Compare and Contrast 2 Pieces of Art Esl Intermediate

It is a brisk October 24-hour interval in Chicago during my beginning year of education. I (Jennifer, second writer) am seated at a small tabular array in the back of the classroom, surrounded by the members of my on-level guided reading group. The vi second-grade students in the group are getting ready to read a short nonfiction merchandise volume about spiders that is a required text in our regular reading series. The book uses a straightforward compare-contrast text structure to present information about spiders, comparing and contrasting them first with insects and then with other arachnids, like scorpions. My goal in the lesson is to help children to both gain new knowledge most spiders and to empathize the compare-contrast text structure that the book uses.

The children (all names are pseudonyms) speak to one another quietly in Spanish as they have out their reading logs and pencils. They begin to report the encompass of the book, which features a large color photo of a spider in its spider web.

"Eww, arañas! [Eww, spiders!]" Lourdes whispers.

"Oh, I know. Spiders are gross!" her friend Daniela replies.

"Why practice you lot hate spiders? Why do you call up they are gross?" I enquire the girls.

"'Cause they are scary and yucky!" Daniela squeaks, shuddering.

"They on the wall in my room sometimes," Lourdes says softly.

Benjamin chimes in and says, "Halloween!"

"Good thinking! You're right." I say. "Nosotros see spiders inside our houses and in other buildings sometimes. We besides run into spiders in decorations for Halloween."

I enquire the group what else they know about spiders. Several students share ideas well-nigh spiders beingness scary and creepy. I probe for more information nigh where spiders live, what they eat, and whether there are unlike kinds of spiders. I realize quickly that my students practice non have the kinds of background cognition about spiders that I expected them to have. We create a K-W-L nautical chart on a piece of nautical chart newspaper, making a short list of the things that nosotros already know nearly spiders and a longer list of the things that we want to know. I then direct students to open the volume and to read the first two pages. On these first two pages, the authors of the volume compare and contrast the physical characteristics of spiders and insects. The offset folio describes these physical similarities and differences, and the 2nd page presents labeled diagrams of a spider and an ant. When students accept finished reading these pages, I ask them to talk about what they have read.

"All right, who can tell me i thing that they learned nigh spiders?" I ask.

The students are silent. Finally, Julio ventures, "Spiders are insects?" I return to the text, pointing to the ii diagrams and saying, "Wait, these diagrams can help us learn most spiders and insects." We hash out the two diagrams, and students are able to point out and talk about the concrete features of the spider and the ant. So, I inquire, "And then, how are spiders and insects different?" The students are silent once more. Finally, Daniela tentatively says, "The spider is large and the ant is piddling?" Julio whispers, "Spiders can bite y'all, but ants don't bite you lot?" I ask "How are spiders and insects the same?" Lourdes looks down at the book and says "bugs." "They are both bugs?" I inquire. She nods. "Is that right?" I ask, looking at the group. "Are they both bugs?" The other students remain silent. The lunch bell rings, and the students line up and file out of the classroom, looking confused.

What went wrong in this lesson?

Why were the students unable to compare and contrast spiders and insects? The students in this group were considered on-level readers based on district and land-mandated assessments, were not receiving any supplemental support or instruction in reading exterior of their regular mainstream classroom, and were able to read many of the narrative selections in the school's adopted reading programme without difficulty. Why did they struggle with this text? We believe that at that place were 3 main reasons. Kickoff, the students were almost likely confused because they, like many other young learners, were unfamiliar with this informational text'due south compare-dissimilarity structure (Englert & Hiebert, 1984) and were non sure how to interpret the information about spiders and insects when it was presented in this format. Second, the students did not have a nifty bargain of background knowledge virtually either of the 2 things (spiders and insects) that were being compared and contrasted. Third, the students in this group, like many students in Jennifer's second-grade form, were English-linguistic communication learners (ELLs), and had gaps in their English vocabulary- they literally may not accept had the necessary vocabulary at their disposal in English language to empathize or express what they were reading or thinking during the lesson.

