Text Rendering- a Close Reading Strategy AND Summarizor?

At a recent training from the Upstate Writing Project, trainer Dawn Hawkins used a strategy with my teachers called "Jazzing the Text." Participants read an article, then highlighted/underlined one sentence that stood out to the them, one phrase, and one word. We then stood in a circle and each one of us stated our sentence, then our phrase, then our word. It was almost like a round robin sharing. At the end, we were able to really 'see' the main idea of the article, and how each of us interpreted the information. Many of us picked the same information to share, and it was a confirmation that we are thinking alike and on target to reach a unified goal.

I recently found this strategy in the book Tools for Leaders, by Marjorie Larner. In this text, the author provides the protocol for 'Text Rendering,' and describes the strategy as a collaborative approach to construct meaning. So true!

During the college course I co-facilitate, ALIVE, we tried the strategy with our participants. Since we're focused on creating a Project Based Learning Unit, we had participants read the article, "8 Essentials of Project Based Learning" from the Buck Institute. Click this link to see everyone sharing their sentence, their phrase, their word. As a debrief, we discussed the common threads we heard, how we were able to clarify meaning through the process, and how this strategy helped us to expand our thinking about the 8 essentials.




Like everyone else right now, I have been doing a ton of research on Close Reading.  I feel like Text Rendering is an appropriate strategy to use for close reading.  The article we chose to use was extremely important for understanding in our class, so we wanted participants to read, and focus on the main meanings of the text by pulling out one sentence, one phrase, one word that resonated with them.  This, I believe, would be a perfect strategy to use in a classroom setting.  As the facilitator, one can see which information is important to students, and you can clear up misconceptions or further the discussion around a particular focus that came up.  We found that a few participants chose the exact same sentence, phrase, and word, which helped create a bond between participants and lifted the level of trust in our group.  Great strategy!