Chapter 6 discusses the power to infer. I have found that many of my students struggle with this concept, so I guess you could say I was looking for a diamond in the rough here. Gear did give quite a lot of wonderful examples of how to model inferencing to students as well as examples of how they could demonstrate it themselves.
I found it interesting that 80 percent of the books listed for use with this topic were written by the same author. Gear explains her choice by stating her belief that “it is far more challenging to tell a story with few words-to imply rather than tell, to be subtle, to choose how much to actually say and just know how much to leave out, to leak out a story in a controlled manner, than to tell everything at once.” I think that sharing this concept with students is important.
Gear also mentions the use of comic books in the classroom. She suggests that although comic books often have few words, they are beneficial not only because they are of high interest to students, but that they require inferencing between every frame. I used to be hesitant to use comic books because there are so few words, but now I know it might be just what I need to help my students have a more meaningful understanding of what it means to infer.
I found it interesting that 80 percent of the books listed for use with this topic were written by the same author. Gear explains her choice by stating her belief that “it is far more challenging to tell a story with few words-to imply rather than tell, to be subtle, to choose how much to actually say and just know how much to leave out, to leak out a story in a controlled manner, than to tell everything at once.” I think that sharing this concept with students is important.
Gear also mentions the use of comic books in the classroom. She suggests that although comic books often have few words, they are beneficial not only because they are of high interest to students, but that they require inferencing between every frame. I used to be hesitant to use comic books because there are so few words, but now I know it might be just what I need to help my students have a more meaningful understanding of what it means to infer.