A 2 hour session for myPITA, examining how to infuse creative and critical thinking into the intermediate language arts classroom. Consideration is given to connecting to the core competencies and how to use student self-assessment after their involvement in the strategic sequences.

1. Creative and Critical Thinking
in Language Arts
PITA Spring Conference
Friday, April 27, 2018
Whistler Hilton
Faye Brownlie
Slideshare.net/fayebrownlie/pita.thinking

2. 1. Focus on meaning
2. Read aloud
3. Do everything you can to get kids to read
4. Give beginning readers lots of opportuniOes to
interact with print
5. Provide opportuniOes for success
6. Teach phonics – but don’t overdo it
7. Provide a rich array of print choices
8. Give kids choice in what they read
9. Balance challenging texts with easier ones
18 Practices Proven Effective for
Teaching Reading - Heinemann

3. 10. Teach reading as thinking
11. Model your own reading
12. Name and teach reading strategies directly
13. Support readers before, during, and aXer reading
14. Demonstrate the usefulness of reading
15. Give kids daily opportuniOes to talk about their
reading
16. Ditch the workbooks and skill sheets
17. Link reading to wriOng
18. Match reading to classroom pracOce

4. Do classroom assignments reflect
today’s higher standards?
• QuesOon examined by the EducaOon Trust,
2015, in US middle schools
• As quoted by Kelly Gallagher, “The WriOng
Journey” in EL, Feb 17

5. • 38% aligned with a grade-appropriate
standard
• 85% largely surface-level: recall or basic
concepts and skills
• 1% required students to think for extended
periods of Ome
• Almost all could be completed in one period

6. Assessment-Capable Learners
‘Developing “Assessment Capable” Learners – Frey, Fisher, Hafe in EL, Feb
2018, Vol 75, No 5
• MoOvaOon
– Relevancy, interest, criOcal thinking
– Effect size .72
• Goal sefng
– From dependence to co-dependence to independent
– Effect size .56
• Self-regulaOon
– Manage your own learning
– Reflect on progress toward your goals
– Effect size .64
• Feedback
– T to S – specific, understandable, acOonable, Omely
– Effect size .75
– Report on your own performance
– Effect size 1.44

7. • When students write, they
generate deeper thinking in any
content area.
• Kelly Gallagher “The WriOng Journey” EL, Feb
17

8. How can we support our learners in
moving beyond the lines in their
written response to text?
• Leslie Leitch, Nakusp
• Grade 6/7
• In preparaOon for on-line response posts
• Text: A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness

11. • What’s happening?
• Who cares?
• Why does it mamer?

13. • Big ideas
• DescripOve
• AdjecOves
• Word choice
• Supported inferences
• EmoOons – felt
• Touched hearts
• Clear examples of
(emoOons, happenings)
• PersonificaOon
• Metaphor – simile
• Comparison
• Thinking like someone else
• Imagine

14. The Sequence
• Whip around – catch up on the story
• Explode the sentence
• Write to show you understand – move beyond a
retelling, take a risk, go deep, explain why what
happens mamers and to whom
• Share a phrase, a word, a sentence that is powerful in
your wriOng
• Make a class list of what counts – beginning criteria
• Use those phrases to make a class found poem
• Reorganize twice to make the poem flow

15. Elias
• Conor seems to have been defeated. He has
been overwhelmed with negaOve emoOons, fear,
anger, sadness, and pain. He hides his feelings
with flat emoOons, and pushes away all help. I
think he is very Anxious, because of all the
pressure put on him from the bullies, his mom’s
sickness and possibly his mom and dad’s devorce.
His posiOve emoOons are being stolen every Ome
he has the nightmare. His grandmother doesn’t
help either…

16. Riley
• I think the most important thing in the story
right know is the words rissing and darkness. I
think rissing means that he is beginning to
figure out his truth and why it is important. I
think the truth is that his mom will die and
that is where the word darkness comes in …

17. Lucas
• What is going on in the last three chapters is
that Conor’s mom is gefng worse and worse
every single treatment. Conor is gefng more
effected and anger from the scary storytelling
monster that is going to tell Conor three
different stories, Conor is also gefng bullied
by a group of kids in school which is effecOng
Conor the same way as the scary storytelling
monster and his mothers treatments…

