September 14, at noon I met with Henrique and Marco. I had prepared a few reading exercises, articles taken from an EFL site that was appropriate for their respective reading levels. For Marco, I had an article about "Death of Poetry" and for Henrique I had an article on deforestation. The exercises for each were different. I had Marco reading to analyze, telling him to underline thesis statement of the article and write down any words that were unfamiliar to him. For Henrique, I had him read for comprehension. To help with fluency, I decided to time his reading, allotting just enough time that he would be encouraged to only take away the main point of the article and not get hung up on unknown words and phrases.
When Henrique finished reading (approximately 5:00 min/ of ten), I presented him with a questionnaire and asked him to turn the article over and try and answer the questions based on how much he could remember from the article. He answered 6/8 correctly.
When Marco finished reading the article, I had him create an outline of the article. He did so with little difficulty and great accuracy. The only word that he said gave him trouble was "meter." I asked him what he thought it meant. He said that it was a unit of measurement. I explained that in regards to poetry, the word "meter" takes on a new meaning. I then pulled out a copy of Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." I read it aloud to him and asked him to describe to me the different qualities of how the poem was composed. He told me that it had rhyming and that "the number of syllables in each line were planned." I explained to him that that was meter: a set number of syllables for each line to help the flow and rhythm of a poem.
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