Asking Comprehension Questions ISN'T Teaching Comprehension

"What are you planning?"

Teacher" "We are reading Fahrenheit 451."

"Why?"

Teacher: "We have copies of this novel, and that's a freshman text." 

"What are you teaching? What standards are you focusing on?"

Teacher: "Well, comprehension." 

"What elements of comprehension do you wish to address?"

Teacher: "..."

"Let's look here and see which ones seem important to you http://www.benchmarkeducation.com/best-practices-library/comprehension-strategies.html"

Teacher: "These look good: Determine Text Importance—Readers (a) distinguish between what's essential versus what's interesting, (b) distinguish between fact and opinion, (c) determine cause-and-effect relationships, (d) compare and contrast ideas or information, (e) discern themes, opinions, or perspectives, (f) pinpoint problems and solutions, (g) name steps in a process, (h) locate information that answers specific questions, or (i) summarize."

"Great! So which ones seem most relevant to Part One?"

Teacher: "Cause and effect, themes. Making connections and predictions about what is going to happen next."

"Good ones to select. I think visualizing is also a good one to add at the beginning of the novel because it helps the kids get into what they are reading. Let’s add this one too: Visualize—Readers make the printed word real and concrete by creating a “movie” of the text in their minds. You can write these words on your board to explain your objectives."

Teacher: “Ok, great!”

“So let’s talk about how you are going to teach comprehension. They are listening to the book aloud today. How are you going to teach them to use cause and effect relationships, predict, or to visualize in order to comprehend the text?”

Teacher: “I found these comprehension questions online.”

“Great, so how are you going to teach this?”

Teacher: “…”

“Let’s take the first question: How are the books that are being burnt described? I think most kids could go directly to the text, highlight the words, or copy them to answer the question.

“Does this recitation of text evidence demonstrate comprehension, cause and effect relationships, visualization, or understanding of what Bradbury is doing here?”

Teacher: “Well, not really. I never thought about it that way. This is how my teacher taught us this book.”

“Yes. That’s true. There’s nothing wrong with a set of questions to prompt and guide your reading – to check for comprehension and monitor student progress. That hits the surface level of comprehension and focuses on the CONTENT of the TEXT. But it’s not the same thing as teaching comprehension in a way that applies to ANY text.  And it certainly doesn’t get to the deeper elements of comprehension involving what the author communicates.

"Remember, you're teaching the TEKS, not Fahrenheit 451. In the end, no one really cares about how the books are described. That's not the enduring understanding we should leave with. 

“One of the best ways we have in teaching is to model our thinking as we use the comprehension strategies ourselves. See if this makes sense:  

• The first thing I do when I read, is I try to make a movie in my mind about what I am reading. Let’s take just this small part of the text that the question asks us to examine. As I read it, I try to see it in my mind: “while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and the lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.” So in my mind, I make a picture of a house and a porch. I see books on that porch and the front lawn. The books are on fire, the white parts turning red and then black. The pages are flapping with the flames and probably the wind too. The wind makes the fire burn faster and the pages move with it as they burn and crumble.

That’s just the first step. Now I need to understand what that means, not just see it.

• Now, I’m going to make some connections. Bradbury compares the books to pigeon wings. What do I know about pigeons and their flapping wings? If you’ve never gotten close to pigeons, here’s a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WulG_eVnwk . It’s kind of a cause and effect relationship: They fly away when they are in danger. They are escaping because they are afraid. These books on the porch and on the grass are escaping – all the ideas and characters inside them are trying to leave…to escape the danger of the fire. But Bradbury tells us that they don’t escape, they die. That means that all those ideas and characters inside the books are dead too. Gone.

• Next, I’m going to think more about what else I know about pigeons. Authors compare nonliving things to living things on purpose to help the reader understand things that would take a lot more words to really explain. When authors compare non-living things to people, it’s called personification. When authors compare non-living things to animals, it’s called anthropomorphism. So I think about the characteristics of pigeons.  Pigeons are wild, uncontrolled, and unwanted pests in most places. They make huge messes. No one can really control where they go and what they do. Now I connect that to what Bradbury gains by comparing the books to the pigeons. By choosing to compare the books to animals that are pests, Bradbury might be showing the reader the very reason the books are being burned! Somehow, the ideas in the books can’t be controlled. Somehow, the people burning the books think of them as pests to be destroyed.

• Going further with that idea, I can think about when people try to ban books or destroy them. When people try to control what other people read and write, that’s called censorship. In a way, that’s a kind of death, too-- one that attacks your personal choices. That the books are being destroyed with fire, Bradbury adds an element of violence and pain into the death of  personal choices and expression of ideas as well.  

So to make sense of what I am reading, I use some tools to help me notice important things that lead me to what the author is communicating on a deeper level than what’s happening literally.

Visualizing

Comparing

Cause and Effect Relationships

Literary Devices (personification and anthropomorphism)

Now it’s time for you to try: Let’s take that second comprehension question about Montag’s job and whether or not he likes it.

“At this point, you would make a decision. Do you want to keep everyone at the whole class level and work through another example? Or do you want to turn them lose to explore the ideas with a partner or small group and share out after they have had time to read, think, and discuss?”

Teacher: “This is overwhelming.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”