18. Phoenix
• I think conors feeling nothing. He dosent
seem to feel very much. How would you now
what he were feeling…

19. The next day…
• Review the criteria and reorganize into categories
• Read the next chapter
• Have students meet in small groups
• Provide a choice of 2-3 sentences for students to
explode in small groups
• Students write a draX for their on-line post
• Students idenOfy, alone, then with a partner,
where their wriOng has achieved the criteria
• What works? What’s next?
• Students edit for sentences, grammar, and post

20. From Loose Parts – Writing to
Inform
with Denise Upton, Grade 4
• Read a story
• Distribute collecOons of loose parts and have
the students create a story, based on the story
that has been read
• Share the created stories

23. • Use the 4 quadrant strategy to revisit the
loose parts story
• Ask students to write to explain how to create
a story from loose parts and to reflect on the
experience

30. Refugees – Grade 6/7
Courtney Bebluk
• How do we grow to understand each other’s
stories?
• The pamern:
– Visuals
– Key words and concepts
– Web ideas and short notes

31. FormaOve Assessment
• Choose 2 of the images we have seen and
respond to them in wriOng
• Choice from 8 -10 images
• Repeated twice during the unit
• Ongoing feedback

32. SummaOve Assessment
• 3 pieces
– Photo from one of the books we have read
– Photo from elsewhere
– Make an image from loose parts
• Loose parts audio files using Puppet App
• Had pracOced a few Omes with loose parts
• Co-created key words

42. Creative Thinking Profile
• I can get new ideas or build on or combine other
people’s ideas to create new things within the
constraints of a form, a problem, or materials.
• I can get new ideas, build on other’s ideas and
add new ideas of my own, or combine other
people’s ideas in new ways to create new things
or solve straighsorward problems. My ideas are
fun, entertaining, or useful for me and my peers,
and I have a sense of accomplishment.

43. Creative Thinking Profile
• I can get new ideas or reinterpret others’ ideas
in ways that have an impact on my peers.
• I get ideas that are new to my peers. My
creaOve ideas are oXen a form of self-
expression for me.

44. Curiosity
• In 2014, researchers at the University of
California at Davis found that when we seek
answers to quesOons we think are interesOng, we
are bemer equipped to learn and retain that
informaOon. A side benefit: we are also bemer at
remembering the other material we uncover
while on our quest for those answers.
• “The Wonder Years” – Kathy Checkley, EducaOon
Update, Vol 58, #1, Jan 2016

45. Deepening Thinking, Strengthening Writing
-with Julie Cornell at the Wheelhouse
• Examine a picture as a class
– See? Know? Evidence? CapOon?
• Repeat, if necessary
• Examine your picture in your group
– See? Know? Evidence? CapOon?
• Write the story behind your picture.
• As the students write, move around and highlight a phrase OR write
the phrase on a post-it and leave with the student.
• Share phrases.
• Phrases can move into a found poem.
• Can repeat with different picture or a group of pictures or write
aXer seeing/hearing from others.
• Choose the wriOng you are most interested in (different points of
view, theme – hardship, moving, loss, celebraOon, combinaOon of
pictures), edit and take to publicaOon. Discuss your edits through
the lens of the criteria.

48. a man is fishing on a rock alone
In the cold, snow is falling His bait box behind him.
The sun gleams behind him.
He has caught a fish. It give him hope.
Sifng on some rocks he puts his rod into the freezing water
The shells in the water gleam in the morning light.
Sifng on the rock he falls vicOm to the cold He must conOnue
Fishing is his only food source.
He is very hungry. But he is always hungry it is no different.
He begins to get Ored.
EP

49. I saw the rest of the pictures I believe they are
slaves having to fish for food, being locked up
Being chased, having to lug things around,
Having to squeeze every limle bit of happiness they
can out of life.
Being forced to do every thing…
EP

