These are some of the slides we used while in Alberta, Canada, working with teachers in Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Calgary, and Grande Prairie. They were used to support the strategies Possible Sentences, KWL, Notice and Note signposts, Dialogue with a Text, and Poster.

1. When Kids Can’t Read: Strategies to
Improve Adolescent Literacy
beers.probst@gmail.com
 Follow us on Twitter:
twitter.com/kylenebeers
twitter.com/bobprobst
contact michelle.flynn@
heinemann.com for work
in districts
beers.probst

2. beers.probst@gmail.com

3. beers.probst@gmail.com

4. Goals for today
Help you learn reading
strategies that help students
…develop as independent
learners
0 -- Out of body experience
1 – Considering, not yet ready
to try
…learn to think critically
2 – Understand and can
implement
…generate solutions to
complex problems
3 – Innovating and changing
it to make it better fit my
students
…demonstrate good
communication skills
beers.probst@gmail.com

5. Rigor resides in the energy and
attention given to the text
not in the text itself…
beers.probst@gmail.com

6. Ecuador
10-year-old
banana trees
sharp heavy knives
poor country
harmful chemicals
250 million kids
beers.probst@gmail.com
child labor laws
12-hour workdays
as little as $27 a week
no longer attend school
forced to work

7. What do you know about the oceans?
K -- What do I Know?
They are big
There are 4 of them
Pirates!
Whales
Hurricanes
They have names
They are salty
W -- What do I Want to
Know?
Who decided where the boundaries are?
What makes the boundary?
Why just 4?
Who decided there would be 4?
Are there pirates in all the oceans?
Who are the pirates?
Do different kinds of whales talk to
each other?
Why are hurricanes called typhoons if
they are on the other side of the
US?
Are the names the same if you are in
China?
Why does the salt in my tears not
burn my eyes, but the salt in the
Gulf of Mexico does?
L -- What Did I Learn?

8. beers.probst@gmail.com

9.  The character acts in a way that is
Contrasts and
contradictory to how he has acted
or that contrasts with how we
would act or that reveals a
difference among characters.
Contradictions
Text Clue:
Author shows actions or feelings
that we haven’t seen before.
Question:
Why would the character act
(feel) this way?

10.  The character realizes or comes to
Ah-Ha
understand something that
therefore changes his thinking or
his actions
 Text Clues
 I suddenly realized…
 Now I understood why…
 It hit me with a force…
 I knew what I had to do…
Question: How might this change things?

11.  A character asks himself or a trusted
Tough
Questions
friend a tough question or tough
questions that reveal concerns
(internal conflict) the character has.
 Text Clue:


Questions, often asked of self, that can’t be
answered
Sometimes offered as statement, ―I wonder
if…‖
Question:
What does this question make me wonder
about?

12.  The author interrupts the flow of
Memory
Moment
the story by letting the character
remember something.
 Text Clue:
 ―I remember…‖
 ―The memory flooded back…‖
 ―It was a strange memory…‖
 ―She suddenly remembered…‖
Question:
Why might this memory be important?

13.  An important life lesson is shared
with the main character.
Words of
the Wiser
 Text Clue:



A wiser and often older character shares
sage advice
It is often a quiet scene just between the
two characters
The advice might be one line or a longer
―lecture‖
Question:

What’s the advice and how might it affect
the character?

14.  A word or scene or image occurs
repeatedly.
Again and
Again
 Text Clue:
 Some sort of repetition (a word, an
image, a phrase, an event) which may
or may not occur in same chapter
Question:

Why does this keep happening again
and again?

15. beers.probst@gmail.com

16. Erin—September
―Um, I think that, I think that next, well next. I think
that well, I think more is going to happen with her
being with them. And then she will probably go
home. Because they don’t seem like forever
kidnappers.‖

17. Erin—January
 Here, right when Luke, he decides to go to the house,
so he had just been thinking about it, but here, he
decided to go, well, I noticed that because he was
doing something different, like a contradiction on
how he had been acting, and so I noticed that. And
that made me think that Luke, he’s like maybe
getting braver some. But that’s going to be a
problem because he needs to stay hidden. So, I think
maybe that what’s going to happen is about him not
wanting to stay hidden. Maybe like for the conflict.

18. Mark—August
 I guess I think that maybe, I guess that, that
something else is going to happen.

19. Mark—November
 I stopped here because notice how it said that he had
a sad smile. Smiles aren’t sad. I noticed that because
it was really a contradiction and I wondered why he
would be sad and smiling. I think that the Giver is
smiling because he’s still trying to make Jonas feel
good about this assignment but he also knows
something that Jonas doesn’t know. This part made
me think that something important is finally going to
happen that’s about Jonas finding out something.

20. Megan—October
Megan: Miss—look! It’s that again and again. The
story of the Denmark king. See, she’s remembering it
again. Where was it first? Where was it? Can you
find it? I don’t know where it was but this is like the,
I don’t know, like it was a lot, that she keeps
remembering this story, remember that her dad told
her about the Denmark king and how anyone would
fight for him?

21. Megan
Kylene: Why do you think this keeps coming up again
and again?
Megan: Because. Because. I think it is because, oh, I
know, see how she keeps remembering that anyone
would do anything to save him. Oh—this is that
foreshadowing. Here it is! This is foreshadowing. Oh
my God. It’s right here! Do you think Mrs. Lowry
knows she did this?

22. He saw the first tree shudder and fall, far of in the distance.
Then he heard his mother call out the kitchen window:
"Luke! Inside. Now."
He had never disobeyed the order to hide. Even as a toddler,
barely able to walk in the backyard's tall grass, he had
somehow understood the fear in his mother's voice. But on
this day, the day they began taking the woods away, he
hesitated. He took one extra breath of the fresh air, scented
with clover and honeysuckle and—coming from far away—
pine smoke. He laid his hoe down gently, and savored one
last moment of feeling warm soil beneath his bare feet. He
reminded himself, "I will never be allowed outside again.
Maybe never again as long as I live."
He turned and walked into the house, as silently as a
shadow.
beers.probst@gmail.com

23. Rationale for Dialogue Booklet
 To enable teacher to withdraw from the center of





conversation.
To gradually transfer responsibility for sustaining the talk
to the students.
To support that talk, from a distance, without controlling
it.
To give students the experience of coherent conversation.
To respect the readers’ individual responses to a text.
To encourage exploration of a text, of various responses
to it, and of personal experiences called to mind.

24. The point of Poster Activity:
capture otherwise transient thoughts
help kids find their own questions
encourage talk (by forbidding it)
encourage collaboration
generate ideas for whole class discussion
get kids to read a short passage with intense attention
get kids to re-read and re-read again
develop interest in an issue or theme to be pursued more fully (in
novel, science text, social studies, math, art,?)