To Understand

"I should like to do portraits which will appear as revelations to people in a hundred years time."
Vincent Van Gogh

Elizabeth and I stand in line at the National Gallery, holding our 12:10 p.m. tickets to the Van Gogh exhibit. We each have a notebook and we're planning our approach. She wants to go it alone, wander around the exhibit at her pace, not mine, and sketch as she roams. I want to linger for long periods with the paintings that are most magnetic to me, recording thoughts I hope will later evoke images of the paintings. I want to guard against forgetting. I want to understand Van Gogh. I want Elizabeth to understand Van Gogh.

We agree on a time to meet and begin our game. Toward the end of our visit, I will have written about several paintings, she will have sketched a half dozen. We will trade notebooks and search for the paintings depicted in our tablets, write the title next to the entry, and reconvene to see if we found the painting the other wrote about or sketched. Her drawings make the pieces easier to identify than the notes I take. I know I begin this challenge with a strong advantage.

"Do they ever kick you out, mom?" Elizabeth wants to know. "How long will they let us stay in here?"

"I don't think they'll kick us out until the museum closes at 5:00."

It is early November in Washington, D.C. When we emerge the air is cool and dry and the light drains over the Potomac highlighting the sky in pale orange. Planes lift out of National with staggering frequency. I hope this is one of those times Elizabeth just wants to walk along in silence. The exhibit is still too overwhelming to talk about. I take her hand. We are almost to the Metro station before I ask her what she thought of it. Beauty and pathos, color and movement, a crushing sense of loss, or was it madness, I can't find words, but feel sure she will. It's likely she understood far more than I.

"Mom, did you see the quote where he said ‘I want to get to the point where people say of my work: that man feels deeply'?"

"It's amazing you should say that! I'll show you something in a minute." In the crush of rush hour, we are lucky enough to find seats on the Metro. I rustle in my bag and pull out my notebook to show her where I recorded the same quote.

"I liked that because it made Van Gogh seem like a regular person. I want other people to understand that I feel deeply too. When he said that it was like I could understand him. I just want to understand him, but he's dead, so we can't really."

Her words roll out as a question. It's hard for me to respond. I, too, want to feel some shred of connection to a person capable of such creation. I want to discover if I am capable of creating beauty. Dare I presume to understand what he felt or how he used his brush to define those emotions? We want so much to understand and did our best to try. Elizabeth used her sketches to better understand the paintings she was most attracted to; I used my pen to make sense of others. I'm not sure we did understand fully, but I am certain that we tried.

I turn the pages in my notebook. Under the title, An Old Woman From Arles, I wrote: "Another woman of no historical import. Van Gogh confronts us from close range, his subject stares directly at us. She is cloaked in strong but faded blue. Her scarf is knotted tightly about her head. She has tied it exactly the same way for how many days of her long life. Some color remains in her cheeks but it is doing open battle with her mortality. The bed, only a corner of headboard and a triangle of white linen in the left center, reminds us of her age. Is she an invalid? Is her direct but absent stare focused on a mirror or into the distance as she tries to imagine a way she will feed her family for the day, the week? A tiny line of a mouth bespeaks her silence, even solitude. Though she has much to say, she will not. I feel a sad resignation but a clear sense of reality. Do I understand? What should I try to remember?"

The Metro streaks toward Virginia as we huddle over our notebooks. A thousand fragments of sound reach my conscious thought but are easily put aside. I tell Elizabeth that I don't know if what I wrote has anything to do with what Van Gogh intended when he painted that portrait; but I was trying, like she, to understand him and his subject, to feel what he felt, to give my concentrated attention to something worthy of remembering, worthy of understanding.

"The best I can do is write in my notebook until I figure it out."

She laughs. "Don't try to draw it, mom."

"Nope," I say. "That's for you to do! But, you know what? Sometimes when I'm writing, words just come out of my mind and onto the paper and I smile and think to myself, ‘yeah, that's what that painting is about.' I feel like all the writing was worth it because finally I understand better. I really want to remember what I wrote about the color in her cheeks doing open battle with her mortality because I think the conflict in that painting is about her impending death. Yet she still has energy and much left to say." I so want to understand her.

