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By Doug Buehl
“Support the Troops.” “Impeach Bush.” Contrasting bumper stickers, to be sure, but both share an economy of message. Each appeal cuts right to the core of an idea with a minimum expenditure of words. Readers – those of us motoring by – can be expected to fill in the rest of the communication.
Of course, bumper stickers with politically charged exhortations are intentionally streamlined in word choice so that readers will immediately get the point. Most of the texts we read are not so conveniently configured; as readers we have to sift through a preponderance of detail and background information to arrive at the essence of a text. We have to be able to negotiate the gist of an author’s message as we analyze and synthesize the flow of facts, discern author intent, and draw conclusions as to “what all this adds up to.”
As readers develop, they become increasingly able to dissect texts to pare them down to central ideas and concepts. However, this reasoning process – necessary for reading comprehension – involves sophisticated thinking that students frequently find challenging. Such thinking engages readers in determining what is important, marshaling relevant background knowledge that can add depth to what an author is telling them, drawing inferences, and connecting information so that they can generalize what it means. To progress as readers, students need continued classroom practice and support, as they dig into a variety of texts to extract key elements and condense what they read into something that makes sense.
The Strategy
Pavlik (2006) recommends using an “Ah Ha!” grid with students to guide their thinking through difficult or problematic texts. This strategy provides students with a visual representation of the relationships among key information in material they are studying.
Step 1: The “Ah Ha!” grid is a three-column graphic organizer (see example below). The first column is labeled: “People/Things/Conditions.” The middle column is labeled: “Actions.” The third column is labeled: “Outcomes.” Initially, model this strategy by applying it to a short text that can be displayed on the overhead projector and also be distributed to students for their marking.
The beginning stage in using this strategy focuses on the central column – “actions.” By first locating the movement within a text – what is happening to what – students tune into the “flow” of the information. Although every sentence will contain a verb – the words that move the text along – “big” actions are what students need to be especially on the lookout for.
For example, students in a science class can be asked to read the following short text on “crows”:
The common crow is often depicted as a scavenger and predator, the diner of roadkill, a loud and annoying survivor. But scientists are discovering that the crow is not as indestructible as people may think. In fact, the crow appears to be one of the major victims of the West Nile virus. Although at least 160 species of wild birds have been known to be infected by this virus, the crow has been particularly devastated. Nearly every crow infected by the virus dies, and in some parts of the eastern United States, the crow population has been significantly reduced. Scientists do not yet know why the crow, and other birds in the Corvus family such as the raven, are so sensitive to the West Nile virus. But they are concerned that the loss of crows can upset the balance of nature in an ecological area.
Ask students to first circle any “action” words, words that signal something happening. Students might locate several in this passage: depicted, discovering, infected, devastated, dies, reduced, concerned.
Step 2: The next step involves matching the actions that seem most important in this passage to key words that would be placed in the first column: “People/Things/Conditions.” For example, the beginning of the passage emphasizes how crows have been depicted, so depict is entered in the “Action” column. Words from the passage that connect to depict are identified as crow, scavenger, predator, and survivor, which are recorded next to depict in the first column.
Step 3: As students link major actions with key terms, they transition to the third column: “Outcomes.” Model the thinking for this column by asking: “What is (are) the outcome(s) of depicting crows as scavengers, predators, and survivors. Frequently, students will need to engage in some inferential thinking to decide what the outcome of some actions would be. In this case, the author implies an answer by noting that people apparently believe crows are indestructible, but these birds are not.
As students systematically work through the passage, they will discover that some of the action words they identified in their first read-through best fit in the “Outcomes” column: words like dies, devastated, and reduced.
When students have completed matching all major actions to key words, and identified outcomes, they have cut away most of the material, and focused their attention on the key ideas of this passage.
Step 4: A final step involves students verbalizing their understandings. Remove the original text, and ask students to write a summary using their “Ah Ha!” grid. The summary should consist of one sentence for each action, and should include the information in the other two columns. Therefore, if the grid features four actions, then the summary should be four sentences in length. One possible summary of our “crows” example might be:
“Because people depict crows as scavengers, predators, and survivors, they see them as indestructible animals. But scientists have discovered that crows are victims of the West Nile virus. The virus infects wild birds, especially members of the Corvus family like crows and ravens, causing the crows to die and their population to be reduced. Scientists are concerned that the loss of crows could upset the balance of nature.”
As students become practiced with these summaries, they can be challenged to substitute synonyms for the action words used by the author. Their summaries then begin to demonstrate more advanced paraphrasing as well as summarizing.
Advantages
The “Ah Ha!” grid strategy guides students through several of the facets of thinking necessary for reading comprehension.
Further Resources:
Pavlik, R. (2006). Teaching the Untaught Vocabulary for Student Achievement. Paper presented at the Wisconsin State Reading Association Convention, Milwaukee, February 3.
Doug Buehl, teacher, Madison East High School
Wisconsin State Reading Association.
Posted March 3, 2006