Lets talk texts Stage 2 and 3

NOII term 3 2018

Session 1 Selecting and analysing texts to support discussion and dialogue

• A sense of agency

• A sense of belonging

• A sense of competence

• A sense of meaningfulness

When translating NSW syllabuses into specific classroom programs,

lessons and learning activities, the first thing teachers will need to do is

select and organise the essential knowledge, understandings, skills and

values from the syllabus around central concepts or ideas.

NSW Department of Education and Training, 2003, p. 10

Intellectual Quality

Pedagogy focused on producing deep

understanding of important, substantive

concepts, skills and ideas.

Such pedagogy treats knowledge as

something that requires active

construction and requires students to

engage in higher-order thinking and to

communicate substantively about what

they are learning.

Significance

Pedagogy that helps make learning

more meaningful and important to

students.

Such pedagogy draws clear

connections with students' prior

knowledge and identities, with

contexts outside the classroom,

and with multiple ways of knowing

or cultural perspectives.

Key questions…

• Where are my students now?

• What do I want my students to learn?

• Why does the learning matter?

• How will I get them there ?

• How will I know what they can do?

• How well do you expect them to do it?

Unit Texts print

spoken

visual

digital

qu

ality

lite

ratu

re

Aust

ralia

n lit

erat

ure

abor

igin

al e

xper

ienc

es

othe

r cou

ntrie

s and

tim

es

inte

rcul

tura

l ex

perie

nces

peop

le a

nd c

ultu

res o

f As

ia

ever

y da

y an

d co

mm

unity

envi

ronm

enta

l and

so

cial

sust

aina

bilit

y

Teaching for complexity

Choosing texts with linguistic complexity

just beyond what the students can

produce in writing supports the

production of more complex messages.

Text complexity

• Vocabulary • Language

• Structure • Content

• Print and layout feature

https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/3629/literacy-appendix-6.pdf

Analysing and evaluating texts

• What is the purpose of the text? • What are the demands of the text?

• What features support and challenge readers at this time?

• What is the potential for learning about literacy, content, and the social world?

• How does the text reflect or expand the language and culture of the students?

• How can I use this text productively to engage the students I teach?

Planning a series of lessons to support responding to and examination of a text

• Connecting to prior knowledge

• Responding to the texts

• Examining texts

• Creating texts

Core Content Connecting to prior knowledge

Make connections between students’ own experiences and those of characters and events represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts (EN3-8D)

Responding to literature

Analyse and evaluate similarities and differences in texts on similar topics, themes or plots (EN3-8D)

Identify and explain how choices in language, for example modality, emphasis, repetition and metaphor, influence personal response to different texts (EN3-5B)

Examining literature

Identify, describe, and discuss similarities and differences between texts, including those by the same author or illustrator, and evaluate characteristics that define an author’s individual style (EN3-2A)

Creating literature

Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways (EN3-2A)

Big ideas

• connection to place

• displacement

• home

• homelessness

• perseverance

• stereotypes

General Capabilities

• Critical and creative thinking

• Ethical understanding

• Personal and social

Connecting to prior knowledge Learning experience: What do we know about homelessness?

Responding to text: Dialogic talk

Learning experience 1

Hotseating Shane

• Students talk in pairs about some questions to ask the main character Shane.

• Student in the hot seat to refer back to the picture book to draw upon their answers.

Learning experience 2

Is home where the heart is?

• Student prepare argument for discussion.

Responding to text: Character and Setting

Learning experience 1

• Missing persons poster

Learning experience 2

• Compare Shanes home to their own. Would they prefer to live in Shane’s home? Justify response.

Exploring text structure and organisation

Lesson experience 1

• Selecting a double page, students analyse what visual literacy techniques how have been used - colour, modality reading path.

Lesson experience 2

• Considering the authors intent in Shane giving the cat a new name each time he refers to it.

Creating text

• print

• spoken

• visual

• digital

Cat In The Window What do you see? Cloud, wind, birds,

a bird in a tree. The daffodils shivering In the February breeze,

A puddle in the road Beginning to freeze. Snow on the wind

Dusk in a cloud. Leaves in a frenzy,

The bird’s head cowed. Winter – though the sun shines.

Blizzard, and the north wind’s whine. Brian Morse

Cat In The Window

What do you hear?

Rain pouring from the gutters,

The wind tossing clouds across the sky,

Water gurgling down a drain,

The TV aerial creaking above the roof.

Next door’s dog shaking itself,

A crow fighting to cross from field to field,

Car windscreen wipers working hard,

A little stream tumbling over stones,

A patch of mud giving a glug of pleasure

Year 5 students

Cat in the Window

What do you hear?