In this article, nosotros will explore means to accost these 3 issues when using the compare-contrast text structure with ELL students in the chief grades. Specifically, we will explain the post-obit:

• How to teach students to place the compare- contrast text structure, and to use this construction to support their comprehension.
• How to use compare-contrast texts to activate and extend students' groundwork knowledge.
• How to use compare-contrast texts to help students expand and enrich their vocabulary.

We begin with a brief discussion of the unique needs of ELL students, describing how they tin can benefit from agreement text structures, and explaining why we have selected the compare-contrast text structure for use with ELL students. Nosotros then depict ways in which teachers can teach ELL students to identify and use the compare-dissimilarity text structure to aid their comprehension.

Why is learning well-nigh text structure important for immature ELL students?

Fifty-fifty though ELL students bring a wealth of cultural and linguistic knowledge with them to schoolhouse, research has shown that these students tend to lag behind their monolingual English-speaking peers in their levels of bookish achievement (Echevarria, Curt, & Powers, 2006). As discussed in the 2006 Report of the National Literacy Console on Language- Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006), in that location is growing testify that ELL students are often able to perform at or even above the level of their English-speaking peers in the areas of spelling and give-and-take recognition, simply tend to struggle more in the areas of reading vocabulary and comprehension. In response to the discrepancy between monolingual English-speaking students and ELL students' reading comprehension, several researchers have developed programs with the goal of boosting ELL students' reading comprehension achievement (Echevarria et al., 2006; Klingner & Vaughn, 1996). Although these programs focus on numerous important skills and strategies to aid facilitate English reading comprehension for ELL students, they do non emphasize an essential element of comprehending English text: the construction of the text.

How does learning about text construction help young students?

Why is information technology so important for young learners to empathize the specific structures of informational texts? Research has shown that early experiences with and instruction in the use of informational texts support students' comprehension of these types of text s (Kletzien & Dreher, 2004; Williams et al., 2005) and tin help prepare young students for future interactions with informational texts. When students practise non have these early experiences with advisory text, they may be more likely to struggle when they encounter such texts in the later grades. Unfortunately, many children in the early on grades are exposed to very piddling informational text. Duke (2000) found that first-form students attention schools that served low-income families received even less exposure to advisory texts than those in higher-income areas. In fact, in one-half of the classrooms in low-income schools that Knuckles visited, no informational texts were used at all.

At the level of rhetorical structure, informational texts differ from narrative texts in important means (Weaver & Kintsch, 1991). Several dissimilar types of rhetorical structures are used in informational texts, such as cause-effect, problem-solution, and compare-contrast. These structures are significantly unlike from the rhetorical construction that is generally used in narrative texts. The number and multifariousness of the rhetorical structures used in informational texts tin can create challenges for readers, especially if they have non received explicit education in how to recognize and acquire from these different structures.

Why teach ELL students the compare-contrast text structure?

Although we believe that young ELL students would benefit from instruction related to many dissimilar expository text structures, we have chosen to focus on the compare-contrast structure for 2 reasons. First, research has suggested that, of the most common expository text structures, the compare-contrast structure may be ane of the more than difficult for students to navigate (eastward.g., Englert & Hiebert, 1984; Raphael, Englert, & Kirschner, 1986). Second, subsequently young learners take a basic agreement of the compare-contrast text structure, teachers tin can employ compare-contrast texts to assist bridge the gap between what students already know (their background knowledge, their previous experiences with texts, and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds) and the new content teachers are presenting. By selecting texts in which information that is somehow tied to students' groundwork is compared with new ideas, teachers can create opportunities for students to brand meaningful connections between the new information and the "funds of noesis" (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonz�lez, 1992) they bring from their own lives and experiences. We will draw what this blazon of lesson might look like, and how texts might be selected for such lessons. First, yet, we volition describe how to provide explicit instruction in the identification and use of the compare-dissimilarity structure for ELL students in the primary grades.

Text construction, background knowledge, and vocabulary conquering

How to teach immature students to identify and use the compare-contrast text structure

Every bit we have described, one of the issues that young students often face when attempting to comprehend compare-contrast texts is that they are unfamiliar with this type of structure itself-they exercise non understand that they are being asked to recognize the similarities or differences between two or more things. Explicit didactics and teacher modeling are needed to testify students how these texts work, and to demonstrate strategies that they can utilize as they interact with these texts on their ain.

