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The CAPI Student Reader was developed at Phillip and Sala Burton Academic High School by the CAPI program. The book contains selected readings, many from Text and Context.
Due to copyright issues, we cannot provide the CAPI Student Reader online, but we have made Teacher’s Manual to the CAPI Student Reader available for teachers who wish to leverage the teaching techniques developed in the program and apply them to other readings and lessons.
Preface to the Student Reader
Units and instructional exercises contained in these materials have resulted from a collaborative effort of Advanced Composition teachers at Phillip and Sala Burton High School in San Francisco and composition instructors at San Francisco State University. Best practices in scaffolding reading and writing assignments are the foundation for the curriculum in this book.
In this text, reading and writing instructions are imbedded in contextual units which are organized around thematically based, rhetorical, and sentence-based goals. The themes were chosen for their accessibility to young writers, and it is hoped that teachers using these materials will expand the contents, adding other relevant thematically based units.
Text Features
We have organized this text is that learners are supported through the process of initial reading of articles, text analysis, using the text to get information, paragraph writing, sentence level work, and drafting essays.
Pre-reading activities facilitates are students’ understanding of the materials before they read it. Exercises range from activating schema so that studentís background knowledge is explored and can be used to facilitate text comprehension. Previewing the text helps readers understand how the information is organized and what ideas are contained in the article.
Predicting based on the title and key paragraphs facilities the students’ metacognitive awareness such that they are keyed into there thinking process to promote reading comprehension.
During reading activities make reading instruction explicit so that readers can be aided in their text analysis skills. Together the teacher and student look at specific rhetorical features such as paragraph organization, main ideas, and supporting details. Because of this work, students are better able to use the text to get ideas for their own essays, and better understand how to use specific rhetorical features in their writing.
Post reading includes a variety of activities which expand the students’ knowledge base for the theme being studied and also prepare the students for essay, paragraph, and sentence level work. Ideas may be explored though various journal assignments as well as specifically whole group and small group discussion activities. Paragraph work includes analysis of model paragraphs from the readings as well as short paragraph assignments in which students write about thematically related main ideas, practicing paragraph development through a variety of rhetorical strategies.
These paragraphs may be used later as students develop their ideas into full-length essays. Sentence work targets specific structures including basic sentence structure, coordination, subcoordination, and also use of adjective clauses. Work on descriptive language is always embedded in the context of the theme as students analyze sentences from the articles they are reading as well as write sentences about the content which reflect their thoughts and ideas about the topic.
Prewriting exercises prepare students for the essay assignment. Teachers support students understanding of key ideas they might use in tie writing as well as specific rhetorical strategies for organizing their essays. Unpacking the actual writing assignment so that students understand what is expected of them is also a key component.
Drafting activities help the students get started in the writing process and include analysis of first and second drafts by themselves, their peers, and the teacher. Focus on overall essay structure, paragraph organization, and sentence level work is emphasizes as student process from first to final drafts.
Supplementary Materials and Activities include additional readings and exercises which the teacher may want to include to augment each unit or to interchange with any of the units; activities based on studentí interests and needs.
It is hoped that teachers will add to these materials as they see fit, keeping the pedagogical principles outlined above in tact.
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to the many high school students who have gone through the curriculum as we were revising it, and from whom we have learned so much about how best to teach reading and writing. We also would like to thank our colleagues in the CAPI program for their input, advice, and ongoing support throughout this process.
For more information, please contact Kathy Munderloh at kkpm@sfsu.edu.
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