Teaching Signposts with Patricia Polacco

Several years ago, along with friends and colleagues, I learned about "signposts" by reading the book Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert E Probst.

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Close Reading

Close reading is a process that typically involves re-reading a text to progressively dig deeper. The initial pass allows the reader to understand what the text says, which correlates with the first three Common Core Reading Standards: key ideas and details. The second read compromises an analysis of the author's craft and the text's structure (CCSS standards 4-6). Last, students are invited to revisit the text for a third time to integrate knowledge and ideas (CCSS standards 7-9).

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In their book, Beers and Probst argue that whereas these three reads help students examine texts more closely, the process is often teacher-driven and doesn't provide a gradual release of responsibility so that students eventually apply these reading behaviors independently.

Instead, they suggest readers look for six signposts that "alert readers to significant moments in a work of literature and encourages them to read closely."

To introduce these signposts to my fourth graders in the middle of our author study on Patricia Polacco, we read Pink and Say, a book where all six signposts were present.

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Introduce the Signposts

First, I divided the class into six groups and assigned them each a signpost. They were responsible for defining their signpost to the class, along with sharing the question readers are to ask themselves once they've identified a particular signposts.

• Contrasts and Contradictions: Sharp contrasts between what we expect and what we observe characters doing or feeling.
• Why is the character doing that?
• Aha Moments: Characters’ realizations that shift their actions, understanding or thinking.
• How might this change things?
• Tough Questions: The characters ask questions that reveal their inner struggles.
• What does this question make me wonder about?
• Words of the Wiser: Advice or insights wiser characters, usually older, offer about life to the main character.
• What’s the life lesson, and how might it affect the character?
• Again and Again: Events, images, or particular words that repeat over and over again.
• Why does this show up again and again?
• Memory Moment: Recollections by a character that interrupt the forward progress of the story.
• Why might this memory be important?

Identify the Signposts

Next, I hung up six pages from the book around the room. These were selections from Pink and Say that represented each of the six signposts. I asked the groups to find the page where their signpost was and be ready to justify their selection to the group.

Once every team was stationed at a page, we went around the room to see if the students had correctly identified the signposts.

Invitation to Independence

To finish the mini-lesson, I gave students a signposts bookmark (printed on cardstock) and encouraged them to look for these signposts in the texts they read and those that are read to them.

Since that initial lesson, we continue to look for signposts in the books I read aloud to them (first Front Desk by Kelly Yang and now Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins), along with books we read in book clubs. The conversations we have, spurred by the signpost questions, are some of the deepest, most student-driven conversations that I have had in my 16-year educational career.