What's Important in a Text?

Important to Whom?

Chapter 5 in Strategies That Work this week was interesting to read. One topic I found of great interest was how students think when they are reading. We often ask our students to pick out the most important parts of something they read. However, I think we overlook that everyone may find different parts of a text are more important to them, personally. For instance, the author gave an example about a student reading a text about antismoking programs. However, when the student came across a shocking statistic, the studnet related that statistic to people in their family that smoke. To them, that information became of extreme importance. 

I have to admit that not only am I a victim to considering what is most important to me in a text, I also teach my students that reading is thinking and nothing matters more than what they are thinking and feeling as they read. All of these things help them connect with a text and undestand it on a deeper level. The more connections they make with a text, the more likely they are to remember and even read something new. However, I do not always remember to remind them to pick out what the author states as the most important information from the story. It does not always have to be just one main idea, but is usually more than one; especially with non-fiction texts.  To prepare students for test-taking, they need to be reminded to think of what the author would consider the most important information. We can find this out by examing what they author writes and what kind of details they include on what topics.  A way to do this is by writing many different details down, then concluding the topic that these details are about. This can also be done by using different kinds of anchor charts. I have attached a picture for a way to do this with my younger students.