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Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Units
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However, there is little value in teaching a student to identify the symbolism in a story if he or she is still struggling to access the plot. In Vygotskian theory every child has a ZAD - a Zone of Actual Development. This is what s/he can do already, unassisted. If you give a child a task to do in his ZAD then s/he has learnt nothing new. If you give a child a task he cannot do but could do with the assistance of someone more expert then you are teaching him something new. This task is in his Zone of Proximal Development. Tasks should occur within this ZPD until we see that the student can accomplish the task unassisted, and it has become part of his/her ZAD. Tasks which are beyond the ZPD are deemed to be frustrational - those tasks which are too hard, no matter how much assistance is given.
This concept of Zones of Development can be translated (fairly simplistically) in terms of student-teacher interactions as follows: the teacher models the strategy, the student practises the strategy with various levels of assistance from the teacher or his/her peers in group work. As the teacher notes evidence of effective use of the strategy, the student is given the opportunity to use it unassisted. The final step is when the student goes on to use the strategy in a new situation or context, or on a new text. Many of the strategies Jeff outlined, such as Think-alouds, Reciprocal Reading Circles and Question/Answer Relationships, which I'll define in more detail below, are devised to operate in the Zone of Proximal Development.
All of the units we devised are constructed in terms of an Inquiry Frame. Jeff presented research into boys' learning that showed compellingly that reluctant readers were much more likely to engage in reading if they saw that it served a purpose or a need relevant to them. If we are reading to find out the answer to a question that is important in our own lives then we are more motivated to undertake that reading. The units of work are usually based around a particular text or set of texts which the teacher believes to be worth reading for a variety of reasons. However, the texts become one of several means of finding the answer to the question posed at the start of the unit.
It is important to provide motivational activities at this stage that relate the inquiry to the students' own lives. They must see a need to find out the answer. Before a particular text is introduced as a means to finding out that answer, the teacher must ensure that the content of the text is accessible to the students by preparing the way Frontloading activities attempt to present the major themes of the text in a context that is recognizable to the students. They might involve some research, in the form of an opinionaire (see below) or take the form of a drama or roleplay, or simply be a discussion or journal writing reflection. When the students actually read the text they begin to see the connections between it and what they had been enacting or discussing earlier.
An opinionaire is a survey similar to a questionnaire where, instead of answering questions the responders have to agree or disagree with a range of statements or opinions that also include some ideas from the set text. Jeff gave the example of using the Inquiry Frame What makes a good relationship? within which he intended to use Romeo and Juliet as part of the investigation.In order to frontload this fairly demanding text he got the students to conduct an opinionaire. They made up a grid of statements such as: "The more time you spend with a person, the better your relationship will be or Love conquers all After conducting the survey the students debrief on their findings.
After frontloading, the next step is to assist the students to make meaning of the text. Here the Vygotskian model of teaching within the ZPD comes into play. Think-alouds are a useful strategy for assisting readers for a variety of purposes. Very simply, in a Think-aloud the teacher makes his/her thinking explicit as s/he reads a section of the text, modelling for the students how expert readers bring to bear a wealth of thought processes as they read, such as: visualizing what they are reading, recognizing tip-offs that something may be important to understanding the text, making inferences about the text's meaning based on their own experiences and other texts they have read, making predictions, asking questions and so on. Think-alouds can be used to model these general processes of reading or task specific processes like understanding symbolism or irony.
Another strategy for making meaning is the use of QARs - Question/Answer Relationships or Question Hierarchies. Asking and answering different kinds of questions as you read helps you to make sense of the text. Jeff maintains that expert readers do this automatically, making self-to-text, world-to-text and text-to-text connections constantly as they read. QARs provide a format for making these connections explicit. The reader begins with Right There Questions - factual questions for which the answer is directly stated in the text, goes on to Think and Search Questions - these questions require the reader to piece together details from several places in the text to arrive at an answer. The next step is Author and Me Questions - the reader must use the text and his/her own experience of the world to answer the question. Finally, On Your Own Questions - these questions arise from thinking about the issues raised by the text in a wider or different context. Teachers may model or pose these questions initially. Students might then pose them for themselves with assistance. Eventually they should pose them automatically as they read a text.
Yet another strategy for assisting students to visualize the text is Picture Mapping. Students depict the key scenes or issues in a text using pictures. The picture map can be used to summarize and recall and to establish links between key events and characters.
