Reading Apprenticeship – A Mental Workout

For the past ten years I have overheard my well respected colleague say to his students that learning and studying is like working out.  You have to start with the small weights and use them every day until you can advance to the heavier weights and then you must once again use them every day so that you don’t lose your muscle tone.  With his analogy, he drives home the point that studying every day builds your endurance and ability to study for the big tests.   My experience with Reading Apprenticeship has amplified this analogy and I am seeing a direct correlation between students who are practicing their reading processes and working with the content with the students who are performing significantly higher in formal and informal assessments.  This challenges me as a teacher to think of ways to increase the number of students who comply with the Reading Apprenticeship model within my classroom. 

Firstly, I know that I have to trust the process and articulate to my students that this process is not only valid but beneficial in the short and long ranges of their education.  Next, I need to continually work on the social and personal dimensions of the framework, building trust and personal interest.  As a chemistry teacher this seems like a foreign concept yet it is a key to unlocking my students’ willingness to participate.  How can I create a space in which a student who has failed multiple science classes will volunteer his/her answer or thoughts?  How can I personally connect what we are reading about with students’ lives?  How can I make it matter?  (Please excuse the chemistry pun.)  Furthermore, I need to create a class structure and curriculum that holds my students accountable to doing their work.  For example, my warm up questions need to challenge students with what they read and recorded in their metacognitive logs the night before.  The warm up questions need to be important, challenging, and supportive.  I have also been noticing that when I provide students direct feedback on their work (not just a grade), the students pay attention to what I have said in a far greater way than if I had made a class announcement about the same idea.  This is a time-intensive move but it is a strategic way to increase my students’ compliance. 

Are you looking for ways to engage your students in the process?  Have you figured out something that seems to be working for our student population?  What else might we do as teachers to keep students in the mental workout of Reading Apprenticeship?  Please comment with your ideas.