When Sticky Notes Are Not Enuff

When writing in the margins, using sticky notes, is not enough Tovani used a strategy called a “double diary”.  She used it for English literature helping students make personal connections from what they had read, and then defend the connection.  The defense part is kind of a funny story: she was stating that she had a problem with a student, and no matter what question was asked or connection was made the student would always say “so what?”.  Two of the easiest words to use to shut down a struggling student, so the teacher incorporated the “So What?” into the double diary.  According to the author, the student never said “so what” ever again in her presence.

It’s nice to have such strategies available for teachers of literature.  Tovani mentioned that a science teacher modified her “So What?” double diary to work in his class.  Unfortunately, Tovani doesn’t write anymore on the matter, however, as a science teacher, I would really like to have read how her science teacher peer adapted the double diary.  I like to think the thinking strategy would work well in a lab setting.  I have seen some lab sheets that teachers use that pretty much do something similar to this “So What?” thinking strategy, unless I am just misremembering and I am really a genius that just thought of the perfect worksheet to accompany a lab (both could be true). 

Lab:

1.       Connection to the textbook (what are you doing in this lab activity that relates to the textbook)

2.       Ask a question and/or draw a conclusion

3.       “So What?” What does this lab have to do with what you learning in the class?

4.       How does this thinking help you better understand the textbook?

5.       Bring the thinking back to the textbook

I don’t know which would be easier teaching: literature or science (I know I personally wouldn’t be any good at teaching English, since my punctuation is terrible).  But my point is that Tovani is an English teacher, and most of these reading strategies I’ve come across in this book would need to be drastically changed to fit a science class.  For example, in this section of the book I am writing about, she’s asking the students to draw on personal experiences to better understand the text; however, it is hard to ask a student to draw on personal experiences when asking them to comprehend the principles of the Lewis Dot Structure.

Final thought on this strategy is that I think it would work well for most non-science classes.