Setting Up The Textmasters With The Textbook

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After the brief training, Mrs. Stelkan set up a full round of Textmasters reading.

Rather than letting students schedule the reading of the chapter, she planned the amount of reading to be done for each session. This was done to accommodate the fact that all reading had to be done in class with the one set of textbooks. She decided that twice-weekly Textmasters meetings would fit in well with her laboratory and direct instruction times.

She divided the text by the number of meetings for the upcoming month and set four readings. Using the groups of desks already set up in her classroom, she also set a rotation schedule of the roles, so that each student had a chance to be each role at least once. Finally, to allow ...
... for ease of set-up, she put together folders for each student with the reading and role schedule.

Every Textmasters day followed a set routine. The period began with 20 minutes of silent reading of the assigned portion of the text and filling out the role sheet for the day, as designated by the role rotation. The next 20 minutes allowed for the sharing of roles and for group work on the culminating activity. The final 10 minutes were set aside for the self-reflection sheet.

As mentioned earlier, literature circles often end "with culminating activities where students share their reading with others through a variety of activities. To move away from a traditional study guide, we felt that a culminating activity to present the important information from the chapter would be a fun and informative way to wrap up the first round of Textmasters and help students review for the upcoming chapter test. Mrs. Stelkan compiled a list of culminating activity choices and each Textmasters group was allowed to choose.

She also gave the students a list of vocabulary that they must include in their presentations to boost the reviewing power of the presentations.

Two weeks into the strategy, I visited the school to observe the students during a Textmasters meeting. The students entered the classroom and Mrs. Stelkan put on classical music to signal to the students that the silent reading/role completion was to begin. She also set a timer to make sure that she did not go over the 20 minutes for these activities. Students worked quietly.

Mrs. Stelkan circulated the classroom, stopping to answer questions and to guide work on a role sheet. She then sat with a struggling student and quietly read the text to her. She later explained that the benefit of having this independent work time allowed her to work one-on-one with students most in need of attention.

When the timer went off, students began their Textmasters conversations. Just as they had been instructed, the Discussion Directors began the conversation. Students eagerly responded to questions through energetic discussion, often returning to their reading to prove a point. The Vocabulary Enrichers shared the important words they had found.

The group looked these over and made suggestions for further words to study. The Summarizers read the summary, with add-ins from their group. Finally, the Webmasters displayed the completed graphic organizer, answering questions from students about why this format was chosen.

After the Textmasters roles were shared, students worked on their culminating activity. This chapter was about producers and consumers, so it lent itself to a variety of activities. One group created a Jeopardy game using PowerPoint. Another group created a team of news reporters. A third group decided that a quiz show in the style of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" was perfect. They were applying their new knowledge to these activities with a host of reading, writing, and speaking skills.