Post Reading Strategies for the Classroom

Often times in my high school or middle school English class, my teacher would assign reading for homework then want to discuss it as a class the next day.  Few students seemed to participate in the discussions because the questions were so broad, only the confident students would answer most of the time, while the rest of the class sat there and tuned out. An idea to get all students involved would be to ask smaller, less broad questions and in different forums, like small groups on occasion.  When Kids Can't Read  explores a strategy called SWBT, or Somebody Wanted But So.  This strategy can be used in many ways, one is making a chart on the board in front of the room and completing it as a class.
Example:
Somebody                  Wanted                       But                 So
(List a character)       List motivations       List conflicts       List themes and resolutions

By modeling this approach, teachers can later ask students to break off into pairs and make their own charts and focus on parts of the text, like, specifically the main character, any abstract idea a character wanted, etc.  This strategy can help students who struggle with finding main ideas, students who need help summarizing, or help students structure or outline their ideas before writing a paper. This strategy would work for all learners because advanced students may dig deeper to come up with themes while a struggling student can use this chart to simply form his thoughts.

(Chapter 8)