Melissa B. McCarty
Inferring is such a powerful tool when reading. We as adults do it all the time and aren't aware of it anymore, but for students at an early age, this tool can be very exciting once they are aware of it. I myself never thought about it until a few years ago, and now I know it has only made me an even better reader than I once was. Being so very aware of your thinking is astounding. When you infer, you are using what you already know and applying it to the text and drawing a conclusion. According to Debbie Miller, inferring is not about being right or wrong or having the exact reasoning behind your thinking; rather inferring is about noticing your thinking behind your prediction, or your thinking behind the decision you made on how the character was feeling and/or reacting (Miller, 2002). When the students realize what is going on inside of their brains, their understanding of the book will deepen, and they will have all the more reasons to love reading.
As an adult reader, we constantly read characters minds without realizing we do it. Lisa Zunshine relates mind reading to theory of mind stating that bodies are animated minds. Mind reading can also be explained by a mental state and an action seen (Zunshine, 2006). For example, when we see someone with their eyes squinted and the arms straight by the sides and their fists tight in a grip, we would say that the character is angry. We have learned how to read emotions and now as an adult it is effortless and automatic. My students will be able to realize this sense of "mind reading" as well as to understand what is going on inside their heads. I want my students to see social signals and be able to perceive them. Fiction books are great tools to teach this comprehension strategy. The characters in the book call for mind reading because the students will have to infer mental state from the behavior. A great comparison for this sense of theory of mind is comparing a student with certain types of autism, which Zunshine also does in her book. A student with autism can't read facial expressions unless they are taught them. A boy might see a teacher give him a look that reads, "cut it out before I kick you out of here." A boy with autistic behaviors might have the same behavior as the boy I just referred to and when the teacher shoots that same look, the autistic boy won't be able to read the face thus leading the autistic boy to get into trouble. People with types of autism can't read faces to determine emotion based solely on looks; they have an impaired theory of mind (Zunshine, 2006). However, my students have the ability to read faces and determine a character's feelings and emotions.
According to Zunshine, mind reading is a form of successful communication. We constantly explain behavior through mental state and even though it is not observable we are people who live based on our minds. This is important for students to learn because communication between people is never only verbal. When talking with someone, we intuitively read peoples thoughts and behavior based on their mental states (Zunshine, 2006).
I will have my students practice this strategy by searching for clues that led to their decision on the characters' feeling/emotion. I will ask questions such as, "Well, how do you know he is feeling excited? What made you decide that even though it doesn't say it in the story?" The student will have to tackle his/her brain to figure out how he or she decided the character was feeling that way. Was it in his face? Was it what he said or how he said it?
Is it something that reminded you of a time when…. (It is important to note that there will be a lesson specifically on determining the difference between a character's feelings and a character trait. This lesson will be crucial in the beginning of the unit to clarify any confusion.) In the beginning of the unit, I will ask the class to give me examples of character traits and I will record the traits on the left side of a piece of chart paper. (For example a character trait could be friendly, sweet, respectable, and athletic.) Next, I will ask the students to volunteer character feelings and I will record the feelings words on the right side of the chart paper. (For example, thrilled, excited, angry, and worried.) This piece of chart paper will remain hung up in the reading corner throughout the unit to help clarify any confusions between character traits and characters' feelings.
I have high expectations for my students and understand that not all students have the same learning styles. Inferring is a great strategy to differentiate because you can teach it on all different levels. To begin the lesson, I will create a pre-assessment for my students to take to measure what they already know and what they don't (See appendix). From there I will group my students based on their DRA comprehension level as well as their pre-assessment data. My lessons will have a specific focus so I can challenge all of my students based on their abilities. This unit will be conducted during the reading block of my schedule. I teach a reading workshop style-reading block, which means fifteen minutes of whole group shared reading and thirty minutes of group work, followed by a five-minute share to close the block and reflect on the strategy. During the shared reading time, I will use several different Arthur books by Marc Brown.
I chose Arthur books for this unit because the characters are easy to relate to for this age group. Audiotapes and video versions of the stories will also be used in this unit. Arthur is the main character in all of the Arthur stories. He is a student at an elementary school and has a younger sister D.W. who loves to pester Arthur. I believe this in and of itself is an experience many students can recognize and identify with because siblings and/or friends bother many seven year olds. During the unit the students will first watch me model how to identify a character's feeling and emotion without the author explicitly stating it. I will use sections of a book we had read previously (so the students understand out of context the sections I picked) and model for them how I infer a characters feelings and emotions. The unit will progress from identifying the feeling and emotion, to acting it out and illustrating it. The students will be on "searches" and "hunts" to find emotions.
The use of audiotapes and video versions of the stories will assist the students to visually see social cues and hear different tones in voices that may lead to the characters feelings. In a book by Lisa Zunshine, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel, Zunshine refers to an episode of Friends, "The One Where Everybody Finds Out". In the episode the main characters are playing with each other's minds, which leads to a character Joey to be confused as to what they are doing. I have seen this episode and like most viewers found it entertaining and humorous. But in reading the synopsis of the episode in Zunshine's book, I got confused even though I have seen the episode and was not confused watching it. This relates a lot to my unit and my students. Some of my students are more visual learners and would understand inferring feelings better if they were able to watch a film version of the book. I want to target all learning styles throughout this unit, which is why I have not only books but audio and film versions.
Reading comprehension is the reason we read. If students cannot understand what they are reading, then they are not reading. When teaching students comprehension strategies it is important that we, as teachers, understand what should be taught and how it should be taught. According to Zimmerman and Keene, "When you monitor for meaning, it means that you have to continually attend to your understanding as you read. You need to know what our purpose is as you read. You need to know how to solve problems and change your thinking when meaning breaks down" (Keene, 2007).
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According to Piaget's theory, people construct their own understanding of situations differently. Assimilation and accommodation are two ways we as people adapt. Throughout a child's life, he or she will use these two processes to adapt to a complex world of learning how to understand what he or she is seeing ( Huiit, 2003). Learning how to comprehend stories and books and pictures can be a difficult task, which is why it is so important to teach students how it is done using several different techniques and skills.