Harry and Sarah's reading strategies lesson was on language and music. Their three reading strategies were shades of meaning, using the net, and response writing. To explain the difference between music from Erik Satie, Harry played parts of a traditional piece from Motzart to to represent music which is more dramatic. When Harry played the piece from Satie, the simplicity of the piece was very apparent in contrast to the prior. Playing the Motzart piece first was a vital key to my understanding of his goal, which was for us to categorize Satie's music piece as groundbreaking for it's time.
For the after reading strategy, Harry and Sarah played a very unique video form John Cage called Water Walk. I wouldn't call what I heard and saw to be a form of music, but the sounds created did seem to happen in a rhythmic occurrence. The importance of the clip was not so much for us to be familiar with the works of John Cage, but rather to see the progression in music. When that piece was performed, it was cutting edge. Now it seemed to be more old fashion, and rather boring to my eyes and ears. Their lesson did what it set out to do by explaining how music perspective can change drastically over time. Which brings us back to Erik Satie. Though the music to my ear sounded slow, it was quite abstract in comparison to what was critically acclaimed.
As far as the reading strategies go, I felt the during reading strategy was a big strike-out. I read the article in search for words I was unfamiliar with and/or unsure of the pronunciation. By the time I finished reading the article, there were no words that qualified. And then Harry modeled how to use the website to find the definition and to hear the pronunciation. He struggled with the site as the words he searched were not in the sites database. That website however could make a great tool for a student learning a new language, so I was happy to have been introduced to it.
Your reflection on the during reading strategy is important. Part of the skill and art in teaching is the ability to pair strategies (the how students learn) with the content (what they learn) and the learners (who is learning) in a meaningful manner. Otherwise, just doing a strategy that doesn't guide students' understanding of concepts can, as you experienced, detract or distract from student learning and even feel like "busy work." Of course, developing this sill and art is part of what we are trying to learn through these teaching experiences, and like all learning opportunities, there is something to be learned from what is successful and what isn't.
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