Unit relating mindset theory to reading ability

Today my Reading students learned more than I think I have ever had students learn in a single, 50 minute period. I'm making these notes to see if I can make this happen again! It was addicting.

I'm posting here one part of what we did today, which was the culmination of a unit on mindset theory. The rest of today's class is in a post that will follow.

Unit Objectives: 

1. Students identify their mindset (growth or fixed).
2. Students relate mindset theory to the process of learning.
3. Students relate mindset theory to the ability to read. 

Before today's lesson we worked on the first two objectives: Students...

• listened to me quickly describe Dweck's two mindsets (success comes through talent/natural ability vs. success comes through effort)
• thought, talked and wrote about a time they were successful
• identified their own mindset based on that example from their lives
• listened to me read aloud a page from Dweck's Mindset with the story of Michael Jordan
• continued to read a few more pages of that excerpt about Babe Ruth and a female runner (optional homework - many did it and asked to discuss in class after reading)
• thought about whether reading is a natural ability as a "do next" assignment before they came to class (thinking question I give out at the previous class)

Today's lesson focused on the third objective: Students...

• wrote about whether reading is a natural ability for 5 minutes silently as a "do now"
• were asked to take extra care to back up their opinion with examples 
• discussed their views as a group, using a talking stick, starting with a student, continuing around without my comment until each member of the group spoke, concluding that reading was mostly effort but it started with some natural ability to make sense of the words as sounds 
• listened to my contribution/wrap up, affirming their conclusions and adding some background I learned from John Medina's Brain Rules and from Stanislas Dehaene's Reading in the Brain:


• our brains were designed in the Stone Age 
• our ability to read depends on the brain re-purposing functions originally designed for pre-literate life
• almost all humans have the wiring that lets them read
• some people use a different part of the brain to read (dyslexics)
• the brain constantly changes, actually moving around physical material, based on what we demand of it
• a dyslexic brain, like any other brain, can change over time, depending on what is demanded of it 
• true story example: a dyslexic person I know, how they learned to read at different ages and what strategies they used
• big idea: we can improve our reading through effort and we change our brains as we go

Follow-up assignment (link to assignment sheet):  

Choose a pleasure book they have never read before (help and resources offered to make this choice). Read 15 minutes a day (or more to go the "extra mile"), aiming for a regular time of day to build a reading habit. Discuss the reading at a Readers' Cafe first thing at Monday's class. Write about the reading every week, due on Tuesday. (This could be a Moodle forum or could be postings to Goodreads - we haven't decided that yet and I am going to ask students to choose as a group.)

In connection with this assignment students also reviewed their 10 rights as readers, by Daniel Pennac and illustrated by Quentin Blake. One important right is the right not to finish a book, which is why I focus on the literacy habit (15 minutes, same time each day), instead of finishing a particular book or reading a set number of pages.