Research Based Discourse Models

Course Description

Provides an investigation of meaning-making at both the local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. Covers research-based models of discourse processing and representation construction. Introduces strategies to promote guided reading, independent reading, and study skills in all content areas, using the concepts of connecting background experience and applying self-monitoring strategies.

Learning Outcomes

• Appraise the multiple effects that prior conceptual, textual, and linguistic knowledge have on comprehension, including the prior development of academic vocabulary and academic concepts.
• Assess current research on the relationship between prior knowledge and text cohesiveness.
• Compare instructional strategies for developing reading comprehension with the theoretical support underlying each strategy.
• Design effective instructional practices for teaching the developing reader, the struggling reader, and special needs students.
• Select effective strategies to teach an understanding of rhetorical pattern organization in narrative, expository, and electronic texts.
• Evaluate themselves on their ability to teach metacognitive learning skills through a process which leads to student independence in reading.
• Evaluate themselves on their skills in teaching higher-order critical thinking skills.
• Examine the role of ‘affect’ in comprehension and ‘stimulating interest’ in independent reading through appropriate motivational techniques.