Chapter 5: The Essence of Text

This entire chapter is dedicated to determining importance in text. Following a pattern, Keene begins the chapter with an excerpt from a piece of text that she read, and recorded her own thought process as she determined what she thought was important in that piece, as well as her experiences discussing this text with others. After she "shows" us her own real life example, she then usually goes into the classroom with another teacher and writes about how this shows up in the classroom as well.
We are introduced to two students who have different skill levels in determining what is important. Jeremy, who doesn't think anything in particular is important but CAN make connections, and Rachel who thinks everything is important and tries to stuff too much information into a report that is supposed to be streamlined and easy to understand with just essential facts. Keene and the teacher she is working with conference with each student and show them strategies on determining importance that is right for them.
A problem this teacher was noticing was student's inability to determine importance with expository text. As young students, we are introduced to books with narrative, predictable fiction (referred to in the chapter as "considerate text", or text that is easy to understand for it's intended audience). Making the transition from understanding narrative text with a plot and understanding expository text (called, you guessed it, "inconsiderate text") is often difficult for students as they become more exposed to this type of text (I'm thinking of the "fourth grade slump" right now...). In my experience, students have shown their lack of understanding of what's important in the same way "Rachel" did in this chapter. They are unable to write a summary or a report and stick to the important points, opting rather to cram everything and anything they read about into their writing.
Lucky for me, the end of this chapter summarizes it's own important points (oh that Ellin Oliver Keene!) so just to share:
3 Levels Where Proficient Readers determine importance of text:
1. Word level- lingering longer on words that carry meanings (contentives), rather than words that simply connect (functors).
2. Sentence level- finding sentences that carry the weight of the meaning of the passage. In my experience, finding the main idea sentence or topic sentence. In non-fiction this can sometimes be in bold print or refer to a table or graph.
2. Text level- finding key ideas, concepts, and themes in text.

Everyone's process of determining importance can be different. That process is usually based on the following:
Reader's purpose, reader's schema for the text content, reader's beliefs, opinions, and experiences relating to the text, reader's schema for text format, concepts another reader mentions before, during, or after reading, pointing out non-examples, and interesting discussion.

FINALLY our buddy Keene has given a straight-forward strategy step-by-step at the very end of the chapter.
1. Teacher models their own process of determining importance and WHY and HOW they came to this conclusion. They WHY and HOW are very important during modeling.
2. Student's provide their own examples and give their own "why" and "how's".
3. Students meet in small groups for discussions. Discussions should include themes of the text to enhance their comprehension.
4. Book club discussions using same format'
5. Reading conferences where student demonstrates their own think-aloud while reading for your assessment.
6. Create needs-based groups for students who need more modeling and explicit instruction.
7. Text sets can be used to have students discover themes of similar texts.
8. Reader's workshop should include time where reader's share their thought-processes from independent reading time.
9. Make connections between this strategy and other comprehension strategies they know.
10. Model using a variety of texts that vary in content, genre, and difficulty. Students must eventually assume responsibility for their own modeling.

I am anxious to use this in my teaching. They make a very good point in this chapter that often when we ask students to determine what's important, such as finding the theme or main idea, we ask them to "really concentrate" to find out rather than modeling ourselves. Obviously a lot of this comes down to modeling, which we've all learned is key in any type of instruction. The thing I really took from this chapter was that modeling what you're doing is just as important as explaining how and why you come to your conclusions. That one point is what I, personally, found to be the most important. :)