One style to provide this kind of explicit instruction and modeling is to conduct a series of carefully organized lessons. For example, Vocalist and Donlan (1989) have explicated a method of providing teaching in reading strategies in which teachers model or demonstrate a strategy or process, then provide students with opportunities for guided do, and finally let students to exercise the strategy or procedure on their own. Using this type of organization for instruction, a lesson introducing students to the compare-contrast structure might contain the following steps:

1. The teacher conducts a brief remember-aloud activeness, modeling the thinking that he or she does when reading a compare-contrast text. The instructor also records the similarities and differences betwixt the things existence compared and contrasted using a graphic organizer such equally a Venn diagram. The students' role in this outset think-aloud activity is to watch and listen to the model that the teacher provides. The instructor also points out features of the compare-contrast text structure itself, and creates a list of words or phrases in the text that students can look for to assistance them empathise that they are being asked to compare and contrast two or more different things or ideas.
2. The teacher engages the students in a 2nd think-aloud action. At this phase, the teacher involves students by asking directly questions nearly the things or ideas that are existence compared and contrasted in the text, and then supports students every bit they complete a graphic organizer either in pocket-size groups or as a class.
3. The teacher provides students with the opportunity to practice reading compare-contrast texts, either in minor groups or individually. Students are instructed to use the same strategies modeled by the teacher during the think-aloud activities, and are given a graphic organizer to help them record and think about the similarities and differences betwixt the things or ideas that are being compared and contrasted in the text.

Figure 1: Compare-dissimilarity nautical chart for teacher modeling

A good book for conducting this type of explicit lesson is What's the Difference? 10 Animal Look-Alikes past Judy Diehl and David Plumb (2000). This volume provides 10 elementary, compare-contrast passages virtually pairs of animals that are similar in appearance (such equally alligators and crocodiles). A sample of what a compare-contrast lesson using this book might expect like is included in the following vignette.

Teacher: [placing the chart in Figure 1 on the overhead projector or other projection device, and holding up What's the Difference? (Diehl & Plumb, 2000) for the course to see] Today we are going to read a book virtually pairs of animals that look a lot alike, but are actually different types of animals. As we read, we are going to keep rail of the means that the animals are alike, and the ways that they are different. We are going to compare and contrast the 2 types of animals equally nosotros read. We will use charts like this [teacher points to Figure 1] to assistance us compare and contrast these animals.

For the first role of this lesson, your task is to watch and listen very advisedly. I am going to show you lot what I practice and what I think about when I compare and contrast. [Instructor reads the starting time paragraph of the book.] Wow! I've simply learned that both crocodiles and alligators have short legs, sharp teeth, and scaly skin. I am going to write these three ways that alligators and crocodiles are alike on my nautical chart, right here where it says "both." I know that these are characteristics that both of these animals have, and that brand alligators and crocodiles alike. At present I am going to keep reading. As I read, I am going to run across if I can acquire more means that alligators and crocodiles are alike, and ways that they are different. [Instructor reads the rest of the selection about alligators and crocodiles, continuing to model his or her thinking and to demonstrate the use of the chart.]

Teacher: I learned a lot about alligators and crocodiles from that passage. I noticed that the way the passage compared and contrasted alligators and crocodiles actually helped me understand the means that alligators and crocodiles are the aforementioned, and the means that they are different. I as well noticed that there were sure words and phrases that I saw as I was reading that let me know that this was a compare and dissimilarity passage. Let'southward become back to the passage at present and see if we can notice any words or phrases that let u.s.a. know that the passage is comparing and contrasting two types of animals. [Teacher and students read through the passage again, and create a list of compare-contrast words and phrases that includes both, like, but, different, compare, and to tell autonomously.]

Teacher: Excellent work! Nosotros volition keep calculation compare-contrast words and phrases to this list as we read today. Let's turn to another passage now, and run into if we can find any compare-contrast words or phrases. [Teacher and students plough to the passage about butterflies and moths, and point out words and phrases that let them know that this is a compare-contrast passage. They add the phrase instead of to their listing.] Now, let's get ready to read the passage together. [Teacher places Figure 2, the Venn diagram for butterflies and moths, on the projector.] This time, you are going to help me fill in this chart as we read. We are going to utilise the chart to aid us keep rails of the ways in which butterflies and moths are like, and the ways that they are different. [Teacher and students read the passage together and fill in the Venn diagram.]