We pull out the exhibition catalogue to find the painting, but quickly have to stash it away. It would be just like us to miss our stop.

The conversation Elizabeth and I had in the fall of 1998 comes back to me as I write the last newsletter piece for this year. I remember hoping she would begin to enjoy the search for understanding and give thoughtful attention to what was most worthy of remembering. Some things are worth immersing oneself passionately in order to understand, I'm sure of that. What are they? How will she determine what matters most to her? How do I decide what matters most to me? How old was I when those decisions became conscious? What does matter enough to me that I will lose myself in study in order to understand?

My eyes leave the screen as I write those last lines; I mull over the questions. What matters enough that I will work hard to understand it? What does it really mean to understand something?

My ponderings frequently circle back to children in Cornerstone schools and today is no exception. Do we ask our children to work hard in order to understand? Why are some children eager to study topics for a long period of time with great determination and others seem unwilling to do so? Could all children focus with great depth, if given the opportunity? Do we know how to teach children to understand? Would they be able to comprehend more of what is worthy of understanding - if we only gave them the chance? Are we educators asking them to understand concepts of great significance? How do we decide what is worthy of understanding? For that matter, how do we know what it means to understand?

When I was teaching, my fifth and sixth graders would, occasionally, have conversations in class that astounded me. The depth of their insights into books is memorable to this day. Katie Fetter, reading Julie of the Wolves and commenting on the parallels between physical and emotional courage, Carl Ramer reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for the four hundredth time and probing the symbolism of the characters, Gina Thompson reading The Great Gilly Hopkins, telling us about her experiences in foster care placements and pointing out where Katherine Paterson had it wrong. I remember going home with great enthusiasm and telling David, "These kids were unbelievable in their book clubs today. They were able to probe a single idea to extraordinary depth. I am so blown away by these kids. Those are the moments, I tell you. They are so smart. This is why I teach!"

He looked at me with more than a little skepticism. I think he expected me to burst into the first verse of God Bless America. With a dry tone, he would say, "Why don't they do that every day?"

That question annoyed me more than I can say. I was quick to respond to it, though. "David, you just don't get it. They can't do that every day. They are ten and eleven. Geez, you know they get squirrelly every time a big storm rolls through; they don't concentrate long enough to have discussions like that every day; some of them have hormones raging; they usually want to talk about who is "going with" whom and who got new skis. If there is an assembly, they take forever to refocus and . . . . . "

I had a million ways to explain the norm, the average day in my classroom, but no way to explain the exception. Why, on some days, did they tussle with each other, with me, or on paper until they really understood an idea, a character's motivation, a conflict or a concept? How did they come to such insights on such occasions? Why did they enter study in such a fervent manner? Why, on those days were they willing to work hard to understand? Why did we find some ideas worthy of understanding, worthy of the time and effort it took to really understand? David's question haunted me. Why didn't they do that every day?

I have to consider the times when my fifth and sixth graders were thinking and feeling deeply, when they found themselves engaged in a complex, intellectually challenging problem. What happened for them on those days of engagement, too few and far between, was an introduction to the capacity of their own minds. They were getting to know life as a scholar.

I was forced to consider if there was a way I could respond to David's question with something other than an excuse. Why couldn't they do that every day? More importantly, could I influence it? Could I make their moments of intellectual rigor and genuine understanding something more than accidental? Had I given adequate thought to what it really means to understand?

A dear friend and colleague, Colleen Buddy, once told me a story that froze me in my tracks. Kevin, a second grader in her first-second grade classroom, brought her up short one morning as she was teaching a lesson on predicting. She was presenting the concept of predicting as one type of inference, one of the comprehension strategies. Apparently, Kevin raised his hand and politely asked, "Mrs. Buddy, how come when we're in reading you teach us about predicting, and when we're in math you teach us estimating and when we're in science, you call it hypothesizing, aren't they all sort of the same thing?"

