Strategies that Work Non-fiction strategies

1. Strategies that WorkNon-fiction strategies Workshop 8 Debbie Draper, Julie Fullgrabe & Sue Eden

2. Overview of session Engaging with the concepts and activities to do with Determining importance in texts Summarising Synthesising

3. Determining importance and summarising-not really very different at all But synthesising is….

4. Some important reminders Much of what adults read are non-fiction texts so students need to be taught strategies to use them just as much as fiction The internet provides mammoth amounts of non-fiction reading to all users. How do we find what we are looking for and what is important?

5. Real life not determining importance Have you ever been with someone who has Given you a blow- by –blow version of the dinner they ate last night? The never ending holiday snaps? What happened on the way home from work? HORROR! What can you do to help that person (or yourself?)

6. Readers of nonfiction have to decide and remember what is important in the texts they read if they are going to learn anything from them.” ~ Harvey & Goudvis

7. What evidence to look for when teaching determining importance- outcomes Students gain importance from text and visual features Students sift and sort the important information from the details and merge their thinking with it Students learn to make a distinction between what they think is most important and what the author wants them to take away from the reading Students use text evidence to form opinions and understand big ideas and issues. Harvey and Goudvis 2007

8. And evidence for summarising and synthesis Students summarise information by retelling Students become aware of when they add knowledge to their knowledge base and revise their thinking as they read Students synthesise information through writing

9. On-line determining importance Do your students know how and where to look for online information? And do they know how to sift through the information for what they are really looking for?

10. The New Literacies Of Online Reading Comprehension Read to identify important questions; Read to locate information; Read to critically evaluate the usefulness of that information; Read to synthesize information to answer those questions; and Read to communicate the answers to others. (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004, p. 1570) The new literacies of online reading comprehension

11. An example of the reading process

12. Unrefined search- what do they want to know? Using the ideas of the previous slide to demonstrate how a student may look for information for research

13. Sponsored links Blog about book wikipedia

14. Government websites ALP website

15. Interesting distraction- her website has been modelled on the US president. Can be found at pm.gov.au

16. Finally found some biographical information

17. Discuss What are the online searching techniques of You Your students Any one else of interest

18. Reading online is dynamic interplay between reading comprehension and information literacy strategies Skim Snatch and grab Use prior knowledge of content and medium Summarize question Infer Hypothesize Identify purpose Analyse point of vire Gather and organise data Assess accuracy

19. What Will Be Required? A focus on higher-order thinking skills Increase in problem-based learning experiences Higher expectations Integration of online reading comprehension throughout the entire curriculum New assessments Large investments in professional development: teachers and school leaders. Changes in teacher education. Donald J. Leu

20. Read The House   Step one Record what you feel is important about the text on a sheet of paper.  Step 2. Take a perspective of either the boys, a real estate agent or a burglar. Highlight what would be important to that character in the text.  Step 3 Compare the two readings with another participant and discuss how setting the purpose made a difference to what they determined was important.

21. Decisions about importance are based on The reader’s purpose The reader’s schema for the text content - ideas most closely connected to the reader’s prior knowledge will be considered most important The reader’s sense of the aesthetic - what he or she values or considers worthy or beautiful

22. When highlighting goes bad…. You were asked to ‘highlight the most important parts of the material.’ How many of you highlighted almost the entire page in your distant past?

23. A bout of Mad Highlighting Disease (Harvey and Goudvis 2007)

24. When students highlight or mark text in nonfiction materials, they should keep the following guidelines in mind Look carefully at the first and last line in each paragraph. Highlight only necessary words and phrases. Don’t get thrown off by interesting details. Try not to highlight more than half of a paragraph.

25. Make notes in the margins. Cue words will be followed by important information. Nonfiction has many features that signal important information. Pay attention to surprising information. You may be learning something new.

26. Practice determining importance Read the article with a highlighter keeping in mind the checklist provided. Share your highlighting with another person and compare what was important to each reader

27. Leaving students ‘to it’ in non-fiction reading is dangerous Why?

28. Introducing summarising with the Canadian Literacy Secretariat

29. Teacher Modelling Teachers should model thinking aloud about their own process of determining importance during reading.

