Framing Our Reading | Part 4: Vocabulary and Concept Development

            This week, instead of choosing a reading strategy, my partner and I were tasked with choosing a strategy that we would use to teach students vocabulary related to the readings from the three previous weeks. The three vocabulary words that Jennie and I chose to use were “gene,” “stem cell,” and “cones.” We chose these words because they were central to the themes of our articles and because they were broad enough to lend themselves to graphic organizer vocabulary development strategies.

            When teaching vocabulary to students, the classic approach has been to provide students with vocabulary lists that consist of only words and definitions. Anderson and Nagy (1993) identify that vocabulary instruction is more successful when students develop an interest in learning the meanings of words and are given practice analyzing the vocabulary words. Using graphic organizers as part of vocabulary construction can provide a more meaningful vocabulary learning experience for students because they provide a visual for students, aiding in memory (McLaughlin, 2015).

            There are many graphic organizers to choose from when developing a plan for teaching students vocabulary. For my activity, I chose to use the Semantic Question Map from the McLaughlin (2015) text. This graphic organizer centers around the vocabulary and then branches out into separate questions about the word that can be raised by the teacher or the student. Then, boxes extend from the questions that display the answers. This graphic organizer is particularly interesting because it asks questions of students and guides their thinking (McLaughlin, 2015). These questions encourage the curiosity about words that contribute to word consciousness (Anderson & Nagy, 1993).

            When using this strategy in the classroom, I would probably initially start by providing students with the questions to help them learn to use the semantic question map. I would also most likely lead a class discussion in order to demonstrate how the map should be filled out. After sufficient practice with this type of graphic organizer, however, I would eventually have students generate some of their own questions in order to determine which aspects of the concept are most important for them to analyze and understand.

            For the three semantic question maps that I created, I did ask the question “What is the definition?” As Anderson & Nagy (1993) admit, definitions do have an important place in vocabulary instruction. It seems like students would be more likely to get confused if they were learning new terms and were not given the opportunity to link it with a concrete definition. The other questions that I generated were based around other concepts that were associated with the term and ways that the term can be connected to the real world. See the bottom of this blog post for my completed semantic question maps for the terms “gene,” “stem cell,” and “cones.”

            My partner, Jennie, used a different type of graphic organizer to demonstrate these new vocabulary words. Visit her blog at http://teachlearnexplore2016.blogspot.com/ to read more about her strategy. 

References

Anderson, R.C. and Nagy, W.E. (1992).  The vocabulary conundrum.  American Educator, 16, 14-18, 44-47.

McLaughlin, M., (2015).  Content Area Reading:  Teaching and Learning in an Age of Multiple Literacies.  Boston:  Pearson.

Framing Our Reading | Part 3: Extended Thinking

          This week, my partner, Jennie (Teach, Learn, Explore 2016), and I continued with the assignment format that we started last week. We both chose an article and reading strategy, and then gave the activity to the other person to complete. Last week we chose articles dealing with climate change and chose strategies to help guide students’ thinking. This week, we chose readings that related to cell biology and created activities based on strategies for extending students’ thinking beyond the text. I chose an article from the University of New South Wales about groundbreaking stem cell research and created a quick-write activity for Jennie to complete following the reading. For more details, see Table 1.

Table 1

	Text Citation or Link	Rationale for Choosing	Text Frame(s)	Strategies Used and Resource
Extending Thinking Example	UNSW Newsroom: Medical scientists develop ‘game changing’ stem cell repair system	Article contains many complex biological terms and concepts. The research discussed has major implications in the field of medicine. Stem cell research has a history of being a controversial topic.	Concept/definition Problem/Solution Proposition/Support	Quick-Write (Buehl, 2014)

McLaughlin (2010) states that the goal of strategies for extending thinking is to “elaborate on what we have learned, extend learning beyond the classroom, and clarify understandings.” Quick writing is a strategy that asks students to quickly respond to one or more prompts. Students are given a time limit and encouraged to answer the question with as much information as they can fit into that time limit. This strategy allows students to bring together information that they have read with prior knowledge in a way spontaneous and free-flowing way. Quick write assignments are not typically graded on structure or grammatical correctness. Instead, the emphasis is on the student being able to translate what they have read and what they know into a written answer (Shen, 2016). Not only do quick writes ask students to consolidate information, but they also help students develop writing skills.

          When I provided Jennie with this assignment, I gave her the following 4 writing prompts and asked her to spend no more than 3 minutes responding to each: 

1. Before reading this article, what did you know about stem cell therapy?
2. Why is the research in this article is described as “game changing?” Identify the benefits of using induced multipotent stem (iMS) cells over embryonic stem (ES) cells.
3. The UNSW researchers focused on using iMS cells to treat injuries to the spinal column. What other implications does this research have on the medical community?
4.  How would you explain the findings of this research to a friend or family member that has a limited background in biology? Write a one-paragraph summary of this article using terms that they would understand.

