As we move forward with implementing the new Common Core standards, we're realizing that the informational texts we are exposing our students to may be a challenge to many. Whether they don't like the topic, just came from another class where they spent 42 minutes dissecting a text, or aren't confident readers, we know as their teachers we have to ensure we're providing them with everything we can to ensure their success.
As we continue to explore "exemplary texts" for common core, we're beginning to understand that not only to we need to take our kids through the steps and stages of a close read, we need to ensure they are remembering, they are engaged, and they are understand what and why they are reading. In order to do this, we need to get to the heart of their brains.
As teachers of different subject areas, we've spent a lot of time the last week discussing "how" we do things in our classrooms. One thing we all have in common: we know before we put a text into our students hands, their brains have to be ready for it. We have spend much time reading and studying the importance of brain-based learning and are passionate about making sure the texts we choose fit well into our student learning environments. The following articles are ones we are taking suggestions from in order to make our classrooms and our chose texts brain friendly:
http://personal.ashland.edu/dkommer/ABCs%20of%20BBL.pdf
http://kantrybe.hubpages.com/hub/Brain-based-learning-in-the-classroom
Creating relevance is just one of the topics we focused on to ensure our selected texts can be brain friendly. We understand through collaboration, we can ensure that our students feel their texts are relevant as they connect them to what they are doing in both English and Science classes.
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