Warren #6

In reading Bean's "Helping Students Read Difficult Texts," I thought of something as I reached the section titled "Writing 'Translations'." In short, Bean recommends that students translate, via writing, challenging passages into their own words. I like this idea, and I think it can be complemented with another - after reading a difficult passage, article, etc., students can also try to verbalize that text into their own words. If it's a struggle, or impossible, students should quickly recognize that they need to revisit the passage. I also feel this is a great method to help students practice summarizing or paraphrasing skills; if they can "translate" a text into their own words (verbally), this verbalization may be good enough (with a few tweaks) to transfer it back to paper/their own writing.

Comments

  1. luluOctober 2, 2018 at 2:05 PM

    Hi Warren - I really appreciate this idea of having students verbalize the text into their own words. I think in the context of a writing center it also opens up room for the student and tutor to begin to have deeper conversations about the reading. Once a student verbalizes the text, the tutor can ask the student for their thoughts and opinions which may get the student personally engaged with what they're looking at or perhaps reveal a need to look more closely at the text. It also opens up the idea that we can interact with what we read, that we might disagree with an author, and that we have our own perspectives to offer even as we're learning and synthesizing information.

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