students?
 * What type of learners would benefit from using a Wordle?

I am not that familiar with wordle. From the example on the moodle site, it seems like it takes a text and highlights the most frequently used words in an interesting way. This could be a great pre-reading strategy for struggling readers who might get bogged down in a dense, difficult text and give up. By highlighting the most important words, wordle helps students get the big picture before reading a text. In looking at and thinking about the world on the "Day of Infamy" speech, students will know that the speech is basically about the Japanese attack on the United States. media type="custom" key="9877287" width="290" height="290" align="left" What observations and predictions about your article can you make based on this Wordle? What connections to your background knowledge can you make?
 * Wordle of "The Perils of Indifference" by Elie Wiesel**

The most prominent word is "indifference". This word is also in the title of the speech so I predict that this is the topic of the speech. As I looked over the wordle, patterns started to emerge. I started to group related words together: world, human, humanity, society, people, children; Jewish, God; Auschwitz, victims; pain, suffering. I can predict that the speech will be about how the "indifference" of the "world" causes the "pain" and "suffering" of the "victims" of genocide. Using my prior knowledge about Elie Wiesel, I predict that he will be using his own experience as a survivor of the Holocaust. I noticed that one of the words on the wordle is "Kosovo" a place where another 20th-century genocide took place so I wonder when this was written and if the speech is a response to that event. The word "God" is also quite prominent. In the memoir __Night__ the narrator struggles with the indifference of God to the plight of the Jewish people so I am wondering if he is going to comment on the role of God in such tragedies.


 * 3.4 Annotating as a During Reading Activity**


 * Annotation of "Perils of Indifference" by Elie Wiesel**

media type="custom" key="9877961"

Comment on how your thoughts after reading the article are similar to or different from those you had after viewing the Wordle.

I think the wordle gave me a pretty good idea of what the text was about before reading it. After reading the text, I have a better understanding of what Wiesel means about the "perils" of indifference, how dangerously easy it is for "good" people and "good" governments to look the other way and do nothing. Add some brief thoughts on the process of annotating a text and how it can be helpful as a during reading strategy.

I think annotating a text during reading encourages students to be active readers. They are much less likely to allow their minds to wander and "finish" the reading having no idea what they have just read. it fources them to engage with the text and really think while they are reading. It is also useful as the basis for student run discussion. If a student has marked up the text, he or she will definitely have some thoughts to share with his or her classmates.

On a side note, I absolutely loved using crocodocs. I didn't think I would like it, because I feel like I kinesthetically need a piece of paper in front of me and a pencil in my hand to think, but I felt really comfortable and engaged using it. I especially loved being able to use google to get an answer right away to one of my questions as I was reading. I always worry that if I try to do this kind of work online that I will be distracted, that I will want to check my email, or search some random topic, but I was totally focused.

3.5 Top Five Vocabulary as an After Reading Activity

Create a list of the 5 most important terms to know from your reading. List the terms, and next to each, give a brief definition in your words, which also incorporates the importance of the term to understanding the overall reading.

Suffering means emotional and/or physical pain that is endured over a long period of time. In the speech, Wiesel is questioning how one person can know another person is in pain and still turn away.
 * suffering**

Rage means extreme out-of-control anger. At the beginning of the speech, Wiesel remembers the rage of the American soldiers who liberated the children at Buchenwald. Rage is really the only appropriate response to the atrocities of the Holocaust and other genocides.
 * rage**

Compassion means feeling sympathy for another person. Again, at the beginning of the speech, he expresses gratitude for the compassion of the American soldiers. When they saw the children, they wept. These big huge American soldiers wept. He knew they cared. Compassion is what connects us to one another.
 * compassion**

Indifference means feeling nothing. People sometimes do really feel indifferent about certain things but when it comes to the horrors of the world, people deliberately choose to feel indifferent. They choose not to look; they choose not to act. This is easy to do when those who are suffering are at a distance or as Elie Wiesel says are an "abstraction". I don't know the details of the 1,000 Jews on the ship that were sent back, but I doubt President Roosevelt was on the pier looking into the faces of those poor desperate people. When he made that decision they were probably an "abstraction". There is probably nothing more hurtful than the indifference of others, knowing that they know you are suffering but they don't care enough to help.
 * indifference**

Hope is a positive optimistic feeling about the future. Wiesel looks to the future with "profound fear and extraordinary hope". The last word of the speech is hope. Despite all of humanity's mistakes in the past, we must hope that we will do better in the future, that we will not allow these atrocities to happen again, that we will intervene to help the victims sooner rather than later, that we will hold the people responsible accountable.
 * hope**