Field experiences relating to content literacy:
Observations - When I first began my student teaching experience, the classes were finishing the final third of "Summer of the Monkeys." I could pick out fairly soon who understood the text and who did not understand the text. Most of the time it simply came down to who was reading and who was not reading. "Summer of the Monkeys" is a great novel, and students from a variety of backgrounds can relate to its different aspects. Unfortunately, many of these students just did not want to read.
Interactions - Because many of my students did not want to read, I implemented a couple of strategies to make them HAVE to read. The first was a sketch project. I had the students draw out a scene from an assigned block of reading on half of a sheet of paper. On the other half, the students had to write out what was going on. This worked fairly well. All but four of the 85 or so students taking the course completed the assignment on time, and about 85 percent of the projects were acceptable. I also had the students summarize complete chapters. This didn't work quite as well. Many of the students struggled to get their ideas down on paper in a thoughtful, organized manner.
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Motivation to read is a real struggle in hs. You are competing with many other forms of more active media. I like the way you are using visualizing to get students to think about the text. Be sure to let them know the reasons behind the assignment - when readers visualize - and create movies in their minds as they read - they get a better understanding of the story and enjoy what they are reading much, much more. Remember that we want to get students to be more metacognitive - to think about how and why they read. You have a great activity and you are spot-on, the other piece is to let students in on your purpose. Then, they can see how it will benefit them as readers. Keep me posted!
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