Embedded Reading

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Archive for the month “September, 2012”

30 Sep 2012

What About the Culture? (big or little C)

I’ve had a few questions about the quality of the readings here.   There are concerns that the material is not culturally relevant and that so much more could be attained if the readings used with students were consistently culture-appropriate to the language of instruction.

 

I think that readings that integrate the target culture and that educate students are stellar.   I encourage you to use them.   The readings that are posted here are ones that we have had the time to get here.  Many of the embedded readings used by teachers are created from documents written by non-teachers.  In these cases, we try to get permission from the authors before posting the embedded versions on this site.  So, yes, they are out there.   Just not here yet.  :o)

 

Also, what you may see here as an embedded reading for a second-language classroom are only one piece of what may be a week’s worth of information and activities.   It is our goal to connect our students to the target culture as often as possible.  It is also our goal to connect with our students!!  Comprehensible-Input based instruction often starts with students’ interests and background knowledge and then segues into the target culture.

 

Comparison, or “parallel stories” are a regular part of the lesson.  The reading on Michael Phelps, for example, would be connected to a reading and activities about a Spanish or Bolivian athlete…using the same principal structures found in the Michael Phelps piece.

 

The story about Mia, recently posted, is just the beginning of a series of stories.  When Mia finds the enormous package in her living room, she Skypes with friends around the world to advice on what to do with the package.    Their responses will reflect their cultures.

 

So what about those “cultural” readings? Topics like holidays, customs, history, famous people etc.   Keep your eyes open…as more stories, and more “approvals to share” come in you will see more of them.

 

Thank you for the questions and concerns.  Keep them coming!!

 

All content of this website © Embedded Reading 2012-2014 or original authors.  Unauthorized use or distribution of materials without express and written consent of the owners/authors is strictly prohibited.   Examples and  links may be used as long as clear and direct reference to the site and original authors is clearly established.

Posted in Definitions and Explanations, Ideas | Leave a comment
24 Sep 2012
5 Comments

Mia y el Paquete Spanish reading

This is the story used here:

Mía y el Paquete #1

Mía vivía en una casa grande.   Su casa tenía un baño en el piso abajo y un baño arriba.

Un día, Mía estaba en su baño cuando oyó el timbre.

Mía gritó pero nadie respondió.

El hombre a  la puerta salió con el paquete.

Era un regalo de Papá Noel.

Papá Noel decidió llamar a Mía.

Mía quería el regalo.

El hombre regresó a la casa de Mía con el regalo.

Era un paquete grande y pesado.

Lo puso en el suelo.

Mía y el Paquete #2

Mía vivía en una casa bastante grande.  Su casa tenía un baño en el piso abajo y un baño arriba.

Un día, Mía estaba en su baño  cuando oyó el timbre.  Lo tocó cuatro veces @@@,@@@,@@@,@@@.

Un hombre, que se llamaba Dante, estaba a la puerta.

Mía gritó, ¿Quién es?, pero Dante no respondió.  No la oyó.

Dante salió con el paquete.

El paquete era un regalo de Papá Noel.

Papá Noel decidió llamar a Mía.

Mía quería el regalo de Papó Noel.

Dante regresó a la casa de Mía y tocó el timbre.

Mía abrió la puerta.

Dante no le dio el paquete a Mía.

Era un paquete muy grande y muy pesado.

Lo puso en el suelo.

Mía y el Paquete #3

 

Mía vivía en una casa grande, no una mansión, pero bastante grande.  Su casa tenía un baño en el piso abajo y un baño arriba.

Un día, Mía estaba en su baño mirándose a la reflección en el espejo, cuando oyó el timbre.  Lo tocó cuatro veces rápidamente:  @@@,@@@,@@@,@@@.

Un hombre, que se llamaba Dante, estaba a la puerta.  Dante trabajaba entregando paquetes.

