Ideas about Reading

  I love sentence stems for many reasons, not the least of which is their ability to function as cognitive ‘training wheels’ for developing minds. As in  journal response prompts to respond to a text , the stems below are created to help students better understand what they’re reading. Because the focus is on critical thinking and critical reading rather than mere ‘talking,’ I left out more obvious stems like ‘I agree…’ or ‘I disagree…’ or ‘I like…’ or ‘I dislike…’ because–well, because opinions are useful primarily in discussing affections and preferences but less useful in critical thinking and critical reading. That’s not to say that they don’t serve a purpose but rather that they’re not to mention obvious and are a fairly natural reflex for even early readers who will either like or dislike or love or be bored by texts. This implies, of course, that the point of reading is recreational. While it certainly can and generally should be enjoyable, there are as many reasons to ...