When Colleen recounted that story, I realized that we had missed a fundamental piece of the puzzle we call comprehension. Comprehension is about understanding ideas, not just in text, but throughout the day. The term comprehension is, for teachers, so often associated with reading that we had failed to consider the implications for learning outside reading. Until Kevin. Kevin's profound inquiry was a way of saying, "Hey, guys, what you're really talking about is thinking into the future. When you call it estimating, hypothesizing and predicting, it confuses the help! Why don't you use some consistent language here so we have a chance to figure out what you're saying?" Certainly there are subtle differences between predicting, estimating and hypothesizing children will need to explore as they engage in more discipline-specific study in later years, but Kevin's question was of great consequence. He made me realize that the comprehension strategies were tools for understanding across the curriculum. I began to wonder if there were more clear and direct ways we could actually teach children how to understand.

Along with my colleagues at the Public Education & Business Coalition in Denver, I created a new set of defining statements for each of the seven comprehension strategies about which we had written in Mosaic of Thought. (See below) We considered what research (Pressley, et. al.; Dole and Pearson) had told us about the definition for reading comprehension strategies and imagined what children would be able to do if they used those strategies across the curriculum as cognitive tools for understanding.

We considered, for example, how a writer might use sensory images to create compelling detail or select particular details that would cause her readers to infer; we thought about how a mathematician would ask questions or relate an algorithm she was learning to one already well understood; or how a researcher in social studies or science would synthesize or determine importance as he contemplated an experiment or research study he was planning to undertake. The reading comprehension strategies had been transformed into thinking strategies.

I share a new look at the familiar deep structure comprehension strategies with you all as a challenge for the summer, part of which we will spend together. I would like to propose that we devote time this summer to speculating about what it really means to understand. Consider your own experiences as a learner as you pass the days. What do you work hard to understand? When you achieve insight, what were the circumstances that permitted you to understand deeply? Is there a way we might help children, when they return to us in the fall, work harder to truly understand, not just what they read and hear, not just what they write and speak, but deeply understand ideas throughout their days with us? Might this new look at the comprehension strategies help us achieve those goals?

If I had a glass to raise in a toast to each of you right now, I wouldn't just say, "Happy Summer!", but "To understanding!"

Determining What is Important in Text
Readers

• Readers identify key ideas or themes as they read.
• Readers distinguish important from unimportant information in relation to key ideas or themes in text. They can distinguish important information at he word, sentence and text level.
• Readers utilize text structure and text features (such as bold or italicized print, figures and photographs) to help them distinguish important from unimportant information.
• Readers use their knowledge of important and relevant parts of text to prioritize in long term memory and synthesize text for others.
  

Writers

• Writers observe their world and record what they believe is significant.
• Writers make decisions about the most important ideas to include in the pieces they write. They make decisions about the best genre and structure to communicate their ideas.
• Writers reveal their biases by emphasizing some elements over others.
• Writers provide only essential detail to reveal the meaning and produce the effect desired.
• Writers delete information irrelevant to their larger purpose.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians look for patterns and relationships.
• Mathematicians identify and use key words to build an understanding of the problem.
• Mathematicians gather text information from graphs, charts, and tables.
• Mathematicians decide what information is relevant to a problem and what information is irrelevant
  

Researchers

• Researchers evaluate and think critically about information
• Researchers sort and analyze information to better understand it
• Researchers make decisions about the quality and usefulness of information
• Researchers decide what's important to remember and what isn't
• Researchers choose the most effective reporting platform

Drawing Inferences
Readers

• Readers use their schema and textual information to draw conclusions and form unique interpretations from text.
• Readers make predictions about text, confirm their predictions and test their developing meaning as they read on.
• Readers know when and how to use text in combination with their own background knowledge to seek answers to questions.
• Readers create interpretations to enrich and deepen their experience in a text.
  