30. V.I.P. (Very Important Points) Students cut sticky notes so there are slim strips of paper extending out from the sticky edge. As students read, they tear off pieces to mark points in text they feel are significant. After reading, students compare the points they marked. They must justify their answers. “I chose to mark this point because…”

31. Coding I – Important L – Learned something new * – Interesting/important Aha! – Big idea surfaces S – Surprising S!!! – Shocking !!! - Exciting

32. Anticipation Guides • Prepare a list of true / false statements about a subject that is about to be read. • Have the students make a true or false prediction about the statements BEFORE reading. • Have the students read the article or text. • Tell the students to answer the same set of true / false questions as they can now verify their answers from the reading.

33. Using newspaper articles to determine importance Discuss with students the titles, bold headings, pictures, charts, timelines, and other text features that hint at what might be important information.

34. Scanning grid with newspaper article What else can you use articles for?

36. This works well from a diagram also

37. Word counts Many of the suggested activities for summarising work on word counts, so students are obliged to keep extra words out.

38. One word summary Summarizing a topic into just one word can be a daunting task for students.  When students are asked to develop a one-word summary, they must apply their critical thinking skills to investigate, read about, and analyze the topic.  After they have chosen their word, students must be able to defend their word choice with a valid reason.  It is not their choice of the one word that makes this a powerful strategy, but the development of the rationale for defending that choice. This strategy can be used as a classroom assessment for learning as students evaluate their own justification for word choice.  Teachers can quickly tell who has mastered the learning target.

40. Activities to try with non-fiction big books Choose one or more of the following activities to try with the non-fiction text you have brought along.

41. Determining importance Activity one- questions and answers Develop questions that you think are important to ask about the text Seek to answer them and determine whether they were in fact important

42. Determining importance activity 2Cross out strategy Read text with class, cross out words that are not important , Leave in nouns, proper nouns and verbs Use the remaining words to compile a summary of the text Try this with nonfiction big book you have brought- cut up sticky labels or pencil for today?

43. Activity 3 summarisingGetting the Gist The group will write a summary in 20 words. Explanation: The GIST of something is the main idea. Sometimes we don’t need to remember all the details but read just to get the GIST of the material. Procedure: Draw 20 word sized blanks After reading a short section of text (one-two paragraphs), the students will assist the teacher in writing a 20 word summary to give the gist of what they read. Now, read an additional section of text (one-two paragraphs). Information from both sections must be incorporated into a new 20 word summary. It is possible to read a third section and condense the summary one more time. Take from pp 130-131, Developing Readers and Writers in the Content Areas k-12, Third Edition, (Moore, Moore, Cunningham, and Cunningham, 1998) A summarization

44. Activity 4- Summarising use THIEVES with whole non-fiction text to summarise all ideas Summarising acronymn- THIEVES, useful for text books

45. Activity 5 determining importancePredict and scan Before reading a non-fiction text identify 6 verbs 6 nouns 6 adjectives That may be in the text Determine those words importance and then seek them out. If not there, discuss importance of those words

46. Reader of the Rocks article http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/ Online magazine website that combines science and literacy Contains pdf booklets and articles to do activities about. Determining importance article and guide Variety of activities- interesting vs importance Try one of their suggested activities

47. Feedback on activities Have a break

48. Synthesising

49. Original Terms New Terms Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehension Knowledge • Creating • Evaluating • Analysing • Applying • Understanding • Remembering (Based on Pohl, 2000, Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn, p. 8)

50. BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMYCreatingGenerating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing thingsDesigning, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.EvaluatingJustifying a decision or course of actionChecking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judgingAnalysingBreaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationshipsComparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating, findingApplyingUsing information in another familiar situationImplementing, carrying out, using, executingUnderstandingExplaining ideas or conceptsInterpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying, explainingRememberingRecalling informationRecognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding Higher-order thinking