  When writing these prompts, I attempted to create questions that asked Jennie to summarize what she has read as well as think critically about how the information in the article was relevant to the real world. After completing the activity, Jennie remarked that she felt the questions were too specific and should be even more open-ended. I agree that a goal of this activity should be to focus on student reactions to the reading material rather than facts presented in the text. I will need to spend more time developing open-ended questions when using this activity in the classroom. Another suggestion that Jennie had was to make sure to stick to a specific timeline for answering questions. In her opinion, she felt that it was difficult to stick to the 3-minute limit. When implementing this strategy in a class, I would definitely time the students to make sure they were not spending too long on any one question.
Overall, I think it is very important for spend time following a reading to consolidate information and reflect upon the reading. During this time, students can focus on making connections between what they have read and the real world. The strategy of quick writing allows students to practice putting these thought processes into words without getting distracted by writing structure or formalities. In a classroom, I could see the potential of using quick write responses as a basis for eventually writing a more formal paper. 
     This week, Jennie provided me with an article about researchers who had identified the minimum number of genes required for a cell to sustain life. I completed a Double Entry Diary activity during and following the reading. To read more about this strategy, visit her blog: http://teachlearnexplore2016.blogspot.com

References

Buehl, D. (2014).  Classroom strategies for Interactive Learning.  International Reading Association.

McLaughlin, M. (2010).   Content Area Reading:  Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness .  Boston:  Pearson.

Shen, D. (2016). Quick Writes. Harvard University. Retrieved from: http://ablconnect.harvard.edu/quick-write

Framing Our Reading | Part 2: Guided Thinking

This week for our “Framing Our Reading” assignment, we were asked to look at reading strategies to use that would help guide the thinking processes of students as they read a text. Last week, my partner, Jennie, and I chose our own reading strategies to try when reading the same article. It was difficult to know how to pick and structure activities based on our strategies without having already read the text. Buehl (2014) identifies that the first guideline for choosing effective reading strategies is to make sure the strategy aligns with type of text.

           For this week’s assignment, we each chose an article to read and then chose an appropriate strategy to have the other person use when reading the article for the first time. After completing the reading and reading strategy activity given to us by the other person, we discussed how the using strategy affected our thinking processes. I chose to have Jennie read a 2014 Scientific American article that discussed the effect of climate change on incidence of malaria in high altitude regions (see link in the Table 1). To guide her thinking, I had her complete a Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) activity.

Table 1

	Text Citation or Link	Rationale for Choosing	Text Frame(s)	Strategies Used and Resource
Guiding Thinking Example	Scientific American:  As Temperatures Climb, So Does Malaria	Identifies a current issue facing the world. Provides information on a consequence of climate change that isn’t immediately obvious. Discusses difficulties faced by scientists doing research in the real world.	Cause/effect Goal/Action/Outcome	Self- Questioning: Question-Answer Relationships (McLaughlin, 2010, p. 71)

The QAR activity is outlined in McLaughlin (2010) as a self-questioning strategy. The goal of the self-questioning strategy is to have readers come up with questions as they read, and then to look for answers to these questions. McLaughlin (2010) compares this approach to one that would be used when creating a scientific experiment. I chose to use the self-questioning reading strategy this week because I think that question generation is an important skill for individuals interested in science to develop.  A QAR activity outlines two different sources for information (prior knowledge and the text) and two types of question and answer relationships for each source. This results in 4 different types of QARs. See Table 2 below for more descriptions of the four relationships.

Table 2

Question-Answer Relationship	Description
Right There	The answer is stated in the text
Think and Search	The answer is constructed from multiple places in the text
On My Own	The answer relies on the reader’s prior knowledge
Author and Me	The answer connects prior knowledge with information from the text

When I provided Jennie with this assignment, I provided a description of the 4 QARs and an example question for each type (see Table 3). To complete the assignment, Jennie had to answer each example question, then create one question of each type and answer it.  The goal of this assignment was not only to determine if the reader could retrieve information from the article, but also to see if she was engaged enough with the text that she could formulate her own questions. This activity encourages students to make connections between their prior knowledge and the text, as well as generate questions. These two strategies are critical for reading comprehension (Buehl, 2014).

Table 3

Question-Answer Relationship	Example Question
Right There	What kind of differences does Kevin Lafferty of the U.S. Geological Survey identify as being controlled for when you can study malaria in the same country but at different altitudes?
Think and Search	According to the article, what are the three reasons that warm temperatures are increasing the incidence of malaria?
On My Own	What other public health concerns are associated with a warming climate?
Author and Me	What effect will the "increase of malaria burden" have on both the highland cities affected and the world as a whole?

            After completing the activity, Jennie explained to me that she thought it was necessary to makes sure students understand the different QAR types before they are asked to create questions. She noted that having example questions helped her to better understand the differences between the relationships. She also expressed that question generation helps to minimize the chance that students will merely skim the material. Students will most likely need a more complete understanding of the text in order to know which questions to ask. One concern was that this strategy might not work well with younger students. It might be more difficult, for example, for middle school students to differentiate between the QARs than it would be for high school students. I agree with Jennie’s assertion that this should be used as a more advanced reading activity.

