1. To read slowly is to maintain an intimate relationship with a writer. If we are to respond to a writer, we must be responsible. We commit ourselves to follow the unfolding of an idea, to hear a text, to attend to language, to question, to visualize scenes. It means paying attention to the decisions a writer makes. Newkirk, 2012 The Art of Slow Reading By: Thomas Newkirk LS 5160 Rachel Campbell, Whitney Dittman, and Christine Schmitt

2. Chapter One: About Slowness The Flow to Slow Reading: Periods when we are immersed in the narrative flow, and times when we pause to reflect or reread or just savor the moment. Slow Reading is Essential: For real comprehension, crucial to the deep pleasure we take in reading and for the power of reading to change us. Reading Is: An intense relationship with a writer. Together, with the author, enacting the story; a partnership. Texts do not have main ideas, you determine them through your own pattern of attention.

3. Chapter One. Connection and Collaboration: All good writing is told by a teller, a narrator, a guide. Age of Distraction: The difficulty we all experience of being present in our own lives. In this age of multitasking, floating from website to website, we lose full, sustained acts of attention. They become difficult to perform. The concentration needed to read becomes harder to maintain. What Can Help Students? **Bringing Back Older Practices of Reading** Memorization, Annotation, Mediation, Performance Why? Older Practices have relevance today in classrooms; this is where we are present in our reading, in class.

4. Chapter One Part of Our Culture: Reading and writing are cultural practices, not just technical proficiencies. They are embedded in rituals, cultures, institutions, and histories; all of which provide us with another important kind of knowledge. Why Read and Write?: We learn to read and write in order to participate in cultures and communities, to connect with others, to enter the mysteries of religious experience, to do the work of the world, to share responses to literature, and to sometimes literally pledge allegiance to institutions.

5. Chapter Two: The Speed Curriculum The Mix of Reading Programs and Testing: There is a large mix of reading programs and assessment in multiple school districts that clutter and contend in their schools, making the day increasingly hectic; focus on measurement and speed; the push for performance and pacing. Fluency Is: An attunement to the text, an act of attentiveness, an alertness to mood, voice, punctuation and sensuousness of language. Wrong Impression: You will not be a more fluent reader if you read faster. Fluency tests tell a dangerous story about reading and learning to young children: that speed is key, that reading is a race, that the stopwatch rules. Fluency can mean slowing down as well. Slow Down: Even for basic comprehension, we often have to slow down and imagine a text as performed; we might be able to read all the words, but miss the purpose or action of those words.

6. Chapter Two Testing: Students need to take their time, concentrate, and make sure that the answers they are giving are their absolute final decisions. Time constraints should be eliminated at any level. This gives individuals the time to accurately and successful complete all their work. The Clock in the Mind: Everyone has a natural internal clock. Teacher Clocks: We are often in two places at the same time. We are attending to what students are saying, doing, hopefully learning, but we are also attending to the clock in our heads. This can effect us from being effective listeners or observers because we are not fully present in our own classrooms. Teachers have an acute sensitivity to the passage of time. But sometimes this may slip when we are deeply engaged and emerged into a more clock-conscious state of mind.

7. Chapter Two Teacher Clocks Continued: We want our students to be fully engaged at all times; this holds us accountable as teachers for the lack of full engagement. We are an assembly line. There is no opportunity to question the pacing guides, to argue that students need more time. The pace of instruction becomes a fact of nature. Even when we are not on the clock, it is so easy to rush ourselves, and the proliferation of educational goals and expectations is a big part of the problem. Teaching requires the discipline to say Yes to a few of things, and No to most things. Otherwise, our efforts are scattered and superficial.

8. Chapter Two The Culture of Distraction: Parents appreciate the regularities of school. Reading is becoming a power browse; a form of skimming activity that involves hopping from one source to another. Multiple information sources solicit readers attention. The Pleasures of Scarcity: We can reclaim resourceful modes of reading, born in times of scarcity. We can learn to pay attention, concentrate, devote ourselves to authors. We can slow down so we can hear the voice of texts, feel the movement of sentences, experience the pleasure of words.

9. Six Practices Performing: Attending to the texts as dramatic, as enacted for an audience. Special attention is paid to acoustic and emotional qualities of language: emphasis, pace, voice of narrator, and characters. Memorizing: Learning by heart. Retaining word-for-word memories of passages that serve as frames for perceiving experience. Centering: Assigning significance to a part of text, often literally making a mark to indicate an act of attention. Problem Finding: Interrupting the flow of reading to note a problem or confusion, and then adopting strategies to deal with the problem. Reading Like a Writer: Attending to the decisions a writer makes. Mentor texts, considering alternatives, and revisions. Elaborating: Developing the capacity to comment and expand upon texts: Opening a text.

10. Chapter Three: Reading Goes Silent Performing The Reader: The oral reader is a performer. Sound Cues: Enables readers to connect, to imagine, the presence of the writer, a quality writers often refer to as voice. Reading is: Reading is more than just comprehension. It is a full response that requires sensitivity to the acoustical properties of language. Silent Reading: Lets the reader establish an unrestricted relationship with the book and the words. Three Kinds of Readers: Motor, Auditory, and Visual

11. Chapter Three Reading Aloud to Students: Teachers can model how good writing can sound. It helps students internalize a voice for the text. Strategies For Reading Aloud: Find your own favorites Scoring the text Use reading aloud to begin a class Reading aloud as part of book talks Read beginnings aloud Reading aloud to highlight the reading done in a course Reading as a symphony of lines