Teacher: At present it is time for you to practice on your own. I am going to give each of your groups another compare-contrast passage. Beginning, yous will look through the passage to see if you tin can find whatever compare-contrast words and phrases. If you find whatsoever that are not already on our list, nosotros will add together them! Next, yous volition read the passage. Equally you lot read, you volition use this Venn diagram [teacher places Figure 3 on the projector] to help yous to keep track of the means in which the 2 types of animals in the passage are the same, and the ways that they are unlike. Finally, your group will share what you take learned virtually the 2 types of animals with the form. [Students work in pocket-sized groups, and share what they have learned.]

Instructor: At present, let's review what we have learned today. What does it mean to compare and contrast something? What words or phrases tin we expect for when we read to assist u.s.a. know that nosotros are reading a compare- contrast text? How can comparison and contrasting two different things help us to understand both of those things better?

Figure 2: Compare-dissimilarity chart for guided practice

Figure 3: Compare-dissimilarity nautical chart for contained exercise

How to apply compare-contrast texts to activate and extend students' background knowledge

One time students take a bones agreement of compare- dissimilarity text structures, teachers can select compare-contrast books that help students brand connections between their background knowledge and experiences and the new content they are learning. These connections are particularly of import for ELL students, who may bring unlike "funds of knowledge" (Moll et al., 1992) to schoolhouse than their native English language-speaking peers, including different interests, experiences, and other types of background knowledge. Helping all students make connections betwixt their own knowledge, interests, and experiences non only allows them to proceeds a deeper agreement of the new content, but too increases students' engagement and motivation (Jacobs, 2002).

Two books that could be used to help young students make these kinds of connections are Are Trees Alive? by Debbie S. Miller (2002) and What'southward Information technology Similar to Exist a Fish? past Wendy Pfeffer (1996). In each of these books, students are asked to make connections between new content information (the structure of copse and the bodies of fish, respectively) and a familiar discipline: their own bodies. In Are Trees Alive? the author uses elementary language and detailed illustrations to help students learn about the parts of a tree past comparing them to parts of their bodies. For example, one folio compares the sap in a tree to the blood in the human body, and asks students to look at the veins on the back of a leaf then on the back of their own hands. In this way, students have the opportunity to brand an immediate and concrete connectedness between what they are learning and themselves.

A third compare-dissimilarity book that may be used to assistance students make connections between new content and their own experiences is The Sun, the Current of air, and the Rain by Lisa Westberg Peters (1990). In this book, Peters explains the difficult concept of the formation of a mountain past comparing and contrasting its formation with the building of a sand mountain by a young girl on the beach. Depending on students' prior experiences, this comparison may help them to make concrete connections betwixt their own experiences building with sand and the germination of an bodily mountain.

The three texts we have but described are all fantabulous resources for using the compare-dissimilarity structure with young learners. Table one provides additional information about these texts, forth with a detailed list of other compare-dissimilarity books.

How to use compare-contrast texts to expand and enrich young students' vocabulary knowledge

Although explicit vocabulary pedagogy is benign for all students, it is critical for ELL students to begin to "shut the gap" in vocabulary knowledge that exists between them and their English language-speaking peers (Baronial, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; August & Shanahan, 2006; Carlo et al., 2004). Compare- contrast texts tin can be used to innovate and reinforce new and important vocabulary for immature learners. Compare-dissimilarity texts (as well as other informational texts) are ofttimes excellent sources of 2 particular types of vocabulary that are important for immature students' literacy development. The start type is general academic vocabulary. This term has been defined and used differently by researchers and practitioners over time. Here, we are using information technology to describe words that students are unlikely to encounter in regular conversation with their peers, just that they are likely to notice in many texts that they read in schoolhouse in a multifariousness of content areas (Hiebert & Lubliner, 2008). The second type of vocabulary is content-specific- words that are specific to the content being taught (and are unlikely to exist encountered past students exterior of readings or discussions most that detail content).