             Overall, it was clear that this self-questioning strategy helps the reader to highlight connections within the text, as well as connections to the prior knowledge. Students are challenged to not only find answers, but to also explore what they have not yet learned. With some refining, this would be a strategy that I would definitely use to guide my students through reading a scientific text.

            For Jennie’s activity, I read an article about the effect of carbon dioxide levels on the nutritional content of the pollen of goldenrod, which makes up part of the diet of bees. I generated questions before, during, and after reading using a B/D/A questioning chart. To read more about her use of the self-questioning reading strategy, visit her blog: http://teachlearnexplore2016.blogspot.com/

References

Buehl, D. (2014).  Classroom strategies for Interactive Learning.  International Reading Association.

Irfan, U. (2014, March 7). As temperatures climb, so does malaria. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-temperatures-climb-so-does-malaria/

McLaughlin, M. (2010).   Content Area Reading:  Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness .  Boston:  Pearson.

Framing Our Reading | Part 1: Engagement

  

	Text Citation or Link	Rationale for Choosing	Text Frame(s)	Strategies Used and Resource
Engagement Example	BBC Future::‘I see colours you cannot perceive or imagine’	Uses a lot of technical information that requires advanced knowledge of visual systems. Challenges reader to imagine an experience of seeing that is different from his or her own.	Concept/Definition	Brainstorming Prior Knowledge and Mind Mapping (Buehl, 2014)

   

Literacy is an important component of all subjects, not just English. In science classes, students must learn how to deconstruct and analyze a technical text in order to derive meaning from it. However, a successful reading activity is made up of much more than just providing students with a text and asking them to read it. Many students would have trouble deriving meaning from a selection when this approach is used. The most effective learning from a text occurs when students are provided with activities that activate and engage their prior knowledge, guide them through the reading process, and then help them to extend their thinking to outside of the classroom following the reading (Buehl, 2014). For this activity, my partner, Jennie, and I focused on strategies to activate prior knowledge on a subject, a process called “frontloading” (Buehl, 2014). In fact, McLaughlin (2010) states that one of the characteristics of a good reader is to use prior knowledge to help develop meaning in a text. We chose different strategies to determine how each strategy improved the experience of reading a piece of science writing.

To test our strategies, Jennie and I used the BBC Future article titled ‘I see colours you cannot perceive or imagine.’ This article discussed the phenomenon of tetrachromacy found in some women that allows them to see more colors than the typical human being (Robinson, 2016). This article is difficult for a few reasons. First, it assumes that the reader already has a basic understanding of how light works, how the eye senses light, and how the brain processes signals from the eye. There are also references to genetics concepts like X chromosomes and mutations. Second, the article challenges the reader to imagine a perception of the world that is different from his or her own. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like to see more colors than you can already see, just as it would be difficult for a colorblind person to imagine seeing the way a typical human does.

When choosing my reading strategy, I decided that this complex article would be more accessible if I activated my prior knowledge through making a map of prior knowledge that I had learned on the topic. I brainstormed facts that I knew about vision and light and drew out a map to link the concepts together. This can be seen in the image at the end of this blog. I found that, through creating the concept map, I was able to make connections between ideas that I hadn’t thought about before and identify areas where I was still missing information. This prepared me to use the article to fill in the blanks. As you can see on the concept map, I wrote out a question that I came up with during this activity. Once I started reading the article, I was able to refer back to my concept map to note where the new information fit into the diagram. I also was able to identify other areas that I should have explored when activating prior knowledge, such as genetics concepts.

Jennie took a different approach to preparing for reading. She used a strategy called “Science Connection Overview” (Buehl, 2014) where she previewed the article to look for familiar terms and skimmed the article to get a feel for the structure of the reading she was about to do. After discussing our approaches, we determined that the science connection overview strategy lends itself to longer texts with summaries or abstracts, such as a scientific journal article. However, she was still able to prepare for the reading by picking out words like “tetrachromat” and “X chromosome” that she recognized from previous learning. In our discussion, we discussed the process of choosing an engagement strategy that fits with the type of text. As a teacher, we will read a text previous to creating a lesson and activities around it. Once we are familiar with the text, we will have a better idea of which reading strategies lend themselves to the selection. For example, if I had read the article previous to creating the concept map, I could have outlined specific areas in which to activate my prior knowledge. If I were to give a concept mapping assignment to my students as a frontloading activity, I would be able to provide a prompt for the students so they knew which concepts to map out.

Ultimately, using a frontloading strategy helped me to feel confident about and engaged with the material covered in the BBC Future article. My mind was prepared to consolidate new information into the existing map that I had created in my mind and on paper. While using this strategy, I came up with many ideas about how to use this strategy in a future classroom. It was also good to compare with my partner to see how different strategies affected the way that we approached the article. I would like to spend more time researching strategies so that I can determine which strategies work best with different types of texts.

Concept Map:

References

Buehl, D. (2014).  Classroom strategies for Interactive Learning.  International Reading Association.

McLaughlin, M. (2010).   Content Area Reading:  Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness .  Boston:  Pearson.

Robinson, D. (2016). 'I see colours you cannot perceive or imagine' Retrieved April 9, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160316-i-can-see-colours-you-cannot-perceive-or-imagine