Finding 1: Lesson plans that use the Before-During-After (BDA) Reading Framework create a high level of student engagement and greatly facilitate learning.
Vacca, R. Vacca, J. and Mraz, M. (2011) claim in their book Content Area Reading that "what a teacher does before reading, during reading, and after reading (B-D-A) is crucial to active and purposeful reading" (Vacca et al, 2011, p. 131). They stress that teachers can be super intentional about carefully crafting every experience in a lesson to engage students in texts and help them artfully master reading comprehension and analysis skills (131-144).
During my ECI 541: Reading in the Content Areas course (my very first course I took in this program), I learned a multitude of tools and techniques that I can use with my students before, during, and after reading to get them engaged and excited about texts. Every week, I tried new and different strategies and reflected on the experience. Honestly, this class, and specifically the B-D-A Framework, revolutionized the way that I teach ELA. Now, I still use the B-D-A framework in practically every lesson I teach because of the success I have found it brings me in meaningfully engaging students in reading texts.
Below is a scaffolded reading experience using the B-D-A framework for the story "The Monkey's Paw" that I created in my ECI 541 class. Though I designed this over two years ago, this document is representative of how I still currently teach a typical ELA lesson, and I recently shared it with two fellow colleagues at my school who were also teaching this story.