Day 3, high impact literacy strategies for middle and senior years students. Sequence to deepen thinking with The Cello of Mr O, sequence to support on-line responses to novels, literature circles. Information circles work with Student Diversity, 3 rd edition.

1. High Impact Literacy Strategies
and Assessments for Middle Years
and Senior Years
MRLC
January 16 and 18, 2017
Faye Brownlie
slideshare.net/
fayebrownlie.MRLC.MY.SR.Jan2017

2. Every student deserves a great
teacher, not by chance, but by
design.
Thanks to Fisher, Frey & HaLe☺

3. People Search

4. Test Prep – Socials 11
Canada in the 1930’s with Melanie Mattson
• People Search – 12 boxes
• Students made notes for each quesSon
• Coached and listened to see if there were any
challenging areas
• 2 quesSons were most challenging
• Melanie explained her ‘answer’ to each, using a
Smeline and associaSons
• 2 addiSonal areas to study
– With a concept map
– With a chart

5. Canada in the 1930’s
People Search Find someone who:
…can describe 3
differences between life in
the city and life in rural
Canada during the Great
Depression
…can paint a vivid picture
with words of relief camps
…can tell the story of the
beginning of the labour
movement in Canada
…understands the
difference between
totalitarism, socialism,
communism, and fascism
in the 1930’s

6. Learning Intentions
• I be]er understand what counts as effecSve
literacy instrucSon.
• I can plan effecSve lessons and strategic
sequences.
• I can have a plan to work with literature circles
or choice text.
• I be]er use formaSve assessment informaSon
to guide my teaching.

7. Effect Size – What makes a difference?
John Hattie in Visible Learning (> .4 effect size)
• Student self-assessment/self-grading
• Response to intervenSon
• Teacher credibility
• Providing formaSve assessments
• Classroom discussion
• Teacher clarity
• Feedback
• Reciprocal teaching
• Teacher-student relaSonships fostered
• Spaced vs. mass pracSce

8. What Doesn’t Work: Literacy
Practices We Should Abandon
– Nell Duke, 2016 (Edutopia)
• ‘Look up the list’ vocabulary instrucSon
• Giving students prizes for reading
• Weekly spelling tests
• Unsupported independent reading
• Taking away recess as punishment

9. Scanning, Focusing:
Whole Class Reviews – reading
What are the strengths
of the class?
What are the needs of
the class as a whole?
What are your main goals
for the class this term?
Decisions

10. Structures and Strategies

11. Open-ended Strategies
• ConnecSng (acSvaSng)
• Processing (acquiring)
• Transforming and personalizing (applying)

12. Goal: deeper understanding,
relationship among ideas, Gr 4/5
• QuesSoning from pictures
• Sort and predict
• Quadrants of a thought
• Concept map

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

27. • What’s happening?
• Who cares?
• Why does it ma]er?

29. • Big ideas
• DescripSve
• AdjecSves
• Word choice
• Supported inferences
• EmoSons – felt
• Touched hearts
• Clear examples of
(emoSons, happenings)
• PersonificaSon
• Metaphor – simile
• Comparison
• Thinking like someone else
• Imagine

30. 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 ma]ers and to whom
• Share a phrase, a word, a sentence that is powerful in
your wriSng
• 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

31. Elias
• Conor seems to have been defeated. He has
been overwhelmed with negaSve emoSons, fear,
anger, sadness, and pain. He hides his feelings
with flat emoSons, 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 posiSve emoSons are being stolen every Sme
he has the nightmare. His grandmother doesn’t
help either…

32. 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 …

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

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

35. 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 dral for their on-line post
• Students idenSfy, alone, then with a partner,
where their wriSng has achieved the criteria
• What works? What’s next?
• Students edit for sentences, grammar, and post

36. Literature Circles
• Choice novels
• No comprehension quesSons
• Wide reading
• Lots of conversaSon

37. Choice Novels &
Literature Circles
Entry points for
digging deeper
and developing
empathy.
Dave Giesbrecht, Richmond
Nancy Sharkey, Librarian

38. Guiding Questions
• How is the world where the story is set
different from your world?
• How do human development issues affect the
characters and society in your novel and how
does this relate to the world?
• How do discussions circles help you develop
your thinking?

39. The Plan: starting
• Introduced and selected books.
• Modeled the types of thinking to use while
reading with a shared text, “Thank You
Ma’am” by Langston Hughes. Created group
placemats:
– ConnecSons
– QuesSons
– Conclusions
– Judgments

40. ConnecSons QuesSons
Conclusions Judgments
Thank You, Ma’am –
Langston Hughes

41. The Plan: working in groups
• Students worked twice a week for 3 weeks.
• Groups created their own reading plan.
• Aler each 20 minute literature discussion,
students completed one of:
– Hot Seat
– Double Entry Journal
– CSI (colour, symbol, image – Making Thinking
Visible – Richart)

42. Final Assessments
• Reading response based on a quesSon generated by
the group and a personal response/recommendaSon
of the novel.
• Group presentaSon on context of the novel and how
this impacts their character.
– Research on real world context of novel
– Chose 3 most significant factors from the seLng that
affected characters and their quality of life
• Ongoing feedback and addiSonal instrucSon based on
conversaSons, observaSons, and products created
during the 3 weeks.