Through a compilation of standards-based lesson plans for small- and whole-group instruction, this chapter offers a humorous and heartbreaking perspective of the author's experiences during a yearlong university partnership “Book Bistro” in a 7th grade classroom with urban adolescent struggling readers. Using a combination of leveled, fictional, nonfictional, and culturally relevant text, the chapter is written as a personal narrative to address higher level thinking through systematic instruction in comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and structural analysis. A step-by-step implementation procedure for each of the research-based strategies is presented, including concept of definition, discussion web, probable passage, pointed reading, semantic feature analysis, and others. A table within the chapter provides a description of each of the strategies, alignment with the 2009 NAEP framework, and an instructional scaffold for using the strategy within a specific phase of the reading process.
Waters, Karen C. (2009). Strategy instruction and lessons learned in teaching higher level thinking skills in an urban middle school classroom. In Building struggling students' higher level literacy: Practical ideas, powerful solutions. (J.L. Collins & T.G. Gunning Eds.) Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
ISBN 9780872076877
Per author the version posted is pre-publication, before final chapter edits.