Lesson 1: Active Reading

“State of the art and better than her car” has been circled to make it stand out for the reader, and it connects to the comment that has been written in the margin response notes.
The sentence “…you’ll keep those Whispering Oaks people from letting the media in to interview Grandma” has been underlined, because it identifies a question that the reader has thought about and wants to find out the answer to later in the reading. This is a good way for you to pay attention to things that might not make sense to you, so that you can keep them in mind while reading.
In the Response Notes, you probably noticed personal connections, questions, and things that stand out for the reader.
If you keep a highlighter handy while you are reading, you can quickly identify words that are new to you. This way you can come back later and see if you were able to figure them out by using the context of the sentence, or if you need to look them up or ask someone about them. This is a great way to increase your vocabulary. Think of a system for marking up the text that makes sense to you. You can use symbols, question marks, smiley faces, explanation marks, etc.

When you make a prediction, it is not just a guess. Did you make at least two predictions and then really look at how you arrived at them? When you are reading actively, if you are aware of your predictions, you can stay “tuned in” to your thinking. Different readers will have different predictions based on their experiences. Always check to see if your predictions are correct as you read.

The question already written for you in the Response Notes deals with the meaning of the word “Alzheimer’s.” It also makes a prediction within the question by wondering if this might be a type of sickness. As you read on, you might have questions about vocabulary, what is happening, what the author meant, etc. Make sure you actually go back to your questions to see if you were able to find the answers.

You might have sketched Grandma, the TV reporter, or what the room looked like—whatever popped into your mind as your read. A sketch of this sort doesn’t need to be a piece of art. It just helps to show you what is going on in your brain as you read. You may not use this technique a lot during your reading, because it takes more time and sometimes can get you off track, if you get more wrapped up in the sketching than in the reading. If you use sketching in future responding, make sure to make just a quick sketch.

The important part of this question is “…you want to remember.” Zeroing in on things you want to remember will keep you from getting caught up in things that aren’t really important. These details help to explain the key ideas that help you understand the author’s purpose and what the story is all about. You should be very careful not to underline or highlight the whole paragraph. If you finish a page and have underlined almost everything, you should return to the story and try to pick out only one or two things on a page.
You may not have many questions about some passages you read. Other passages may be more confusing or make you think of lots of questions.
You should have predicted that Grandma was “pulling the man’s leg” (making up fantastic stories) and that Grandma would be the one in charge of the interview. You might also have predicted that Megan would learn something about her Grandma that she would like. Whatever your predictions, were you correct? If not, what things threw you off? Do you think authors sometimes try to “fool” you and have you make incorrect predictions?
If you were to divide the story in half, you probably were able to sketch something that “summed up” the scene. Do you think that some passages are easier to see in your mind than others?