RPI Session 7: Thinking

My personal thoughts/refections are embedded in this post written in italics. 

 Connecting with Manaiakalani

The Four C’s (Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration) are necessary for success and have come out of the partnership for 21st Century Learners.

 Relating multiple literacies with technology is a challenge that we have embraced and continue to grow. 

Being cybersmart empowers our students to be connected, digital citizens, and confident decision makers. 

Smart Learners critically examine information online. When information is presented online that is inaccurate (some articles are printed to use for this purpose) it is great to have students critically evaluate the authenticity of the information and purpose for including it in the article. 

Higher Order Thinking to Access Deeper Meaning

Thinking back to comprehension, we discussed the baseline to get into higher levels of thinking. Students need to draw on personal experiences, knowledge, factual knowledge and interpretations that we are able to apply our analysis skills (critical thinking) to. 

Show this graphic to the students, and have a chat about what they are seeing. We need to be sure that we are using all our thinking skills when reading in order to access the deeper meaning behind the author’s words. 

There are three effective ways to plan for our students to think beyond the literal (modelling, response to text, extended discussion). 

Analysis as a Basis for Higher Order Thinking

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, when focusing on the top three tiers, it is important to realise that this can be done during group discussion. Analysis is the opposite of summarising. Analysis involves close reading of the text to reinforce various skills or ideas (including more complex meanings). Breaking down into the elements of the story into parts that allow understanding to be extended or deepened. 

Analysis can be used to “zoom in” or “zoom out”. 

ZOOM IN: What words is the author using to show us that Matiu is trying to be brave?

ZOOM OUT: Allows us to make connections. 

Interpreting Figurative Language

Students need experience jumping from the figurative to the concrete. Understanding the abstraction is quite a shift from the literal. Start with thinking about the emotions that come to mind when thinking about a word/phrase (ie quiet as a mouse…frightened/scared) Then, provide students with deliberate opportunities to share everything you think about when you hear the phrase (include a visual picture that might be found by the students). 

Critical Analysis to Read Critically

Critically (unpacking and analysing) a text to gain deeper understanding. This will involve seeing things from a different perspective and recognising those perspectives. Positioning involves looking at the way the text positions us to uncover aspects that are unjust/unfair and/or manipulative. 

Presenting Students with a Provocation: A provocation is well resourced through extended discussion. 

Reading across texts from different perspectives is found in the new curriculum refresh. Check out Edward H. Behrman’s work for more information regarding this. Providing students with an opportunity to see things from a different point of view (Great for comparing fairy tales). 

Synthesising

This is a great resource to use when planning for synthesising. Don’t forget to use it!

Today’s session was full of a lot of information, and it is all about things that we are beginning to do with our students reading at year 4 and above. My favourite section of the day was being reminded about having students challenge and resist information by coming at it from a different character’s perspective. We do so much work in Years ¾ around emotions and being able to accurately label how we are feeling. Allowing students opportunities to practise showing empathy by thinking about how other characters in the story are feeling is such a fun thing to do. It also helps students in the future once they begin being assessed on the higher levels of the Probe test. 

I find that I have done many activities similar to these especially when I was teaching higher in the school. It has been fun exploring what this could look like with our year 4 students who are just starting their journey into reading to learn. 

I am excited to look at doing a fairy tale themed text set with my reading groups (in a whole class approach) looking at various viewpoints of the stories. I think this will be an easy way to get some of my readers who are still learning to read to begin to develop some higher order critical thinking skills. Who knows, it might even make a good film festival movie at some point in the future…