Good evening everyone. I have been reflecting upon a lesson I taught today where I tried to apply some of what we have been talking about and I would love to have some reaction/feedback from you all. Some of you who know my posts from the Mosaic list know that I have been working with some wonderful colleagues on lesson study in the area of comprehension strategy instruction.(For those who are less than familiar with lesson study, a team of teachers plans the lessons together and then one teacher teaches while the others observe and collect data regarding student learning.The lesson is then improved based on the data and it is taught again by another teacher from the team and once again, we debrief and improve the lesson) We just finished our last cycle for the year (which saddens me more than a little). I taught our revised lesson on self-questioning to a group of at-risk third graders using the picture book Grandfather Twilight. We were determined as a lesson study team to start trying to apply some of our new thinking about the nature of understanding to the lesson. So...along with modeling self-questioning, we planned to begin to ask children to think about and articulate what was happening in their heads...how their thinking had changed as a result of asking all those questions. We took Peter's suggestion from a while back and began the lesson by asking the kids to predict what they thought this book was about...what the author wanted us to know. The kids had several predictions which I recorded: "This book is about a grandfather whose power went out." "This book is about a grandfather with a house made of woods." "This book is about a grandfather who goes for a walk." Our goal was after we finished reading the book, we would then compare what the book was really about with our predictions and help the kids to articulate how their thinking had changed. I started reading, modeling my thinking (My I wonders...) as I went...but it wasn't long before the enthusiasm...the fervency (my new vocabulary word! :-) ) with which they responded to the text made me stop and give the kids the opportunity to turn and talk frequently. My lesson study partners were recording student questions from their turn and talk conversations so we could look at them together afterwards. So far, so good. Nothing so far was much different from the way we taught self-questioning before. I was very conscious of some of the language I used with the kids as we moved forward into the guided practice part of the lesson, though. I asked the kids to get into groups of four and then to stop and listen to what was going on in their heads and then pick the BEST question they had to write on a group chart...that question that when they shared with a partner helped both of them understand better, rather than "record all the questions you can think of". That little change in language made a big difference in the quality of the questions recorded. It helped kids see that the purpose of the questions is to lead to understanding, not just to ask questions for the sake of asking questions. After recording and sharing questions, I finished reading the book to them and then revisited their predictions. I asked them to think about what they knew now about the book that they didn't know before. It was fascinating to see the light dawn on some faces...one kid shouted out "I totally didn't get the point of this book till we started thinking about it!" I asked them to share with a partner their thinking and reminded them to listen carefully to each other before sending them to their seats to write on an exit slip how their thinking changed. Then...another deliberate language choice--I asked them to write in silence. I talked about the REASON for silence... how important it was to have both conversation and quiet time to really do their best thinking. Then we did a whole class debrief about what they learned that would apply to their reading tomorrow. Unfortunately, time ran out and I couldn't finish collecting all their thoughts. I didn't get them to generalize what they learned and how it might apply to other books they would read, but I have to say, just a few (a very few, really!) careful changes in language choices on my part helped kids had a noticeable impact almost immediately on how engaged these reluctant readers were. The data collected by my partners showed that the quality of most responses was incredible. (There were about 5-6 students who were still showing some confusion who will get some extra attention tomorrow, but some of the best questions and inferences came from the special ed students who totally recognized that by asking questions they figured out that Grandfather Twilight brought the night sky each night.) I can't wait to start building on this tomorrow. Anyone else tried to apply some of your new learning? We'd all love to hear it! Jennifer
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