The tick of a grandfather clock,

The small growl of a hamster,

The creak of a long thick floorboard.

You hear

The birds as they sing their song in the morning light.

The wind as it rattles through the trees,

The tap as it drips in the bathroom sink.

You hear

Thunder rumbling miles away,

A glass smashing downstairs.

Cat in a jacket What do you hear?

Way Home 'Heeey, wild cat! Wildcat!' the boy called Shane laughs,

'Heeey, I like you, Spitfire, Kitten Number One!’

He reaches out slowly, slowly to the ball of spiked fur.

'Sure I do. I like you.

And you like me, don't you?’

The boy called Shane strokes the scared fur.

He talks and talks until growls slide into silence.

'Guess what, Bestcat? You're coming home with me to my place.’

And he lifts the cat with no name from the top of the fence.

He puts it deep inside his zip-up coat.

'Whaddo you reckon, Catlegs?

Shane's taking you home right now.’

Over the bins and garbage bags, past a row of boarded-up houses. ‘

Yeah - you're with me now, Cat. You'n me, Cat.

And we're going way away home. . . ‘

Page 3

Teaching comprehension

making connections

• This explanation seems a lot harder to follow than the one we read last week. I’m having to draw on what we found out about … so I can build on that. I’m finding our summary chart really useful.

• What do you already know about …? Let’s record that on our chart. Think about what you know as you read the text and see if the text helps you expand on it in any way.

• You’ll need to dig a bit deeper to work that out. Remember our discussion about persuasion techniques …

• Is there anyone in the text who reminds you of yourself in any way? In what way? What have you had to do to discover this?

• Reread the first two paragraphs to see if you can find a link between what the author says there and what’s in this later section.

• Linking the ideas that Tony’s parents had about him to what you already knew about rock climbing helped you explain why his dad’s comment at the end was so significant.

forming and testing hypotheses about texts

• I’ve noticed in the introduction that there are lots of adjectives that imply sadness. Do you think the author is suggesting a gloomy outcome for the main character?

• Which text form do you think this might be? What clues have you noticed? What makes you think that?

• What do you expect from this title? Think about what you know about the author’s other novels.

• How do the graphics on the screen suggest what the creator of this site might want us to think about?

• You suggested how the author wanted us to feel about global warming at the beginning of the text, and you’ve found clues throughout the text that supported your original hypothesis.

asking questions… about texts

• We can see that the author has strong views on this. I wonder how he might try to affect our thinking as we read …

• A fluent reader has questions and answers going through their head as they read. This helps them get more involved in the reading and adds to their understanding of the text. While I’m reading this, I’m wondering what the significance of the newspaper cutting might be …

• Tell me a question you asked yourself before you read this part of the text. How did you try to find an answer?

• You set yourself lots of questions for the reading and then found you were skimming and scanning to find answers rather than focusing on the meaning. Let’s look more closely at the sorts of questions that will help you meet your learning goal.

creating mental images… or visualising

• The author’s used lots of verbs and adjectives – I’ve connected them to my memory of that enormous storm we had last year. I get a clear picture of the problems they must be facing.

• In my mind, I’m starting to see a pattern in the structure of this text.

• What mental image do you think the author is trying to create in this section? How has she done this?

• I love the three different situations you’ve imagined for using “horrible hands with frozen fingers”; are you intending to follow the recipe to make them and try your ideas out?

• Talk about the setting with your partner. Talk about what you can hear, feel, taste, or smell there – not just what you can see. Share the parts of the text that gave you those ideas.

Inferring... meaning from texts

• Think about how the images in this explanation help us to form ideas about the immense distances described.

• This character seems haughty and supercilious. The way she interacts with the other characters isn’t how I expect people to behave. I’ll read on and check out my tentative thinking about her.

• Find the words that suggest that …

• What do you think is really happening here? What did you have to do to make those inferences?

• Even though the writer doesn’t state her opinion explicitly, you’ve inferred that she doesn’t approve of … You’ve noted the examples that she has used and linked them to your own knowledge of … to help you reach this conclusion.

identifying the writer’s purpose and point of view

• We’ve gained an idea of the author’s point of view from the examples of emotive language in the introduction. Keep this in mind as you read on …

• What do you think the writer’s purpose was in writing this text? How does this affect your response to the text?

• Who do you think is the intended audience of this text? How do you know?

• If this text had been written by Jason’s mother rather than Jason, how would it be different?

• When writers feel strongly about a topic, they often try to manipulate their readers so that they are more likely to agree with them. Here are some things to look out for …

identifying the main idea… or theme in a text

• So you’ve decided that the writer’s real message isn’t the one he stated at the beginning – and I think you’re right! How did you work that out?

