ABSTRACT
It’s Tuesday and a third-grade teacher is presenting her students with a lesson on using text features and search tools to locate specific information when reading informational text. Why? Because this is where it falls in the curriculum. She’s a dynamic teacher who presents the material well. She involves the class in the lesson, demonstrating how to locate headings, boldface words, sidebars, and hyperlinks to find information. She gives them a page of text, has them read through it to find information, and then goes over it with the class. As you watch, you wonder what her students are thinking, how interested they are in the topic, and whether they see the need for this skill in their lives. Are they truly engaged in the meaning of the content, or are they merely being compliant?
