[MOSAIC] The BIG question - expert advice needed!

[Maggie Dillier]

Alright, friends, here goes: I need help with my entire reading curriculum.
I have asked for help with various details, but when it comes down to it, I
really need an outline to plug those details into. I just finished my first
year of teaching, and I can't bear to let down another group of kids when it
come to reading. (Exaggerating; I think I'm an excellent teacher, but I hate
those areas of weakness!) My school and district are VERY
traditionally-oriented (book reports out the yang), so I feel isolated and
need some help from teachers I actually admire!

Please help. (By the way, I have read all the professional books you are
going to recommend. I can't seem to integrate all their
ideas satisfactorily.) Some of the issues I struggle with are:

   1. *Teaching strategies (making connections, visualizing, etc.) versus
   text structures (setting, character, etc.) versus genre*. Do you teach
   all strategies early in the year and then literary elements later, or do you
   mingle both? (Clarification: I can see the year being arranged like
   this: "fiction, nonfiction, poetry, test prep..." or like this: "making
   connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring...")
   2. *Integrating test preparation for the big reading test*. See
   previous posts. Do I teach a whole unit on test-taking, with test passages
   and the whole deal, or do I teach the type of questions that will be asked
   (compare and contrast, author's purpose, cause and effect) in another
   context (i.e., guided reading)?
   3. *Aligning reading with writing topics*. When I'm teaching
   nonfiction in writing, should I do nonfiction in reading at the same time?
   4. *Guided reading*. WHAT texts do you teach? Do you reinforce
   whatever you taught in a minilesson, or is it a different focus entirely?
   5. *Content-area reading*. Probably some of you don't teach all
   subjects, but I do, and I wonder if I should teach reading the science
   textbook in science or in reading. Is content-area reading a unit you teach?
   Should I do it as part of guided reading instead of whole-class?

Okay, that is it for now. I TOLD you it was the big question. For ease of
responding, I have numbered each issue and you can jot some ideas for that
number only when you reply! I am relying on your expertise, everyone! Thanks
in advance.

~Maggie
5th/TX

-- 
Maggie Dillier

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and
don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the
endless immensity of the sea." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)