Mía, todavía  mirándose, gritó, ¿Quién es?, pero Dante no respondió.  No la oyó.  Por eso, Dante salió con el paquete.

El paquete era un regalo de Papá Noel, así que Dante lo llevó al Polo del Norte.  Papá Noel no podía creer que Mía no quería su regalo, y así que decidió llamar a Mía.

Mía, todavía mirándose en el espejo, contestó el teléfono y habló con Papá Noel.  Mía quería el regalo de Papá Noel.  ¡Sí!  Quería Mía el regalo.

Por supuesto, Dante regresó a la casa de Mía con el paquete y tocó el timbre de nuevo.  De nuevo, tocó el timbre cuatro veces rápidamente.

Esta vez, Mía lo oyó y salió del baño y de su reflección.  Mía bajó las escaleras y abrió la puerta.

Dante entró en la casa, pero no le dio el paquete a Mía.  Era un paquete muy grandísimo y pesadísimo.

Lo puso en el suelo….con mucha fuerza.

 

All content of this website © Embedded Reading 2012-2014 or original authors.  Unauthorized use or distribution of materials without express and written consent of the owners/authors is strictly prohibited.   Examples and  links may be used as long as clear and direct reference to the site and original authors is clearly established.

Posted in Spanish Embedded Readings
16 Sep 2012
3 Comments

Differentiation by Class

This year I have three Spanish 3 classes, each with its own size, needs and personality.  I am not really a stickler about having each class in EXACTLY the same place, but I do like them within a day or two of each other.    That isn’t always easy to do.  One class is significantly smaller and many of the students in the class are strong readers in English.  Anytime we read, they are off and running while I am prepping the other two classes for a successful activity.    Having several levels of one reading, and different levels of activities to accompany them has been wonderful.

This week we read a fictional story written in the past tense.   The base level reading was easy for all of the groups to comprehend, but one class had a much harder time answering questions in Spanish about the reading, so the next day we re-read it with actors and things went much more smoothly.  The other classes did not need to re-read, so in those classes we went on the next day to the second level of the reading.

On that day, the 3rd period class needed to go a bit more slowly than the ninth period class in order to thoroughly identify and understand the new details and language….and we had a fire drill…so we didn’t get as far as we did in period 9.

So, by day three I had three classes in three different places and I wanted to have a quiz before we started the state pre-assessments this week or it would be week 4 and I would only have 2 grades in the gradebook!    Here is what we did:

P. 3 quiz:  Students chose 10 sentences from the Level 3 reading (new to them) to translate to English.

P. 5 quiz:  Students read the Level 4 reading (new to them), answered 3 open-ended questions and wrote 2 sentences with new information that could be added to the story.

P. 9 quiz:  Students re-read Level 3 and answered 3 multiple-choice inference questions and 2 open -ended questions.

All of this was ready beforehand as activities to go with the reading levels.  I was able to choose which group was ready for which activities.

If I wanted to, I could continue on to Level 4 with all of the groups, but since it is early in the year, and we will be doing so much reading, I can stop right there in order to do next week’s state testing.   They will get many more opportunities to read and work through different kinds of questions and activities as the year goes on.  Remember, the MOST important pieces of language were in the base reading and have been repeated in every level, so I KNOW that each of the groups has had significant time with the focus structures in this story.
I’ll have the Level 4 version available for students to read on their own if they want to know how the story ends!!

Hope that your week goes well!!

 

All content of this website © Embedded Reading 2012-2014 or original authors.  Unauthorized use or distribution of materials without express and written consent of the owners/authors is strictly prohibited.   Examples and  links may be used as long as clear and direct reference to the site and original authors is clearly established.

