Double, Double Your Learning
By Doug Buehl,
Madison East High School teacher
Member, Wisconsin State Reading Association
October 2001
As we rounded the curve in Acadia National Park, the
Maine coastline changed dramatically. We were greeted by massive rock
outcroppings, giant gray boulders that bordered on the crashing waves
of the Atlantic. We spent half a day on those rocks, climbing, exploring,
picnicking, and enjoying the August sun and the brisk breezes from the
ocean.
For many of us, a travel journal is a strategy we use
to assist us in remembering enjoyable events and recording favorite locations
during our vacations. The journals serve to jog our memories and re-ignite
interesting thoughts and pleasurable experiences. We have a system that
allows us to re-create, perhaps even years later, what we were thinking
and feeling.
Many people have dabbled in some sort of diary project
during their lives, jotting down thoughts, commentary, daily occurrences,
and significant events in written form. Strategies that help students
track their thinking during reading are a variation of personal journaling
and can be highly effective in improving comprehension and learning.
The Strategy
Last month (September 2001), this column
explored methods of coding text as a means for encouraging essential comprehension
behaviors such as making connections to background knowledge, creating
mental images, posing questions, making inferences, and clarifying confusions.
An additional strategy, Double-Entry Diaries, integrates written responses
to reading as a prompt for students to employ these comprehension behaviors
when thinking about classroom texts (Tovani, 2000).
Step 1: Double-Entry Diaries are an excellent
option for students when they are reading materials that cannot be marked,
such as textbooks or class sets of novels. Double-Entry Diaries are a
version of two-column (or Cornell) notetaking and are tailored for guiding
students in monitoring their comprehension.
Introduce Double-Entry Diaries by asking students to
divide a sheet of paper into two vertical columns by folding it lengthwise
in half. The left side of the notes is reserved for specific information
from a text, such as a short passage, factual information, or a summary.
The right column accords students space to provide written responses that
correspond to the text material they selected for the left side. The result
is a series of important textual references and the students’ personal
reactions and connections.
For example, a history teacher might lift some segments
from the
textbook to model this process with students. Using the overhead projector,
the teacher might record the passage: “Immigrant workers trapped
on the upper floors during the Triangle Shirtwaist fire jumped to certain
deaths rather than remaining in the flaming factory.”
On the right side, the teacher records her thinking:
“I am reminded of the recent tragedy at the World Trade Center, when
people also leaped to their deaths to escape the fire.” The teacher
is modeling how her background knowledge has connected
to a textbook account of a 1911 event, and how her knowledge helps her
understand this historical occurrence and makes it more meaningful. Emphasize
during this interaction with students that proficient readers constantly
seek to use their personal knowledge to help them make sense of new information.
Step 2: Tovani recommends, during the initial
stages of using Double-Entry Diaries, a focus on one specific comprehension
behavior at a time for students to monitor in the right column. The above
example asks students to consciously make connections to what they are
reading by considering how what they know might relate to new information.
In addition, students should verbalize how their personal connections
contributed to a greater understanding of a passage. For this activity,
the teacher could instruct students to label the right column: “This
reminds me of ... ”
Other comprehension behaviors that could form the focus
for the
right column of a Double-Entry Diary include:
- Questioning: “I wonder . . . ”
- Making inferences: “I think . . . ”
- Clarifying: “I am confused because . . . ”
- Determining importance: “This is important because . . . ”
- Visualizing: “I would describe the picture I see in my head as
. . . ”
A biology teacher might use a Double-Entry Diary to guide students to
think about why certain information is important (see bacteria example).
Step 3: With practice, students can begin to use Double-Entry
Diaries as an ongoing method of tracking their thinking, with the right-side
column representing a montage of the comprehension behaviors listed above.
Encourage students to use this strategy when they struggle with especially
challenging texts, and as a study technique to review for exams.
Posted October 9, 2001