In the article “Role of the Reader’s Schema in Comprehension, Learning, and Memory”, Richard C. Anderson does an excellent job of defining schema and uses many comprehensive and relatable examples to explain how schema can contribute to many functions of the mind.   For instance, I am using my schema acquired by reading this article to complete a short summarization. With this schema, I am able to choose the most important parts of the text that are necessary to highlight in this blog post. Anderson defines schema as “organized knowledge of the world”.  He discusses how schema can impact how we interpret the things we read based on our prior knowledge of the subject. Not only does it help with understanding individual words but also how the words relate to each other. Schema can help readers fill in missing gaps that authors may have left unsaid with through inferencing and predicting.  It helps us organize our thoughts, pay attention to the important parts of a text, and search our memories for helpful information. Anderson includes many different theories in his article that have been proposed about schema. He focuses on the impact that one’s culture can have on his/her schema about a particular subject. Schema is based on prior knowledge.  Therefore, people of different genders, races, cultures, etc. will have different schemata.

In my classroom, as mentioned previously, we build reading and writing skill lessons into a social studies curriculum.  It is very important that students acquire the appropriate knowledge needed to understand an article, excerpt, or story reading that is related to the content.  We also begin each note-taking lesson with a warm up prompt. The prompt asks a question that has the student relate a personal or academic experience with the upcoming lesson.  This activates the schema related to the content about to be taught. Anderson brings up a very reasonable point in the article about minority children. Through this reading, I have had a revelation that I should be more mindful of the minority students in my class.  It’s difficult with such a homogenous population in our school. However, I have a sprinkling of minority and ESL students in my classes. I will make it a point to explain references they may not have grown up learning, consider their background when giving assignments, and try incorporate more inclusive examples and ideas in general.