Topic 2: Political Institutions in Germany

Strategy: Reciprocal Teaching

The goal of reciprocal teaching is to summarize, question, clarify, and predict while reading content material. In some ways the teacher and students take turns becoming the “teacher.” For instance, after reading a passage quietly, one student is asked to summarize. Then other students may add to the discussion with the teacher providing guidance and input. As discussion takes place students are expected to begin questioning, predicting, and clarifying.

Thinking out loud is an important part of this reading strategy because it allows students to receive immediate feedback from the teacher and other students. Students should understand the expectations of summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Teachers may want to post or distribute a list of prompts addressing each of the four. Questions or prompts may include:

• One word I didn’t understand was…(Clarifying)
• One question someone may ask after reading this passage is… (Questioning)
• What do I think will happen to the author? (Predicting)
• The main idea of this reading is… (Summarizing)

Activities

Form students into groups of four and use the reciprocal teaching strategy outlined above to read Handout #12 (Reflections on the Wall).

Ask students to respond to this question:

• What is the significance of the Berlin Wall to Germans? What did it symbolize?
• How does the author feel about her future? About Germany’s future?
• What about this reading surprises you?