Figuring It Out - literally and critically

 

The day went amazingly fast with ideas about how to deepen children's thinking when they are reading. from guided activities to independent.

One of the most interesting areas for me was giving the children a provocation based on the text they had read, discussing it critically in their groups and coming up with an overall consensus. The idea allowed the children to analyse the text and then synthesise what they had discovered into their create.

An example of "Response to Text: Vocabulary". Used as part of the students' novel study. Response to text

I also enjoyed learning ways to explore figurative language authentically - using our novel study text rather than task-based activities (one-offs). I used the visualising and interpreting example to create Visualising and Interpreting a simile slide.

Allowing the students to think critically, communicating their points of view with evidence to back this view up has become an integral part of our novel studies (across the studio). It has opened up doors to sharing our ideas and adapting each other's activities to meet our students' needs. It allows for collaboration among group members and the continued use of "Talk Rules" helps guide the discussions.

My next step is to dig into ways to provide opportunities to discuss what we think the author's purpose was as they were writing the novel and how we can verify if our thoughts are correct. Write to the author, google search or AI?