Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)

PURPOSE OF THE STRATEGY

This strategy helps students discover and value their own knowledge about the text by utilizing what they have learned from reading Seedfolks and also by asking for their own knowledge regarding civic action. The Directed Reading Thinking Activity will be used with Chapter 5, "Leona," and students will be asked to predict Leona's actions based on what they have learned from the text and their own experience.

DIRECTIONS:

Step One: Predicting

Students will make hypotheses from small portions of the text. Begin by asking them about the title, Seedfolks. Does it imply one person or many people? Does the cover and the four chapters the class has read support the idea of 'many people'? What will this chapter called "Leona" be about? Read the first two paragraphs of the chapter, which end "'I believe I'll plant me a patch of golden rod right here.'" Ask the students what they think will happen next. Tell them you will read them selected passages from the chapter and ask them to make predictions. Read the following passages aloud to the class and then use the guide questions to elicit predictions from them. Record the predictions on the board or overhead.

"There was man standing and watching from the sidewalk and a girl looking down out a window. There were probably lots of folks who'd want to grow something, just like me. Then I studied all the trash on the groundÉthe garbage was piled high as your waist." p. 19
What did she notice? What will she do next? Why do you think that?

"This wasn't a job for no wheelbarrow. This was a job for the telephone." p. 20
What can that mean, "a job for the telephone"? How does a telephone get things done? What "job" does she want to have done?

"I kept working on it the next day. That Citizens' Information Center told me to call the Public Health Department. They sent me to someone else. TheyÕre all trained to be slippery as snakes." p. 21
Does it sound like her telephone is doing the job? Will Leona get what she wants? Why do you think so?

"I...walked into the Public Health Department. [The receptionist] just told me to sit down with the others waiting. I did. Then I opened the garbage bag I'd picked up in the lot on my way." p. 21-22
What will happen now? What do you think the garbage bag smells like? How is Leona trying to accomplish her job? Will it work?

Now have students write down one of the predictions listed on the board that they made that they feel most strongly about.

Step Two: Reading

Students now read Chapter Four, "Leona," to determine the accuracy of their predictions. Ask students to read with supporting their predictions in mind and record the page number and a few words from the passage that supports their predictions.

Step Three: Proving

Ask for volunteers or call on students and ask them which prediction they felt strongly about. Have them identify to the class the specific passages that support their predictions. Ask them why they felt stronlgy about that prediction and what led them to believe their prediction. Was their feeling based on any experience they have had or know about? Refine and deepen the thinking process that will occur among students during this step. Emphasize that using prior knowledge can make reading more meaningful.

ASSESSMENT

During the discussion assess how students' capability in predicting. This strategy allows you to evaluate studentsÕ thinking skills and, after they have read the text, their comprehension skills because it may require them to change their predictions based on the text. Students learn to engage themselves with the text to find specific support. They also discover that their prior knowledge can bear on reading comprehension as they utilize it to make predictions. Have students add a short paragraph to the prediction they recorded earlier. Ask them to write what led them to that prediction and to record the passage in the text that confirmed it.

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Reading Strategies developed by Amy Ferguson Hackworth Fall 2000 for Dr. Sirpa Grierson, BYU	Page created by Amy Ferguson Hackworth Fall 2000 Last Updated 11 December, 2000	Banner courtesy of