Anne Kechch Rhetorical Analysis
What is the gist of the article?
Anne Ketch discusses the value of conversation as a strategy for reading and writing comprehension and metacognition across subjects. Specifically, she details seven cognitive strategies which form the basis of what are essentially good reading and learning habits. These include: making connections, questioning as you read, using mental imagery as a connection to layers of a text through the evocation of senses and emotions, determining what is or is not important to the understanding of a text, inferring, retelling and synthesizing information and using fix up strategies to assist readers when meaning falls apart. These strategies should be explicitly modeled and taught by the teacher, practiced and used continuously …show more content…
When students can make real world connections to what they are reading they become better readers, and by engaging in active discussion with others, the cumulative experience of each student further deepens their understanding. In my Educational Psychology class, I learned about the work of Vygotsky who was a proponent of social learning with students learning from one another in their zone of proximal development. The conversational strategies discussed by Ketch are a perfect fit for this developmentally appropriate style of learning. and these conversational strategies area ideal for group collaboration and learning. We have discussed literature circles and book clubs in class and read about both in Literacy for the 21st Century, the effectiveness of these activities depends on the way in which a teacher sets these up, providing guidelines and setting up expectations for behavior (pg. 346). These forums provide an ideal platform for the cognitive strategies for conversation if the teacher “modeled positive group behavior and appropriate discussion skills and demonstrated how to use their responses to deepen their understanding.” (pg. 347). Additionally, we learned about comprehension strategies in chapter 2 that mirror the strategies in the article and prepare students to become strategic readers; activating background knowledge, determining importance, summarizing, questioning, visualizing and monitoring (pg.
Anne Ketch discusses the value of conversation as a strategy for reading and writing comprehension and metacognition across subjects. Specifically, she details seven cognitive strategies which form the basis of what are essentially good reading and learning habits. These include: making connections, questioning as you read, using mental imagery as a connection to layers of a text through the evocation of senses and emotions, determining what is or is not important to the understanding of a text, inferring, retelling and synthesizing information and using fix up strategies to assist readers when meaning falls apart. These strategies should be explicitly modeled and taught by the teacher, practiced and used continuously …show more content…
When students can make real world connections to what they are reading they become better readers, and by engaging in active discussion with others, the cumulative experience of each student further deepens their understanding. In my Educational Psychology class, I learned about the work of Vygotsky who was a proponent of social learning with students learning from one another in their zone of proximal development. The conversational strategies discussed by Ketch are a perfect fit for this developmentally appropriate style of learning. and these conversational strategies area ideal for group collaboration and learning. We have discussed literature circles and book clubs in class and read about both in Literacy for the 21st Century, the effectiveness of these activities depends on the way in which a teacher sets these up, providing guidelines and setting up expectations for behavior (pg. 346). These forums provide an ideal platform for the cognitive strategies for conversation if the teacher “modeled positive group behavior and appropriate discussion skills and demonstrated how to use their responses to deepen their understanding.” (pg. 347). Additionally, we learned about comprehension strategies in chapter 2 that mirror the strategies in the article and prepare students to become strategic readers; activating background knowledge, determining importance, summarizing, questioning, visualizing and monitoring (pg.