Posted in Definitions and Explanations, Differentiation, Ideas, Using Readings With Students
14 Sep 2012

Picture-based Embedded Reading

Thanks to Nathan who shared this on his and Michele’s TPRS blog and gave me permission to share.   His idea for an embedded reading came from a student drawing!  He writes:

Last week as part of introducing some past-tense modal verbs to my German II students (wanted, had to, was able to), I asked them to draw me pictures to illustrate them, and one student turned out this masterpiece:

We spent about five to ten minutes unpacking this picture in class (that’s the Pillsbury Doughboy fighting a chocolate chip cookie dough monster in Mordor), but for the past week, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get a little more burn for it.

This morning, however, I realized it would make a great embedded story as long as I withheld enough details from the early drafts. As I result I ended up with something like this:

Draft One
The Pillsbury Doughboy wanted to eat chocolate chip cookies, but didn’t have an oven. He was sad, because without an oven he couldn’t bake anything. The Pillsbury Doughboy had to find a new oven and Mr. S. had a big oven. Mr. S. wanted to eat the cookies but couldn’t.

The emphasis in this draft was to try and make the story as normal as possible.  The picture is so over the top, I wanted to build up to the story slowly.  After reading this draft with the class I then had my students draw me a picture of something from this story, with an emphasis on speed over quality (3-5 minutes drawing time).  We then looked at the pictures on the document camera and discussed how well they matched the story.

Draft Two
The Pillsbury Doughboy wanted to eat chocolate chip cookies and made a lot of cookie dough. But the Pillsbury Doughboy didn’t have an oven. He was sad because he couldn’t bake anything without an oven. 

The Pillsbury Doughboy also had another problem: the chocolate chip cookie dough was angry at the Doughboy.  It didn’t want to become cookies. The Doughboy had to fight with the cookie dough AND find an oven.

Mr. S. had a big oven and the Pillsbury Doughboy brought the cookie dough to his house. But Mr. S. was a very bad man.  Mr. S. wanted to kill the Doughboy and eat the cookies, but he couldn’t do anything. He could only watch.

In this draft I started throwing out a few of the funky details such as the cookie dough monster, the fight and the evil Mr. S.  Again I had the students quickly sketch me something from this story, but because this story was longer, I asked them to caption their picture.  Some students gave me a couple words, some wrote out full sentences.  Again we debated how well the pictures matched the story, and sometimes went back and forth between the picture and the story several times to establish the links.

Then I showed them the original picture and said this is what we were working towards.  Comparing notes, we then read the final draft.

Draft Three
The Pillsbury Doughboy wanted to eat chocolate chip cookies, and made a lot of cookie dough. But the Pillsbury Doughboy only had a normal oven and needed a very big oven for his cookie dough. He was sad, because he couldn’t find such a big oven. He had to do something.

The Pillsbury Doughboy also had another problem. There was so much cookie dough that it became a monster. The chocolate chip cookie dough monster was angry at the Doughboy because it didn’t want to become cookies. The Pillsbury Doughboy had to fight with the monster, but the monster was much bigger than he.

Mister Sauron had a big oven and the Pillsbury Doughboy brought the cookie dough to his house. But Mr. Sauron was a very bad man. Mr. Sauron lived in Mordor, and Mt. Doom was his very big oven. Mr. Sauron wanted to kill the Doughboy but he didn’t have any hands. He wanted to eat the cookies but he didn’t have a mouth. Mr. Sauron only had an eye and could only watch. 

What I liked about this approach was the “reveal” that I was working towards.  I had a great over the top picture to end with, and the progressive reveal coupled with additional pictures made it a really fun day.  I teach two sections of German II, and even the class that worked with the original picture had only two people figure out that we were working towards this picture before the finish.

 

All content of this website © Embedded Reading 2012-2014 or original authors.  Unauthorized use or distribution of materials without express and written consent of the owners/authors is strictly prohibited.   Examples and  links may be used as long as clear and direct reference to the site and original authors is clearly established.

Posted in Definitions and Explanations, Examples of Embedded Reading in English, Ideas, Teachers Talk About Embedded Reading, Using Readings With Students, Using Students' Ideas | Leave a comment

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