Writers

• Writers make decisions about content inclusions/exclusions and genre/text structure that permit or encourage inference on the part of the reader.
• Writers carefully consider their audience in making decisions about what to describe explicitly and what to leave to the reader's interpretation
• Writers, particularly fiction and poetry writers, are aware of far more detail than they reveal in the texts they compose. This encourages inferences such as drawing conclusions, making critical judgments, predictions, and connections to other texts and experiences possible for their readers.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians predict, generalize and estimate.
• As mathematicians read a problem, they make problem solving decisions based on their conceptual understanding of math concepts. (i.e. operations, fractions, etc.)
• Mathematicians compose (like a writer) by drawing pictures, using charts, and creating equations.
• Mathematicians solve problems in different ways and support their methods through proof, number sentences, pictures, charts and graphs.
• Mathematicians use reasoning and make connections throughout the problem solving process.
• Mathematicians conjecture (infer based on evidence).
• Mathematicians use patterns (consistencies) and relationships to generalize and infer what comes nest in the problem solving process.
  

Researchers

• Researchers think about the value and reliability of their sources
• Researchers consider what is important to a reader or audience
  

Using Prior Knowledge -- Schema
Readers

• Readers spontaneously activate relevant, prior knowledge before, during and after reading text.
• Readers assimilate information from text into their schemata and make changes in that schemata to accommodate the new information.
• Readers use schema to relate text to their world knowledge, text knowledge, and personal experience.
• Readers use their schema to enhance their understanding of text and to store text information in long term memory.
• Readers use their schema for authors and their style to better understand text.
• Readers recognize when they have inadequate background information and know how to create it --- to build schema --- to get the information they need.
  

Writers

• Writers frequently choose their own topics and write about subjects they care about.
• A writer's content comes from and builds on his/her experiences.
• Writers think about and use what they know about genre, text structure, and conventions as they write.
• Writers seek to better recognize and capitalize on their own voice for specific effects in their compositions.
• Writers know when their schema for a topic or text format is inadequate and they create the necessary background knowledge.
• Writers use knowledge of their audience to make decisions about content inclusions/exclusions.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians use current understandings as first steps in the problem solving process.
• Mathematicians use their number sense to understand a problem.
• Mathematicians add to schema by trying more challenging problems and hearing from others about different problem solving methods.
• Mathematicians build understanding based on prior knowledge of math concepts.
• Mathematicians develop purpose based on prior knowledge.
• Mathematicians use their prior knowledge to generalize about similar problems and to choose problems solving strategies.
• Mathematicians develop their own problems.
  

Researchers

• Researchers frequently choose topics they know and care about
• Researchers use their prior knowledge and experience to launch investigations and ask questions
• Researchers consider what they already know to decide what they need to find out and researchers self evaluate according to background knowledge of what quality products look like

Asking Questions
Readers

• Readers spontaneously generate questions before, during and after reading.
• Readers ask questions for different purposes including clarification of meaning, making predictions, determining an author's style, content, or format, and to locate a specific answer in text or consider rhetorical questions inspired by the text.
• Readers use questions to focus their attention on important components of the text.
• Readers are aware that other readers' questions may inspire new questions for them.
  

Writers

• Writers compose in a way that causes the reader to form question as they read.
• Writers monitor their progress by asking questions about their choices as they write.
• Writers ask questions of other writers in order to confirm their choices and make revisions.
• Writer's questions lead to revision in their own pieces and in the pieces to which they respond for other writers.

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians ask questions before, during and after doing a math problem.
  • Could it be this?
  • What happens if?
  • How else could I do this?
  • Have I seen this problem before?
  • What does this mean?
• Mathematicians test theories/answers/their hypothesis by using different approaches to a problem.
• Mathematicians question others to understand their own process and to clarify problems.
• Mathematicians extend their own thinking by asking themselves questions they don't have an answer to.
  

