Text Rendering
Text rendering is a way to take apart and examine a reading selection. It's also unpredictable and a lot of fun. It works best with long, difficult articles, but can be used with any kind of text.
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"...unpredictable and a lot
of fun..."
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Directions
Participants are assigned articles to read on a particular topic and to underline words, phrases, and lines of interest or that were significant, meaningful, confusing, memorable, or frustrating to them. After choosing one of the articles to text render, participants are asked to read out one of their underlined pieces without comment. After a short pause, others can read out one of their comments. There is no particular order to the calling out. Participants may read as often as they want and the same quotes can be read on any number of occasions. The activity continues until it slows down and participants feel they have read all they can. It may take a total of 20-25 minutes.
The effect of hearing pieces of the original article in random order can be humorous. It also allows for serious thought about what's being emphasized in the text. The activity also reveals much about what the participants felt was important in the text. We suggest you have a tape recorder on hand.
Participant Response
"The text rendering was particularly interesting — I am considering trying it in my classroom."