• I think this text is giving us a message about how sometimes it’s OK to break rules. To work this out, I’ve thought about how the writer has got us to sympathise with the main character even though she breaks rules and causes trouble – the emotional language ensures that we’re on her side.

• Track the subheadings and see if there’s a pattern developing to help you work out what the writer thinks is most important.

• What do you think the theme of this text is? What do you think we are meant to be left wondering about at the end? How did you come to this conclusion?

• We’ve come up with two “main ideas” for this text. Let’s go back through the text and find evidence for our thinking. Maybe both of them are right …

Summarising… the information or events in texts

• I’ve used some of the visual features of this text, especially the writer’s use of bold print, to help me identify five important points.

• Read this paragraph carefully. What is the key sentence? How do you know?

• You’ve noted the important facts that are discussed in this report. Do you think you also need to summarise both the introduction and the conclusion, or do they just repeat the same information?

• The timeline on page 3 shows you what the key events were between 1900 and 1960. Diagrams are often helpful when you are summarising this kind of text.

• You could use a story map to help you identify the main events in this narrative as you read.

• Does your summary give you a clear overview of the text? Is it brief and easy to read? Is anything important missed out? Is anything repeated? Does it meet your purpose?

analysing and synthesizing… ideas, information, structures, and features in texts

• Work with a partner to identify the part where the mood changes and to find out how the author has created this change of mood.

• You’ve noticed that some reports on how tourism affected the island suggest that it’s harmful and others that it’s beneficial. Can you account for this? Have you considered the writers’ purposes for each text?

• I’ve been thinking about that coach, what he says and does, how there’s a mystery about his past, the way the writer describes him, and what I would expect a coach to say and do – and I don’t think he can be trusted!

• You’ve suggested to me that the author delivers an important message about responsibility. You’ve worked this out by tracking how Victoria’s character changes, and you’ve supported this with a clear example of how she reacts quite differently to the problem in the last chapter.

• This letter to the editor contains more or less the same facts as the conservation website that we looked at yesterday, but the two texts use the information for a different purpose and audience. The different structures of the texts will give you some clues about what the different purposes are.

evaluating ideas and information

• This information fits with what I already know about … I think that the writer uses it in a very sensible and logical way to support her point of view, for example, …

• Would you please say that again for everyone to hear? That puts the whole question of how the boy shows that he cares about his brother into a new light for me.

• Does the writer convince you that the information he presents is valid? If so, how does he do this?

• Would you want to read another book by this writer? Why? Why not?

• This article put forward an argument for … that I hadn’t heard before. Reading it has led me to change my views in some ways; I used to think that …, but now I believe that …

• If you were the writer, what part of the text would you feel most proud of having written? Why?

1. Select texts purposefully.

• Select high-quality texts with clear big ideas that match students’

interests.

• Use multiple criteria to determine the complexity of each text, and use

that information to order the texts from less to more complex.

2. Prepare for each lesson.

• Complete planning prior to each lesson to guide your instruction.

• Select key vocabulary words to be taught.

3. Scaffold instruction.

• Model thinking before expecting students to analyse text

independently.

• Teach students to engage in structured dialogue to focus on speaking

and listening skills.

• Gradually release to students the responsibility of analysing the text.

4. Maintain high expectations for all students.

• Pose questions requiring higher level thinking.

• Provide additional support for EALD students

• Build on students’ existing knowledge and life experiences.

• Suggest sentence stems to provide support in the formulation of

ideas (e.g., “I think the big idea is… because…”).

5. Assess and reflect

• Use student data to determine gains

• Change aspects of lessons based on data.

Supporting dialogic talk within instructional conversations around

quality texts used in classrooms:

Cognitive growth is more likely when one is required

to explain, elaborate, or defend one’s position to

others as well as to oneself; striving for an

explanation, often makes a learner integrate and

elaborate knowledge in new ways.

(Vygotsky, 1978)

Talk for Teaching • Rote: The drilling of fact, ideas and routines through constant repetitions.

• Recitation: The accumulation of knowledge an understanding trough questions

designed to test or stimulate recall of what has been previously encountered

• Instruction: Telling the students what to do and/or imparting information, explaining

facts, principals or procedures.

• Discussion: The change of ideas with a view to sharing information and solving

problems.

• Dialogue: Achieving common understanding through structured, cumulative

questioning and discussion which guides and prompts reduce choices, minimise risk

and error , and expedite ‘handover” of concepts and principles 43 (Alexander 2008)

Five key principles of teaching and learning talk (Alexander 2008)

Collective Teachers and students address learning tasks together

Reciprocal Teachers and students listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative

viewpoints

Supportive Students extend their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over wrong

answers, and help each other to reach common understandings

Cumulative Teachers and students build on answers and other oral contributions and chain

them into coherent lines of thinking and understanding

Purposeful Classroom talk, though open and dialogic is also planned and structured with

specific learning goals in view

Quality talk

The most productive discussions are

• structured and focussed, yet not dominated by the teacher

• when students hold the floor for extended periods of time

• when students are prompted to discuss text through open ended or authentic

questions

• when discussion incorporates a high degree of teacher uptake question in

which the teacher incorporates and build on students’ comments.

