Dear Martin

A guide to help students interpret, analyze and evaluate information encountered in a variety of media formats. Use this guide with the spoken and performed texts included in the Perspectives anthology.

These surveys ask students what they know or how they feel about specific words in the text they are reading.

In reading against the grain students analyze the dominant reading of a text and engage in alternative or "resistant" readings. Resistant readings scrutinize the beliefs and attitudes that typically go unexamined in a text, drawing attention to the gaps, silences and contradictions.

A comprehension strategy that builds speaking and listening skills through structured text-based discussion. Students record sentences from a text and then discuss their responses in small groups.

A comprehension strategy during which student take turns reading aloud to each other, stopping occasionally to comment on the text.

This strategy exposes students to multiple short pieces of a text before they read it in its entirety. Students read selected quotes out of context and comment on both the selection and the comments of other students. The activity ends with students reflecting on their reactions to and predictions about the text.

A strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a text-based discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.

A discussion strategy that asks students to infer how a particular author or character from a text would respond to questions and scenarios. Students must defend their conclusions using evidence from the text.

This task helps students consider if the text is a window or a mirror through practicing literacy skills and using technology.