AFTERNOON CLINICS   12:30-3:00

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READING AND WRITING 1 - Expository/Narrative

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     For students entering 5th-6th grades

 

Reading and writing at a descriptive level should be

treated as two sides of the same coin, so this course

focuses on helping students discover, articulate, and

practice that key, co-ordinated set of academic skills.

Students in lower middle school are required to read

both narrative and expository texts not just for surface

content ("What happened in this story?" or "What are

some key facts in the article?"), but to use the core

patterns and structures of such texts to accurately and

completely summarize their key content. They then need to use that knowledge to help them in class discussion, peer group work, oral presentations, and written formats (tests and papers).

 

This kind of integrated thinking and working is expressed through more challenging reading and writing demands. In the afternoon over the two week we will attempt to cover the following topics:

• Direct awareness of the different structures and purposes of narrative versus expository texts

• Learning how to read for a purpose for different kinds of texts: comprehending, underlining and annotating appropriately

      (creating story maps for narratives versus creating idea maps for expository texts)

• Using these reading skills to guide skimming and scanning of a text, group discussion/understanding of its key content, and review of one's own writing and that of others for clarity and completeness

• Providing explicit structures and tools to help students summarize their comprehension of a text's content into a clear, complete and well-connected paragraph

• Having a clear awareness of the need for drafting, thoughtful and respectful peer input, and revision to produce higher quality writing

 

READING AND WRITING 2 - Expository/Narrative

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     For students entering 7th-8th grades

 

Reading and writing at a more analytical level should be treated as two sides of the same coin, so this course focuses on helping students discover, articulate, and practice that key, co-ordinated set of academic skills. Students in upper middle school are required to read

both narrative and expository texts not just for surface content ("What happened in this story?" or "What are some key facts in the article?"), but to use the core patterns and structures of such texts to find deeper meanings and express them cogently and persuasively in class discussion, peer group work, oral presentations, and written formats (tests and papers).

 

This kind of integrated thinking and working is expressed through more challenging reading and writing demands. In the afternoon over the two week we will attempt to cover the following topics:

• Direct awareness of the different structures and purposes of narrative versus expository texts

• Learning how to read for a purpose for different kinds of texts: comprehending, underlining and annotating appropriately

     (creating story maps for narratives and looking for relevant literary devices versus                   creating idea maps and learning how to skim and scan for hierarchy of ideas, their l               logical relationships, and relevant details/facts to exemplify them)

• Transferring this more advanced, analytical reading into note-taking

• Research skills and source evaluation

• Pre-writing that organizes note-taking material into independently generated thesis statements and outlines

• Having a clear awareness of multi-paragraph essays that are analytically driven, presenting and proving a novel claim, and not just descriptive reports summarizing read material

• Having a clear awareness of the structure and purpose of thesis, body, and conclusion paragraphs, and their interrelationships

• Gaining practice in how to better integrate direct quotations into one's sentences and provide appropriate source citations

• Having a clear awareness of the need for drafting, thoughtful and respectful peer input, and revision to produce higher quality writing

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READING AND WRITING 3 - Expository/Narrative

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     For students entering 9th-12th grades

 

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oral presentations, and written formats (tests and papers). They are also required to begin to evaluate texts by placing them in academic discourses and historical, cultural and social context, either through direct or inferred evidence.

 

For narrative texts, this higher-level work can involve considering genre and style as universal or historical artifacts, artistic movements, writer biographies, concepts of canonical works, or schools of criticism; for expository texts, this can involve schools of thought, knowledge of the history of a discipline, and appreciation of changing models and schema for a field.

 

This kind of integrated thinking and working is expressed through more challenging reading and writing demands. In the afternoon over the two week we will attempt to cover the following topics:

• Awareness of the different structures and purposes of narrative versus expository texts

• Learning how to read for different kinds of texts for a purpose, comprehending, and annotating appropriately

• Awareness of different modes of situating a text in a discourse and using that to further analyze and evaluate its meanings and historical and contemporary value

• Transferring this advanced analytical reading into note-taking

• Research skills and source evaluation, especially with an appreciation for using multiple discourses as a means to set different texts or the same text into complex conversation with each other

• Pre-writing that organizes note-taking material into independently generated thesis statements and outlines

• Having a clear concept of multi-paragraph essays that are analytically driven, presenting and proving a novel claim, and not just descriptive reports summarizing material

• Having a clear awareness of the structure and purpose of thesis, body, and conclusion paragraphs, and their interrelationships

• Having a clear awareness of how to do direct quotations versus paraphrasing, and how to correctly provide source citations for either format

• Gaining further practice in how to more fluently integrate direct quotations into one's own sentences and arguments;

• Having a clear awareness of the need for drafting, thoughtful and respectful peer input, and revision to produce higher quality writing

• Moving students toward an appreciation that their analysis of texts may be used to set up a critical evaluation of their historical and/or contemporary value for a certain research purpose.