Academic vocabulary. Teachers tin foster immature students' general academic vocabulary development by drawing students' attention to the cueing words and phrases that are often included in compare- dissimilarity texts, such equally unlike, similar to, resembles, and compared to. Teachers can highlight these words and phrases in the compare-dissimilarity text by displaying the text on an overhead projector and circling the words, past making a word bank of the cueing words and phrases found in a compare-contrast text, or by asking students to get on a word hunt to locate the cueing words. Teachers can likewise behave brief thinkaloud activities when reading compare-dissimilarity texts aloud to students to model the use of these words every bit cues to let the reader know what the text is asking them to exercise. Finally, when advisable, teachers tin draw students' attending to cognates that may be between these highlighted words and phrases and students' beginning languages.

Content-specific vocabulary. To teach contentspecific vocabulary, teachers may choose a pocket-sized number of content-specific words to focus on during their explicit vocabulary instruction. They can then highlight these words using visual aids, diagrams, or word cards. Effigy four shows an case of what a word menu might wait similar. In addition, teachers tin back up students' understandings of targeted vocabulary words (including content-specific words) by providing clear, educatee-friendly definitions of the words during read-aloud activities using the texts (Biemiller & Boote, 2006; Silverman, 2007). For instance, in a lesson comparing killer whales and sharks, a instructor could define the term dorsal fin by comparison and discussing pictures of killer whales and sharks. And so when the term comes upwards during a read-aloud of the text, the teacher could provide additional support for students' understanding of the give-and-take by embedding a student-friendly definition into the read-aloud (such as "the shark's dorsal fin, or the fin on the shark's back").

Figure 4: Word menu

Compare-contrast instruction makes a difference

Although we accept focused on ELL students, all young learners tin benefit from the strategies we have described. Explicit instruction on the compare-contrast text structure can assistance students understand this structure and support their comprehension of compare- dissimilarity texts. This type of instruction tin also assistance students learn the vocabulary that volition help them to recognize this structure when they encounter it in the texts that they read. Once students understand this structure, compare-contrast texts tin be used to help immature students make connections between new content and their own background cognition and experiences.

Equally we have discussed, this instruction is particularly important for young ELL students. ELL students are fifty-fifty less likely than their native English-speaking peers to have the vocabulary needed to comprehend informational text, and then instruction that helps build both general academic and content-specific vocabulary noesis is particularly disquisitional for them. ELL students are besides likely to draw on unlike types of background knowledge than native English-speaking students, and to come from cultural and linguistic backgrounds that may be different from that of either their peers or their teacher. Compare-contrast texts tin be used both to build ELL students' background noesis and to tap into the noesis and experiences they bring to school.

Citations

Dreher, K., & Grey, J. (2009, Oct). Compare, Dissimilarity, Cover: Using Compare-Contrast Text Structures With ELLs in K-3 Classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 63(2), 132-141.

References

Baronial, D., Carlo, M.Southward., Dressler, C., & Snow, C.E. (2005). The critical part of vocabulary development for English linguistic communication learners. Learning Disabilities Inquiry & Do, 20(one), fifty- 57. doi: x.1111/j.1540-5826.2005.00120.x

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds.). (2006). Developing literacy in second-linguistic communication learners: Written report of the National Literacy Console on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Biemiller, A., & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building vocabulary in main grades. Periodical of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 44-62. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.98.1.44

Carlo, M.S., Baronial, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C.E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., et al. (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English language language learners in bilingual and mainstream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(two), 188-215. doi:ten.1598/RRQ.39.two.3

Knuckles, N.One thousand. (2000). 3.six minutes per day: The scarcity of informational texts in starting time grade. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(ii), 202-224. doi: x.1598/RRQ.35.two.1

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Raphael, T.E., Englert, C.Due south., & Kirschner, B.M. (1986). The impact of text structure pedagogy and social context on students' comprehension and production of expository text (Research Series No. 177). East Lansing: Michigan State University, Institute for Research on Pedagogy.

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Vocaliser, H., & Donlan, D. (1989). Reading and learning from text (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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