12. During the late 19th century and well into the 20th century, memorization was popular within schools. Poems were especially popular. They told stories, they rhymed, and they were instantly comprehensible. They were later rejected because of their inaccuracy and false nostalgia. Now we see them as a connection with community. Poetry Chapter Four: Making a Mark

13. Poetry was popular well into the 20th century. Listen my children and you shall hear Henry Wadsworth Longfellow To be, or not to be William Shakespeare We, the people, in order The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America Chapter Four: Learning by heart memorization and slow reading

14. Listen my children and you shall hear... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow To be, or not to be William Shakespeare We, the people, in order The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America Most of us have passages in our memory that we dont realize until an occasion arises. Newkirk says that, By engaging in the intimacy of memorization, we pay attention in a powerful way. Memorization at its best

15. Socrates character, Thamus, was very critical of the character, Theuth, who invented writing. Thamus said writing would produce forgetfulness. There would be no reason to use memory when men would trust writing, external characters which are no part of themselves (In Bizzell and Herzberg,165) Newkirk says writing did not do away with memory, but the reading of that writing depends on prior knowledge to achieve reading comprehension. Writing and Memory

16. Adages are sayings meant to carry meaning that will guide to action. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. This inaugural address coincided with the creation of the Peace Corps. Adages- The Peoples Poetry and Philosophy

17. Helps students retain language that captures a theme or style of a writer: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities Comedy- students find jokes easy to remember and understand: What kind of books do skunks read?--- Best-smellers Canonical Sentences: Famous lines from Literature

18. Newkirk says we can determine for ourselves the all important main idea. We can notice things and discuss among ourselves. In this way, the text becomes richer and fuller. Pulled Quotes: Quotes from students reading that exemplify an authors style, voice, [or] point of view. These can be copied, laminated and placed around the room. These can serve as inspiration and motivation. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.- Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt Expectation: Pay attention to beginnings. When we read beginnings slowly, we discover what kind of reader we will need to be for that particular thing. There needs to be expectation in order to have comprehensioneven a wrong expectation is more helpful than nothing. Chapter Five: Making a Mark

19. Embarrassment is the great enemy of learning. Struggling readers perceive their difficulties as internal, especially when others do not struggle. The teacher is well prepared so it appears as though the teacher never struggles with new material. One idea would be to present material new to everyone and examine it together. In this way the process is more transparent, with everyone struggling together: Poetry can be especially challenging. Four farms over it looked like a braid of black hemp. Does the author mean above, or across? Successful learners realize they can fail without being failures. They learn from their mistakes, but dont dwell on them. Chapter Six: The Pleasures of Difficulty

20. Chapter Seven: A Writers Choice HOW to read like a writer Read word by work Read sentence by sentence Ponder each decision that the writer made Recall inspiration and instruction Find beauty and pleasure in the art of writing and reading Understand the usage of the mechanics Spelling, punctuation, usage

21. Chapter Seven Reading and Writing: Three kinds of deliberate close reading: Annotation Attending to surprise and effective authorial choices Selective Destruction Degrading an effective text to appreciate skillful choices Revision Improving writing and studying the revisions of other authors (Newkirk 144)

22. Chapter SevenAnnotation Mark up the selection Write a summary paragraph telling what was liked about the selection Focus on some of these reading questions: (Newkrik 146) See scans Wrecking a Text Highlights choices that the authors make Displayed in read-alouds Raise questions about author choices Cloze procedure Using knowledge of context and syntax and guessing the meaning of the word Transforms the passage Wrecking Punctuation Play safe with punctuation - periods, commons, colons, semicolons, dash, parentheses Sometimes punctuation can be a trap for students as it is used to often where unnecessary Revision: editing the writing Editing tips: Eliminate ten words that are unnecessary Find one sentence that can be improved and change it Find five word choices that could be improved and write in the better choice (Newkirk 158).

23. Chapter Seven Focus on these reading questions when understanding a writing. This will help the reader become more involved with the text and understand more of the choices the author has made (Newkirk 146,147).

24. Chapter Eight: Opening a Text Reading can embody the spirit of writing. Text can activate digression, meditation, and reflection. We read to comprehend and to understand the writer within the text. How to elaborate your writing to make it stronger for the reader: Add details that may have been left out Add dialogue Add internal reactions and thoughts of individuals Find someone who can question your point or position Find new evidence Make connections to other things you have read or experienced Develop the point of the writing

25. Chapter Eight Elaborating: QUOTATIONS Added for Personal reasons Technical tasks Arguments To give solidity to points the writer is making Elaborating: THE ART OF ATTENTION Scripted Reading (Newkirk 188) Work with small units Explore in depth with smaller units Adopt a trusting attitude Something can emerge from reading Trust the text Entering a state of mindfulness Enter into a slowed down space, meditative space, a thoughtful space Attend to word meaning Write down words that seem strange, engaging, puzzling Form study groups with the text to understand words Read with the full body Engage all the senses when reading

26. Chapter Eight It is an act of deep affection and respect. We typically quote up and include the exact words of other writers who make points better, more eloquently, more authoritatively than we do (Newkirk 181).

27. Why cant they be like we were, perfect in every way? Explore the possibility of new media when writing and reading Slowing down can give readers power Having a slower pace can allow time for rereading and reflection Read for pleasure and meaning Focus on the meaning and sound of the words

28. Why cant they be like we were, perfect in every way? We need to put away the stopwatch and say in every way possible this is NOT a race. Take your TIME. PAY attention. TOUCH the words and tell me how they touch YOU (Newkirk 197).

29. Works Cited Newkirk, T. (2012). The art of slow reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. http://www.schooltube.com/video/03f9c858 260a4da9b582/School-House-Rock-The- Preamble