Soter et al (2008)

Pedagogical Principles • Use rich, interesting texts that permit a variety of interpretations, opinions, or positions on the part of

students on a topic with which students have some familiarity (i.e., background knowledge).

• Establish collaboratively with students norms or “ground rules” for discussion.

• Initiate discussion by asking a “big question.”

• Language is a tool for thinking and for “interthinking.”

• Productive discussions involve balancing the conflicting demands of maintaining a clear structure and focus

yet being responsive to students’ contributions.

• Over time, there needs to be a gradual release of responsibility for control of the discussion from teacher to

students.

The ground rules…

• We listen, and respect each others’ ideas

• Everyone gets to be heard

• We give reasons when we agree or disagree, and we ask for reasons

when people forget to give them.

• Everyone is responsible for group decisions, so we try to agree.

Authentic questions • How did XXX achieve success?

• Think about a time you faced a challenge like XXX. What did you do to help yourself? Was it successful? Why or

why not?

• How did XXX grow and change?

• What other ways could XXX solve that problem?

• Do you agree with the author's decision to ZZZZ? Why or why not?

• If you were XXX what would you try?

• How did XXX feel when BBB ? Why?

• Why might XXX have made the choice to DDD?

What do students need to take on board….

• I wonder, perhaps, I think

• That’s like

• I agree with you (because)

• I disagree with you (because)

• I can add on (I agree, and)

• I have evidence

• What do you mean? I’m confused.

• What are you thinking?

• What could we do about that?

After engaging in argumentation during class discussions, students

performed better in

• argumentative writing,

• high-level comprehension of text

• deep understanding of disciplinary concepts and principles

(Reznitskaya et al., 2009; Murphy et al., 2009).

Our job is not just to get our ideas out so that everybody can hear them. It’s

actually to offer ideas up in the hopes that the group can determine what the

most reasonable answer is, the best answer, the most thought-through.

So, our job is not just to share our answers but also to consider other people’s

answers. And that means that we have to build on each other’s ideas and make

connections.

So the idea is to test each other’s ideas. As a group, we should be able to think

better than we can by ourselves. Does that make sense?

(Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017, p. 72).

Dialogic talk • It is a type of talk where we search for the most reasonable answer. We talk

collaboratively to think together to find the best answer

• Students take considerable control over the flow often discussion.

• Teacher acts as a facilitator by strategically choosing interventions or talk moves

to support argumentation.

• It is initiated by a big question about a contestable issue.

• It closes with a reflection on processes and outcomes

Pre discussion student activities Goal: Activate prior knowledge and get students invested in the discussion.

• The activities should feed into the discussion but not structure the discussion

• Thinking journals. Post it notes, drawings

• Take a position (to be reviewed after the discussion)

• Is there anything that is confusing or surprising to you?

• Is there anything you feel strongly about?

• Make connections: text/text, text/self. text world

• Small group… think, pair, share

Post discussion student activities

Goal: to promote transfer to news tasks performed individually

Speaking.

• What is you position now… explain it to your partner

• What are 2 new ideas that you heard during the discussion? How did they affect you position

Writing

• List the strongest reason for and the strongest against your position

• Write…. to express the group position

Reading

• Underline the information in the text that could be used to support your position … and that could be used against

your position

• Share with your colleagues

Observing and analysing student talk

around text

Different point of view

Do we discuss different ideas together?

• we talk about the questions that are important and

tricky to answer

• we make sure most of us get a chance to speak

• we explore different points of view

• we challenge each other when we disagree

• we change our position with reasons

Clarity

Do you understand what is being said and how it all fits together

as we explain our thinking clearly?

• we help each other clarify ideas by asking follow-up questions

• we connect what we are saying to what other people have said

• we use words like position, reason evidence, example to explain

what we mean

• we summarise what other people said

• we keep track of where we are in the discussion and where we

are going

Acceptability Do we use well examined reasons?

• we make sure we use accurate information

• we refer to the text for evidence we question whether

something is always true or true only some of the

time

• we talk about how important some things are

Validity

Do we build strong arguments?

• we explain why we agree or disagree and we give

relevant reasons and evidence for our positions

• we check to see if our reasons really lead to our

position

• we ask each other if we assuming something that we

really shouldn’t