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This document discusses using graphic organizers to help English language learners build awareness of discourse structure in academic texts. It explains that graphic organizers can represent the organization of information in a text to help students comprehend relationships between ideas. The document also notes challenges in developing and implementing graphic organizers, and provides guidelines for creating effective organizers.
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- 1. Using Graphic Organizers to Build Awareness of Discourse Organization Randy Rebman [email protected] INTO OSU Instructor
- 2. Discourse/Text Structures Discourse structures have been defined as “knowledge structures or basic rhetorical patterns in texts” (Grabe, 2003, p.1) 2 November 13, 2014
- 3. Why Focus on Text Structure in an L2 Reading Class? • Common practices in L2 reading instruction include: • Checking answers to comprehension questions • Strategy instruction—predicting, clarifying, summarizing, questioning, goal setting, reviewing and noting text organization • Using graphic representations of the discourse patterns in the texts (graphic organizers) • One of the major challenges our students face in academic settings is learning to comprehend increasingly more dense reading material that may likely include differing rhetorical conventions than that of L1 texts 3 November 13, 2014
- 4. Why Focus on Text Structure in an L2 Reading Class? • Research on discourse analysis and language comprehension demonstrates discourse awareness and discourse structure instruction has a strong influence on reading comprehension ( Grabe, 2003; Jiang & Grabe, 2007, 2012; Meyer & Poon, 2001) • There are a relatively small number of text structures that are consistently repeated across expository texts. These include cause-effect, problem-solution, comparison-contrast, classification, definition, process, argument-reasoning, for-against, time sequence, and description (Meyer, 1985; Hohad, 1986) 4 November 13, 2014
- 5. Why Use Graphic Organizers (GOs)? • In their review of research on the effectiveness of using GOs, Jiang & Grabe (2007) found that “GOs representing the discourse structure of the text can facilitate the comprehension and retention of content area reading material” (p. 42). • Jiang and Grabe (2009) point out that GOs aid in the teaching of comprehension by • Raising awareness of how texts are organized • Prompting students to make explicit decisions about how pieces of information in a text relate to each other as main ideas, supporting details and information details 5 November 13, 2014
- 6. Challenges for Implementing Discourse-Structure Graphic Organizers • Lack of consistency with developing a GO structure for texts • Takes practice and experience (for teachers) with finding ways to represent the ideas of a text in GOs and how ensure they highlight the textual relationships and patterns of organization in a clear and simple manner • Discourse structure awareness is a knowledge base that grows incrementally due to increased exposures and explicit instruction (Koda, 2005), so teachers must plan on repeated use of GOs and extended student training 6 November 13, 2014
- 7. Guidelines for Creating GOs Jiang and Grabe (2009) provide the following guidelines for developing GOs: •should reflect a text’s structure as simply as possible •need to be clear and direct as possible •leave some items blank and some items in the GO filled out •should be used with a text that students have already read 7 November 13, 2014
- 8. Breakout Session 1: Text Structure & Signal Words • Form groups of 2-4 • Use handouts 1 and 2 to identify the signal words that go with the texts in A2-A5 • Highlight signal words and other important lexical cues to help you determine the type of text structure • When you have finished, discuss the following question in your group: • How might you structure a reading lesson focused around building an awareness of text structure using the passages you have just read? For example, what would you have students do in the pre-, during and –post reading portions of the lesson? 8 November 13, 2014
- 9. Breakout Session 1: Text Structure & Signal Words • A1-collection of descriptions • A2-cause/effect • A3-problem/solution • A4-comparision/contrast • A5-text with no rhetorical organization and no rhetorical signals 9 November 13, 2014
- 10. Breakout Session 2: Using Graphic Organizers • Form groups of 2-4 • Use handout 4 & 5 to complete the graphic organizer for “Flying High, but Feeling Low” • When you have completed the graphic organizer as a group, discuss the following questions: • How would you integrate graphic organizers into a reading lesson (pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading stages)? • How might you alter a graphic organizer to provide more scaffolding for lower level students? 10 November 13, 2014
- 11. Final Thoughts • What are some possible complications you see with integrating discourse awareness and graphic organizers into the L2 reading curriculum? • How might you work together in your cohort to build a set of graphic organizers for texts for your courses? 11 November 13, 2014
- 12. Thank You 12 November 13, 2014
- 13. References • Grabe, W. (2003). Using discourse representations for reading development. In M. Swanson & K Hill (Eds.), Proceeding of the 2002 JALT Conference (pp. 9-17). Tokyo, Japan: JALT Publications. • Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. New York, NY: Pearson Publication. • Jiang, X., & Grabe, W. (2007) Graphic organizers in reading instruction: Research findings and issues. Reading in a Foreign Language, 19, 34-55. • Jiang, X., & Grabe, W. (2009). Building reading abilities with graphic organizers. In R. Cohen (Ed.), Explorations in second language reading (pp. 25-42). Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. • Koda, K. (2005). Insights into second language reading: A cross-linguistic approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Meyer, B., & Poon, L. (2001). Effects of structure strategy training and 13 signaling on recall of texts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 141-159. November 13, 2014