Researchers

• Researchers ask questions to narrow a search and find a topic
• Researchers ask questions to clarify meaning and purpose
• Researchers ask themselves
  • What are the most effective resources and how will I access them?
  • Do I have enough information?
  • Have I used a variety of sources?
  • What more do I need?
  • Does it make sense?
  • Have I told enough?
  • It is interesting and original thinking and does my writing have voice?
    

Monitoring Meaning and Comprehension
Readers

• Readers monitor their comprehension during reading -- they know when the text they are reading or listening to makes sense, when it does not, what does not make sense, and whether the unclear portions are critical to overall understanding of the piece.
• Readers can identify when text is comprehensible and the degree to which they understand it. They can identify ways in which a text becomes gradually more understandable by reading past an unclear portion and/or by rereading parts or the whole text.
• Readers are aware of the processes they can use to make meaning clear. They check, evaluate, and make revisions to their evolving interpretation of the text while reading.
• Readers can identify confusing ideas, themes, and/or surface elements (words, sentence or text structures, graphs, tables, etc.) and can suggest a variety of different means to solve the problems they have.
• Readers are aware of what they need to comprehend in relation to their purpose for reading.
• Readers must learn how to pause, consider the meanings in text, reflect on their understandings, and use different strategies to enhance their understanding. This process is best learned by watching proficient models "think aloud" and gradually taking responsibility for monitoring their own comprehension as they read independently.
  

Writers

• Writers monitor during their composition process to ensure that their text makes sense for their intended audience at the word, sentence and text level.
• Writers read their work aloud to find and hear their voice.
• Writers share their work so others can help them monitor the clarity and impact of the work.
• Writers pay attention to their style and purpose. They purposefully write with clarity and honesty. They strive to write boldly, simply, and concisely by keeping those standards alive in their minds during the writing process.
• Writers pause to consider the impact of their work and make conscious decisions about when to turn a small piece into a larger project, when revisions are complete, or when to abandon a piece.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians check to make sure answers are reasonable.
• Mathematicians use manipulatives/charts/diagrams to help themselves make sense of the problem.
• Mathematicians understand that others will build meaning in different ways and solve problems with different problem solving strategies.
• Mathematicians write what makes sense to them.
• Mathematicians check their work in many ways: working backwards, redoing problems, etc.
• Mathematicians agree/disagree with solutions and ideas.
• Mathematicians express in ‘think alouds' what's going on in their head as they work through a problem. They are metacognitive.
• Mathematicians continually ask themselves if each step makes sense.
• Mathematicians discuss problems with others and write about their problem solving process to clarify their thinking and make problems clearer.
• Mathematicians use accurate math vocabulary and show their work in clear, concise forms so others can follow their thinking without asking questions.
  

Researchers

• Researchers are aware of what they need to find out and learn about
• Researchers can identify when they comprehend and take steps to repair comprehension when they don't
• Researchers pause to reflect and evaluate information
  
• Researchers choose effective ways of organizing information - notetaking, webbing, outlining, etc.
• Researchers use several sources to validate information and check for accuracy
• Researchers revise and edit for clarity, accuracy, and interest
• Researchers check sources for appropriate references and copyrights
  

Fix Up Strategies
Readers

• Readers use the six major systems of language (grapho-phonic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, schematic, and pragmatic) to solve reading problems. When not comprehending, they ask themselves questions such as: does this make sense, does the word I'm pronouncing sound like language, do the letters in the word match the sounds I'm pronouncing, have I seen this word before, is there another reader who can help me make sense of this, what do I already know from my experience and the context of this text that can help me solve this problem?
• Readers have and select a wide range of problem solving strategies and can make appropriate choices in a given reading situation (i.e., skip ahead or re-read, use the context and syntax, or sound it out, speak to another reader, consider relevant prior knowledge, read the passage aloud, etc.).
  

