This is not my idea, but it is my presentation. I've always loved short ways for students to practice (thus the short daily reading comprehension questions I use for our state test (The Daily Dose of EOC).
When we have a spotlight reading day, the students come in to see this on the screen:
The idea behind this is that students are given a short passage and then a few minutes to start analyzing it. This cuts out the long reading process and allows us to get straight to literary analysis. I'll give my AP Lit class anywhere from 5-7 minutes for them to write this into their Spotlight Reading Journal and then we talk about it. If I were to use this for honors, I would probably give about the same. If I wanted to use this for regular level or younger classes, I would probably require two minutes of thinking before I started the writing process.
Most of them have guidance questions to help them if they need a push in their thinking.
The first question is always a "What did you notice first" type question. I also stress that they do not need to answer the questions nor even read the questions. I am always more interested in their thoughts. This can be done with art or video as well.
Initially I used these twice a week, but found that it became a chore for the students at that frequency. Now I do it once every two weeks (the class is a year-long class) and that has been more successful.
If you want to use mine, please do! If you create some yourself, I would love to see it. I am constantly trying to add better ones in to replacement my weaker ones that I started with a few years ago.
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