BAD Chart with SWBS

This chart can be found online. SWBS stands for "Somebody Wanted But So" and I will get to that later. The first thing that they showed to us was the Before and As columns (B and A) on that chart. The example was from a child who read The Gettysburg Address.




B (Before) was completed beforehand, obviously. The child write A. Lincoln. That was it. Then the text was read and reread and the A column completed and expanded upon each time.

9/12, the first reading, the child said "All of it is confusing, none of it reminded me of another text or something from my own life, I was surprised that it was hard to read because it's short so I thought it would be easy." Basically, a completely surface level reading.

9/14, the second reading, he wrote "Is this the Civil War from History class?" So we are starting to make some connections here. He went on to write more and more observations and some profound questions as the rereading continued. It was delightful to see his understanding grow. The total number of readings was 6.

Dates:
9/12
9/14
9/16
9/19
9/20
9/22

Kylene talked about how reading is like writing. Writers revise. Readers revise. We talk about the writing process but we don't talk about the reading process although they are so similar. Her exact phrase was "a first draft of understanding." In music you play the same piece over and over again. You gain more understanding of the piece as you go. Do we distance readers by not giving them time to reread?

The next part of the reading process is finding the main idea, the theme, writing the summary. All of reading is about understanding theme. The setting is where the events of the plot take place so that theme emerges. The characters change as the story goes on so that theme emerges. But theme is hard for children to understand. The ABC Chart helps with this. (next post)