50. My groups stone picture has the stones placed in a very parOcular
formate the stones were shaped like humans heaving heavy bags or
suitcases over there head like people do when they are immigraOng
from different countries or maybe they are working like
construcOon workers and are heaving big heavy stones or concrete
over there heads. The people shaped stones are also shaped like
they are slouching so maybe they are Oered from walking witch
brings me back to the imaginaOon idea, because people from war
torn countries have to walk tremendously long distances to get to a
safe place like our country. I also think like the people are different
ages like the smallest one is a child and the largest one is an old
adult. I also think it is at night because there is a large yellowish
rock over there heads like a moon. And I also noOced that one of
the rocks is very scratched up like maybe it was amacked or fell I
saw that one of the rock figures was missing a head, so that brings
me to a vey morbid idea that they are trapped in a torture trap
witch weights are put on there head unOl there heads are crushed.
GM

51. • AXer looking at other groups pictures I found two that
caught my eye, one was a picture of a family fishing
and the other one was of a group of people on what
looks to be a boat lost at sea. They way I think those
two connected with my group’s picture is because it
looks as if they are immigraOng and hunOng for food
like fish by well fishing. So I think that it all Oes in, first
they are walking on land then they go to sea for fish
then maybe they get into a storm and are stranded in
the middle of the ocean right on deaths front steps
franOcally looking for other food and trying to stay
aboard the Ony boat…
GM

52. Fear is a fickle thing. It comes uninvited, cold as cold could be. But, for some,
it helps them. It helps them make the decision to flee their war-torn land,
as the people in my picture did. The man and his wife are fleeing as their
home is being destroyed by war, bombs, and hatred. The lady is covering
her head to protect it from any harmful things. As the man is panicking,
wondering if it was the right decision as they run from everything they
have known and loved. Everything they grew up with, their house, family,
work, school. All things that they will long for, as they sleep. Wish for, as
they start anew. Yearn for, as they wake. But, there is no going back to
that war-torn place. For they are alive while others have died. They have
escaped while others are slaved. For they are free.
It was a bright day when the bombing happened. It was the kid of day where
it seemed that it was impossible for something to go wrong. But of
course, something did. It happened at noon, when the sun was high in the
sky…
KS

53. They were captured. Stuck with strangers, relaOves,
friends, and their captors. They were shipped of to a
foreign military base to slave over the soldiers. They
were not treated fairly. The men were told to head out
and fight or fetch heavy bags of grain. While the
women were to be cooks, maids, and to do
unspeakable things. But then it happened. They
escaped. Thy were free. Some went off to fish and live
out their lives. While others fought for their home. But
most started anew. Rejoicing their freedom, their
family who lived, their second chance. For they were
happy. Their kids could leave the house without
worrying about gefng shot…
KS

54. This picture to me represents that its nighfme and
there is two parents holding up there children in
joy as if there thankful to just be who they are
and nothing more the parents are holding there
children as a symbol of love for the children in
the night sky the moon witnessing all of this
happiness or it could be the parents punishing
there children for a sin and want them to pray to
god to forgive them for there wrongs they wish to
right or it could be a sign of unity and faith as the
family celebrates together
NC

55. A lot of the pictures to me looked very sad they had
that feeling of depression as if they had lost their
being as if the pictures we’re displaying the
feeling of hardship and joy together at the same
Ome most of them had the feeling of life and
colourful feelings it’s a mix of depression and joy
at the same Ome it looked as if there trying to
build something…
NC

57. Critical Thinking Profile
• I can ask quesOons and consider opOons. I can
use my observaOons, experience, and
imaginaOon to draw conclusions and make
judgments.
• I can ask open-ended quesOons, explore, gather
informaOon, and experiment purposefully to
develop opOons. I can contribute to and use
criteria. I can use observaOon, experience, and
imaginaOon to draw conclusions, make
judgments, and ask new quesOons. I can describe
my thinking and how it is changing.

58. • I used to think … but now I think … because …
• Select a piece of work and describe how it fits
these statements.
• What do you wonder aXer reading?

59. Critical Thinking Core Competency
•I can ask quesOons and consider opOons.
Evidence:
•I can use my observaOons, experiences and imaginaOon to draw conclusions and make judgments.
Evidence:
•I can connect to a big idea or quesOon.
Evidence:

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