Knowledge Is POWER!!!

Knowledge powers reading, eh?  I’m curious to find out why.  So, anybody that anybody knows that to become anybody you need to read.  That includes textbooks, articles, research studies, and a bunch of other things.  The text even mention that it can help you score well on the SATs.

Side note, I did reasonably well on my SATs.  That was back when I was actually a competent student.  But I lost my scores by time I needed them for later college things…  Life’s pretty funny.

Regardless, the text is telling no lies, unless you’re rich and you know professionals willing to take bribes, “… success in scholastic and professional endeavors requires the ability to learn from the literature of a discipline.”  After spitting some truth, the text continues to say it like it is.  Most nonfiction text simply aren’t designed to attract the reader.  Works of fiction, particularly movies, comics, tv shows, and such are designed to keep you interested.  In regard to most nonfiction texts, it is the responsibility of the readers to interest and motivate themselves.  But I suppose this is primarily a matter of discipline.  If anything, the text hardly continues talking about it either…  That’s weird.

Anyway, I’m am absolutely elated to hear what I hear in the next paragraph.  Finally, someone is arguing for knowledge again!  For years, well-educated buffoons have been saying that in the new technologically advanced age, knowledge serves little purpose.  They claimed that because anything “knowledge” can easily be access online, studying such concepts is now a waste of time.  However, Doug Lemov here casting sources that say otherwise.  This is fantastic!  Finally, someone to quote for knowledge’s sake.  They even admit that having knowledge is important because comprehension, deep thinking, and even creativity all rely heavily on what you know.  I’m definitely a little biased here and even less formal than usual.  But I think this is great.  Finally, people want to teach kids content again.

Okay, so why is knowledge so cool?  That’s easy, because knowing things helps.  We’re given a comprehension example regarding baseball.  Not exactly my sport.  But if you bring up American Football or Japanese Judo, I’m your man.  Regardless, the author’s point is that have a deeper understanding is better than inferencing.  Being able to recall information based on past knowledge often out trumps having a rough idea about something you know nothing about.

However, this leads to the next segment of information, it is generally believed that if students understand how information is presented, they will understand what they read.  A lack of emotional or intellectual connection can often hinder learning.  To combat this the author discusses the technique of a colleague.  Sometimes when teaching a book, you’ll discover that your students are not quite as invested as they could be.  Often, this is because each generation of students is born more distant and detached from the text (and history) they are asked to learn.  That said, the curriculum is what the curriculum is.  To deal this, the author’s colleague, while in the middle of reading a novel, would occasionally switch to articles that produced information that could potentially help the student better relate to the novel they must eventually finish.

The next segment basically says to do some interactive read-aloud work, but we’ve already covered that before.  That said, don’t forget to gage the knowledge of your students before setting up certain parts of the lesson.  You never know what you don’t have to emphasize on.

In conclusion…  I’ll just quote the text, “The ability to build knowledge by reading and to learn from text is a crucial driver of student success.  It is crucial to equity because man students’ lack of background knowledge causes them to fall further and further behind… try the three strategies described here: embedded nonfiction, text-based questions, and the use of writing early in the lesson cycle.”