Clozed notes with repeated readings

Today I gave my class clozed notes on European explorers to go with a reading packet. At first, I instructed the class to read through Spain and France sections while completing the clozed notes. I gave them 20 minutes to work on as much as possible. As I circulated the room, the majority were slow to get started and I think even a little confused, even though I had given an example of clozed notes as a class. With prompting and redirecting, students got to work. After 10 min., only 5 students had finished the Spain section and the other 20 were still working. When I asked one white female student how she was doing, she stated she was confused and having a hard time filling in the blanks. Another student, african american boy, called out "This is hard." This surprised me because I thought using clozed notes would be helpful since it gave them look-fors. In retrospect, it may have given them too-specific look-fors which were tripping them up. After 20 min. we went over the clozed answers as a class and many of them said "Ohhhhh" when I gave answers, like they were making it too difficult by themselves

After that, I then read over the clozed notes on England and Netherlands aloud with them. I then read England's section and then asked them to reread it on their own to fill in clozed notes. The level of immediate on-task was much higher. All but 3 of my students got right to work on England. I asked the same female student if she understood it now and she said "It seems easier, like it makes more sense and I can guess better what you want in the blanks." I followed up asking her if she thinks it is because I already read it aloud and now she is rereading it. While I was hoping for a "yes, that must be it!" I got instead "I dunno, maybe." Looking at just the participation and frustration levels, independently, it would be easy to claim that the repeated readings made a difference. While I am sure it helped some, so did the fact that the students were more familiar with clozed notes the second time, had gone over answers for other countries so could more easily anticipate what I was asking, and had also read over the clozed notes as a class prior to reading.

Tomorrow, I plan on using the Do You Hear What I Hear repeated reading strategy with a Columbus journal entry. I predict that it will be very useful since asking students to read a primary source like that is usually tough since it is a higher reading level.

See below for pictures of clozed notes students were given.