Transcript Document

Evoking Sensory
Images to Deepen
Comprehension
By A. Frasier
March 2009
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Purpose of Strategy Instruction
 Goal of strategy instruction is active
processing, NOT use of strategies.
Ex: Using a KWL, Venn Diagram, or 2column notes is not the purpose of that
“lesson”. It serves only as a tool for
organizing information to foster the active
processing of knowledge to understanding.
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Sensory Images

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“People who read without
visualizing are simply gliding
across the surface of a text,
missing out on the rewarding
experience of being immersed
completely in another world or
the complete cognitive
engagement that comes from
using all their mental resources to
understand what they read.”
(Kelley & Grace)
What Are the Results of
“Sensing” Text?
“Mental images bring forth
not only snapshots of
reading, but smells, tastes,
feelings, and chills and thrills
as well.”
(Zimmerman, Hutchins)
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“When Sensory Images
Form In a Child’s Mind,
It is an ongoing creative act.
Pictures, smells, tastes, and feelings
burst forth and his mind organizes
them to help the story make sense.
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It is this ongoing creation of
sensory images that keeps children
hooked on reading.”
(Zimmerman, Hutchins)
Proficient Readers. . .
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• Allow the images and emotions
to emerge from all five senses.
These are anchored in a
reader’s prior knowledge.
• Spontaneously and
purposefully create mental
images while and after they
read.
Proficient Readers. . .

Allow themselves to be engaged more
deeply, making the text more
memorable.
Use images to immerse themselves in
rich detail as they read. (The detail
gives depth and dimension to the
reading.)
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Phase 1:
Sensory Experiences
 Have students name words that describe
the five senses.
 Bring in fragrances, textures, colors, tastes,
sounds.
 Have students identify the samples.
 Discuss the qualities of each object.
 Provide the vocabulary.
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Concrete Experience
 Different
objects
 Ask
students to look at the object carefully and
feel its texture. Smell it. Listen to it. (Some
objects may have a sound.)

Put the object away. Have students close their
eyes and see the details in their minds.

Have students draw a picture of the object or
describe it in writing.
Toilet paper rolls/Jewelers Loops
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Connect to Reading &
Writing
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Phase 2:
Evoking the Senses
 Visual
Thinking (photographs/paintings)
 Wordless
 Music/
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Picture Books (Good Dog, Carl)
Sounds (nature)
What Does it Feel Like?
 Short
bio of Dorthea Lange
 Lange
created images that frequently juxtapose
signs of human courage and dignity
 Famous
photo: Migrant Mother
 Carefully
look at the photograph
 Complete
the Visual Thinking Chart
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
Discuss responses with group
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Phase 3: Visualizing from
Vivid Pieces of Text
 Read/Aloud
 Poetry
 Split
Poetry, Poetry
Screen Notes (Brings Rigor!)
 Noticing
Author’s Crafts/ Figurative Language
 Visualizing
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Think Aloud
Image)
is a form of inference! (BK+ Text=
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Standard 14: Poetry

GRADES PREK–2 14.1 Identify a regular beat and similarities of sounds in
words in responding to rhythm and rhyme in poetry.

GRADES 3–4 14.2 Identify rhyme and rhythm, repetition, similes, and
sensory images in poems.

GRADES 5–6 14.3 Respond to and analyze the effects of sound, figurative
language, and graphics in order to uncover meaning in poetry:

• sound (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme);

• figurative language (personification, metaphor, simile, hyperbole); and

• graphics (capital letters, line length).
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Standard 15: Style &
Language

GRADES PREK–2 15.1 Identify the senses implied in words appealing to
the senses in literature and spoken language.

GRADES 3-5 15.2 Identify words appealing to the senses or involving
direct comparisons in literature and spoken language. For example, after
reading The Great Yellowstone Fire, by Carole G.

GRADES 5–6 15.3 Identify imagery, figurative language, rhythm, or flow
when responding to literature.

15.4 Identify and analyze the importance of shades of meaning in
determining word choice in a piece of literature.
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Adult Learning Experience;
What Does it Look like?
 Follow
the 5 step Split-Screen Notes
 Dakota
Dugout
 Discuss
 What
your drawings with your group
words/phrases did the author use to
evoke sensory images?
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Poems are Sensory
Treasure Chests
The Woman’s 400 Meters (L. Morrison)
Skittish,
they flex knees, drum heels and
shiver at the starting line
waiting the gun
to pour them over the stretch
like a breaking wave.
Bang! They’re off
careening down the lanes,
19each chased by her own bright tiger.
Phase 4: Creating and
Sustaining Movies in the Mind
 Notice
as Our Images Change throughout the
text SKETCH to Stretch
Visualize to understand
facts/details (Determine what is important!)
 Nonfiction~
 Move
to independent use of strategy, share
visualizations in book clubs/ literature
discussion groups
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Use conferring questions
All good books are alike in that
they are truer than if they had
really happened and after you
are finished reading one, you
will feel that all of that happened
to you and afterwards it all
belongs to you: the good and
the bad, the ecstasy, the
remorse and sorrow, the people
and the places and how the
weather was. (Hemingway)
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