Getting Ready to Write: Citing Textual Evidence
Video Link: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-about-textual-evidence A. What is the nature of the case? The nature of this case is to support students with identifying and using textual evidence from their readings to support their writing. The teacher focuses specifically on students’ abilities to read a text, cite evidence from the text, and draw inferences. This activity includes both collaborative and independent work. I selected this case as it is directly related to my research question. B. Share some descriptive details This video features a 6th English Language Arts class. Students are learning about child labor. This lesson demonstrates different effective strategies for reading a text such as “Selective Highlighting”. For this strategy, the teacher has provided students with “focus questions” to consider as they read the article: What is child labor? What kind of work do the children do? How does child labor impact me? As students read, together as a class, they consider the focus questions and highlight anything they deem relevant. They will use their highlighted evidence to support their answers to the focus questions. The teacher has the article about child labor projected on the screen while each student follows along with their own physical “Research Packet”. (The packets include the focus questions) The teacher engages in a “Shared Reading” of the text. This involves the teacher reading aloud to the class, and pausing periodically to ask students to “Stop and Talk” about what they’ve just read and if they’ve highlighted any information, emphasizing the purpose of their reading. The teacher calls on students at random. As students encounter relevant information, they are encouraged not only to highlight, but also to mark the text, taking notes in the margins of the article. Once students have finished reading the article, they engage in the “All Right Consensus” activity. The point of this activity is for students to have a discussion in small groups, addressing one focus question at a time. What’s nice about this activity is that every member of the group must come to a consensus before they can answer a question. Each student must contribute by sharing their own input. Students appeared very engaged in their group discussions. The teacher notes that, “students typically find that they have similar ideas, which is the point.” The final aspect of this lesson is the “Exit Slip.” This is an independent activity. Students are asked to write one paragraph which answers one of the 3 focus questions. Students must include evidence from the article to support their responses. What is great about this final piece of the lesson, is that it provides students with some voice and choice, while providing the teacher an opportunity to assess individual student growth. C. What new and useful information did you learn? While watching this video, I learned a few beneficial strategies. First, I learned that it helpful to accompany a text with a few several focus questions. This gives students a purpose for why they are reading. By providing a clear objective, students are more likely to understand the activity and thus succeed at it. I already require my students to highlight information as we read, but I should start including focus questions to help with “Selective Highlighting. I also noticed that by “Stopping and Talking” periodically, there was a very clear sense of accountability. By randomly calling on students to share what they have highlighted, students are more engaged in the reading. The portion of the lesson that I found most innovative was the “All Right Consensus.” As a teacher, I love providing my students opportunities to collaborate with their groups because I know they are more likely to participate as a group than they are independently. What is really interesting about this activity is that students don’t only need to share their own ideas and evidence, but they must also generate an answer that they all agree with. This is beneficial for students as they get to develop both their collaborative and critical thinking skills. D. Could you potentially use this lesson? I could absolutely use this lesson in my own classroom. I would use this lesson in my English Language Arts class but I would be more interested in attempting it with my English Language Development class. As these students are all English Learners, I predict they would benefit the most from this approach. Rate the film experience 1 - 5 I rate this a 5 out of 5. The lesson is easy to replicate, and can be applied to a variety of texts/content areas.
4 Comments
Nancy Jaminet
3/5/2017 04:02:12 pm
As a fellow Language Arts teacher, I appreciated your choice of case study. I find that my students enjoy sharing their opinions about the literature we read, but they often do not support their thoughts with textual evidence. Their conclusions are often vaguely phrased. I've been trying to drive home to them the point that when one makes an inference it draws a conclusion based on your experiences and knowledge, but it begins from the text. I agree that providing a focus question will help them be more specific in citing textual evidence.
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James
3/5/2017 04:21:48 pm
Nancy,
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I enjoyed reading this case study, and was curious about the procedure when running the discussion. Were there specfic directions for the discussion? What scaffolding did the teacher use to ensure that all students were engaged? I use collaborative groups in my reading class, and am ALWAYS curious how other teachers run their discussion groups. The more focused talk about reading there is, the more students learn!
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Dan
3/9/2017 09:17:00 am
It amazes me how much more challenging the curriculum is in the different grade levels today. To see a sixth grade English Language Arts class reflect on a case study about child labor is amazing. The depth that they go into such as selective highlighting, building a research packet, etc., seems very advanced for a sixth grade class.
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