Writers

• Writers revise (add, delete, and reorganize) and edit (apply correct conventions), continually seeking clarity and impact for the reader. They experiment with and make changes in overall meaning, content, wording, text organization, punctuation, and spelling.
• Writers capitalize on their knowledge of writers' tools (i.e. character, setting, conflict, theme, plot structure, leads, style, etc.) to enhance their meaning.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians listen to others' strategies and adjust their own.
• Mathematicians use estimation to determine if their answer is reasonable.
• Mathematicians use trial and error to build thinking.
• Mathematicians cross check by using more than one way to do a problem. (i.e. check subtraction by adding).
• Mathematicians use tools (i.e. manipulatives, graphs, calculators, etc.) to enhance meaning.
  

Researchers

• Researchers revise and edit for clarity and accuracy
• Researchers check sources for updated copyrights and legitimate reliable sources
  

Synthesizing Information
Readers

• Readers maintain a cognitive synthesis as they read. They monitor the overall meaning, important concepts, and themes in the text as they read and are aware of ways text elements "fit together" to create that overall meaning and theme. They use their knowledge of these elements to make decisions about the overall meaning of a passage, chapter, or book.
• Readers retell or synthesize what they have read. They attend to the most important information and to the clarity or the synthesis itself. Readers synthesize in order to better understand what they have read.
• Readers capitalize on opportunities to share, recommend and criticize books they have read.
• Readers may respond to text in a variety or ways; independently or in groups of other readers. These include written, oral, dramatic, and artistic responses and interpretations of text.
• A proficient reader's synthesis is likely to extend the literal meaning of a text to the inferential level.
  

Writers

• Writers make global and focal plans for their writing before and during the drafting process. They use their knowledge of text elements such as character, setting, conflict, sequence of events and resolution to create a structure for their writing.
• Writers study other writers and draw conclusions about what makes good writing. They work to replicate the style of authors they find compelling.
• Writer reveal themes in a way that suggests their importance to readers. Readers can create a cogent synthesis from well written material.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians generalize from patterns they observe.
• Mathematicians generalize in words, equations, charts, and graphs to retell or synthesize.
• Mathematicians synthesize math concepts when they use them in real life applications.
• Mathematicians use deductive reasoning (e.g. reach conclusions based on knowns).
  

Researchers

• Researchers develop insight about a topic to create new knowledge or understanding
• Researchers utilize information from a variety of resources
• Researchers enhance their understanding of a topic by considering different perspectives, opinions, and sources
  

Using Sensory Images
Readers

• Readers create sensory images during and after reading. These images may include visual, auditory and other sensory as well as emotional connections to the text and are rooted in prior knowledge.
• Readers use images to draw conclusions and to create unique interpretations of the text. Images from reading frequently become part of the reader's writing. Images from a reader's personal experience frequently become part of their comprehension.
• Readers use their images to clarify and enhance comprehension.
• Readers use images to immerse themselves in rich detail as they read. The detail gives depth and dimension to the reading, engaging the reader more deeply, making the text more memorable.
• Readers adapt their images in response to the shared images of other readers.
• Readers adapt their images as they continue to read. Images are revised to incorporate new information revealed through the text and new interpretations as they are developed by the reader.
  

Writers

• Writers consciously attempt to create strong images in their compositions using strategically placed detail.
• Writers create impact through the use of strong nouns and verbs whenever possible.
• Writers use images to explore their own ideas. They consciously study their mental images for direction in their pieces.
• Writers learn from the images created in their minds as they read. They study other authors' use of images as a way to improve their own.
  

Mathematicians

• Mathematicians use mental pictures/models of shapes, numbers, and processes to build understanding of concepts and problems and to experiment with ideas.
• Mathematicians use concrete models/manipulatives to build understanding and visualize problems.
• Mathematicians visually represent thinking through drawings, pictures, graphs, and charts.
• Mathematicians picture story problems like a movie in the mind to help understand the problem.
• Mathematicians visualize concepts in their head. (i.e. parallel lines, fractions, etc.)
  

Researchers

• Researchers create rich mental pictures to better understand text
• Researchers interweave written images with multisensory (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) components to enhance comprehension
• Researchers use words, visual images , sounds and other sensory experiences to communicate understanding of topic (that can lead to further questions for research)