When the texts have been read students can return to the Inquiry Frame. They need to undertake a Culminating Activity to demonstrate what they have found out in answer to the question they were posed at the outset. Jeff showed us two possible Culminating Activities: Symbolic Story Representations and Hypermedia Stack. In a Symbolic Story Representation students create cutouts or find objects to dramatize what they have read and how they have read it. The cutouts might represent characters, scenes or settings of importance, themes or issues and include a cutout representing themselves as reader. The students then use the cutouts to dramatize the story and to recount their experience of the story from beginning to end. They might then be interviewed on their presentation by the rest of the class. (See Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, You Gotta BE the Book - Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents, Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1997, pp43-45)
Hypermedia Design involves using the computer to present what has been learnt in response to the inquiry frame (see Wilhelm, J. and Friedemann, P. Hyperlearning: Where Projects, Inquiry and Technology Meet York, ME:Stenhouse, 1998). Jeff's presentation involved a Macintosh program but basically the students could make a Powerpoint presentation or do a webpage design including links to associated information they have discovered in the course of their investigations. The interesting thing about making a hypermedia presentation is that the students see the text as being influenced by a variety of contexts and having relevance to them in a variety of ways.
I hope these very brief outlines of Jeff's methods help you to navigate the units we prepared at the residential. In the publications I have cited Jeff presents all of these strategies in an easy to follow format including a wealth of interesting examples. I think we all found that applying theory to practice and making it work for you is ultimately very rewarding. As some infamous B grade telestar once said (I think it was on The ATeam), I love it when a good idea comes together.
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Inquiry Learning Units
The Divine Wind
Christine Cox used The Divine Wind& with her students at Rosny College in this Inquiry Learning Unit.
A Bridge to Wiseman's Cove
This Inquiry Learning Unit was developed by Jenny O'Shannessey and Maureen Mann with a mixed ability Grade 9 at Queechy High School.
What is Good Friendship
Mandy Jak who teaches at Port Dalrymple School and Alison Brooks teaching at Rocherlea Primary designed this Inquiry unit for upper primary school students.A Fair Go!
The outline plan for this sequence of work was devised by Peta Kelly, Gianna Staples and Andrea Long. It was subsequently refined and taught to a group of mixed ability students in Grade 9 at Clarence High school.The unit of work is based on the issues and themes raised in the novel Deadly Unna, a longer and more challenging text than many students in the class would normally choose to read. Students needed assistance to be able to go beyond the literal level of the book and identify the underlying themes relating to social justice issues in Australian life.King Lear
Rosalind Walker teaches pre-tertiary English Literature at Hobart College. In the design of this unit she has incorporated the theory and strategies outlined by Jeff Wilhelm.What do you need to be a survivor?
Alison Ruddle teaches English and Integrated Studies at Wynyard High School. This Inquiry Unit showcases Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet” and was developed for a Grade 8 Integrated Studies class in a middle school setting.Become a Media Megastar
Libby Robinson teaches English at Rose Bay High School. This unit was developed in a team teaching situation with Teacher of the Deaf, David Buchanan. It was designed as a cross curricular inquiry unit for a bilingual grade 8 class. There are 3 deaf students in the class.In an environmental ecosystem who has priority?
Angelique Susnja teaches in Fairview primary. This inquiry unit crosses a number of areas of the curriculum: English, SOSE, Science, Health and Well-Being.How do people's beliefs affect the way they act?
Jennifer Davey teaches English at Exeter High School. In this Inquiry Unit the central text is Dougy by James Maloney.The Struggle for Equality and Civil Rights
Robyn Spalding teaches English at Newstead College. Her Grade 12 Applied English students were enthusiastic about this Inquiry Unit. Their interest in what they were learning was sustained over time.What makes a good relationship: Inquiry Unit
Gianna Staples teaches English at Clarence High School. This inquiry unit isa study of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Gianna says her students found that exploring Romeo and Juliet from the perspective of the types of relationships that it portrays, gives it meaning for today.What do texts tell us about being a boy or a girl?
In this inquiry unit 'What do texts tell us about being a boy or a girl?' Sue Tucker invites students to explore how texts construct ideologies. Sue Tucker is District Literacy Officer in Arthur District and based at Acton School, Burnie.
