There are a few important concepts that we learned in Mr. S' class which may have gone unnoticed until we talked about our experiences together. The biggest, or most influential, concept that I learned this week would have to be the use of a big question to guide my reading. Often, when I was in high school, I would find myself reading through pages and pages of a book only to realize that I hadn't been immersed in the text. I couldn't remember anything that I had read. Most of the time, this problem stemmed from a lack of purpose for my reading. If I don't have a personal investment in the text, like something to find out, or a question to answer, reading can feel pointless which leads to being distracted easily. Since our big questions were developed by us, we have a personal investment in the story--we chose the question, and we have a desire to answer it. If not, then we should try asking a different question.
Something that helps answer our question, and helps to keep our reading on track, at least for me, is annotating texts and taking notes. Mr. S taught us this week about the practice of "pic notes" which involves snapping pictures of important pages which can be referenced later. This concept is awesome because it allows us to note important pages in our text without stopping for too long and bringing ourselves out of the text. One of the goals of having an essential question is to become more invested and immersed in our reading, so using a note-taking strategy that allows that to be more of a reality is awesome.
Something that helps answer our question, and helps to keep our reading on track, at least for me, is annotating texts and taking notes. Mr. S taught us this week about the practice of "pic notes" which involves snapping pictures of important pages which can be referenced later. This concept is awesome because it allows us to note important pages in our text without stopping for too long and bringing ourselves out of the text. One of the goals of having an essential question is to become more invested and immersed in our reading, so using a note-taking strategy that allows that to be more of a reality is awesome.