Reading Practice Intensive - Day 7

 Day 7 - Thinking

We are now into the final term of the Reading Practice Intensive with 3 sessions to go - Thinking, Creating and Sharing.  To quote Dorothy "it's always fun to be thinking about thinking!"

We began by going into our smaller breakout groups and looking through our Homework tasks.  This is always a great part of each session as you learn so much from other participants.  It is nice to reflect about what we are proud of, have found challenging, found helpful and what we might still need support with.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme ?

Dorothy spoke to us about the 21st century skills (Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration) that are essential for our young people in the world we live in.  She talked about how the Manaiakalani cybersmart programme supports the development and growth of thinking - especially in the Smart Learners and Smart Media areas.  Information should be read critically.  Smart Learners critically examine information online.  

Dorothy is always great at sharing gems of knowledge - whether it is a new website or app or something that I have seen before but had forgotten about.  She reminded me about the Cybersmart Challenges (Fake News, Media Bias, Copyright) cover what is true and what is fake.  I am excited to try the new Adobe Podcast and love the feature of removing background noise and being able to edit the audio like a doc.

What did I learn that could improve my capability and confidence in teaching reading?

We looked at the Levels of Thinking.  Learners should have opportunities to develop awareness of the ‘levels of thinking’ involved in being a good reader. 

At the literal level (‘reading on the lines’) information is stated directly and can be located at one or more places.

At an interpretive level (‘reading between the lines’) readers have to use their reasoning and critical analysis skills to work out an implied or suggested meaning (not directly stated). Due to the interpretive nature of the meaning making, care needs to be taken to uphold the integrity of the author’s intention by aligning as much as possible with the evidence available. 

At the evaluative level (‘reading beyond the lines’) readers are making judgements concerning values, correctness or issues of wider social significance (and relating these to their own contexts and lives).

We then looked at these levels using the text "Jump" as well as a YouTube clip of someone bungee jumping and a poem.

We revisited Blooms, Do Bono's Thinking Hats and Solo Taxonomy and how these show a progression from lower order (below the line) to higher order (above the line) thinking. Above the line or “higher order” thinking is more complex, requiring more ‘brain power’. Part of the reason for this complexity is the need to hold more things in one’s head at a time. Another is the 'higher' you go the more abstract (less concrete) the thinking. This is also in part to help hold more things in our head ideas are conceptualised in abstract terms to group, categorise and generalise.

We discussed the 'higher-order thinking skills' like analysing, evaluated and creating. Analysis can be seen as the opposite of summarising.  It was a chance to think about the difference between interpretive questions and evaluative questions,  It can be challenging to be sure of the difference between these, but I like the point that Naomi made about evaluative questions often having an element of interpretation within them. 

Students need to use "hawk eyes" to zoom in and zoom out at a text.  

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

We watched a video about how to annotate a PDF - I didn't know you could do this, so this is a great tool that I can use.  Here is a video I found to use to teach my students how to do this on their chromebooks.

We talked about using the TSM materials for guidance about the figurative language (which I already do) and we had some time to create reading responses for a text that we brought along to use today.  We also talked about practising visualising and interpreting using images - literal verses abstract.  Comparing one thing to another involves thinking about unusual comparisons and why author’s use these comparisons to invoke ideas, emotions, and other features like mood and atmosphere.

We read a poem "The Cave" which was just the text (without showing the illustration until later). What images or pictures did the poet create in our minds? What was the person doing in the poem? How did we know?  After a discussion you would show the students the poem in the school journal and ask - Was this the kind of image of the cave you were thinking of in your mind? 

We learnt about how we can use a provocation - present it, discuss it and then ask who agrees or disagrees.

This was the provocation from the text "The Jump"...

A provocation, dilemma or perspective can also stimulate higher order thinking through discussion. Collective thinking about a problem can support learners to get to “the bottom of an issue” together: many heads are better than one.

As a teacher I should be looking for opportunities to challenge and resist.  

We had an opportunity to create a provocation from the text that we brought along.  My text was "No Girls Allowed" so I chose "Rugby should only be played by boys!"  Questions to follow would be - What character do you relate to?  Have you ever felt like this character? Who is the author? What message is the author trying to share with us?  Why was the text created? What does this text say about your gender roles?  Follow up ideas - Re-write the text so it has a different ending, Make a petition, Write a letter to the tournament organisers.

What did I learn that could be shared within my wider community, with either colleagues, or whanau/aiga? 

Once again I have a lot of great ideas and resources from today's session.  Lots to share back to my team at school, and lots to get stuck into and use in my Reading programme.  It was great today to have so much time to create a resource based on the text we brought during the day, and for it to be be complete and ready to use now.