Interdisciplinary Strategies
INSERT As a during reading
strategy for students to self-monitor their reading comprehension, INSERT
(Interactive Notation System in Effective Reading and Thinking) challenges
students to use a notation system which records their meta-cognitive thinking
during reading. The notation system consists of four marks that symbolize common
student thoughts that may come to mind while reading: a check for prior
knowledge, a minus sign for information that contradicts one's original
thinking, a question mark for confusing information, and a plus sign for new
information. This strategy is interdisciplinary in nature because it can be
used to track thinking in any subject, including electives like studio art and
music and ican be used with multiliteracies as well (movies, songs, art, etc.).
By using INSERT, students will develop their study skills, questioning skills,
comprehension abilities, all while synthesizing prior knowledge and new
information. Specifically for the Freedom of Faith unit, INSERT would be an
ideal strategy to track student thinking from start to finish because they will
be looking at multiple perspectives through a number of lenses (historical,
literary, and artistic). Recording their thinking will help them to stay
engaged in unfamiliar texts from other cultures and also help them confirm/deny
their prior knowledge on religion.
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McLaughlin, M. & Allen, M. B. (2009). Teaching ideas and blackline masters. In Guided comprehension in grades 3-8 (2nd ed.) (pp. 219-220). Newark, DE: International Reading Association, Inc.
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Logs and journals Logs and journals can be adapted for all of the content areas. This type of strategy allows students to practice reflection through the learning process. Students should go back to reread their journals over the course of a topic of study to see how their thinking may have changed. At the conclusion of a particular topic, students can return to their journals to take note of the major findings and think about how these findings affect their future learning. These tasks will allow students to practice the Summarize and Monitor Comprehension aspects of the Acts of Comprehension.
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Compare and Contrast Graphic organizers The graphic organizers described by Harvey F. Silver (2010) in the book Compare & Contrast: Teaching Comparative Thinking to Strengthen Student Learning allow students to take notes about comparing and contrasting while they read. The first two graphic organizers featured to the right are used consecutively with one another, with students taking notes on two texts in the first graphic organizer and then comparing and contrasting these notes in the second graphic organizer. Both of these graphic organizers also provide students a place to add their own thoughts about the content. While the first two examples provided were used with two primary sources, they could be applied to any type of text or content area. The other examples provided show different ways to graphically represent compare and contrast information, as well as how these strategies can be used across the content and grade levels. Graphic organizers with a focus on compare and contrast skills will allow students to express vocabulary they have learned, monitor comprehension, and evaluate the information and in some cases, the author's point of view, as described through the Acts of Comprehension.
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Evaluating Evaluating is an interdisciplinary strategy that is helpful for each student to practice and use in everyday life. This strategy utilizes the Acts of Comprehension by helping students look deeper in the text by asking questions and generating answers. An evaluation is composed of three important parts: (1) a claim, (2) support, and (3) evidence. The claim helps find conclusions that include an opinion, an idea, a judgement, or a view point. Support includes the reasonings behind the belief, assumptions, and values that the reader has towards the text. The Acts of Comprehension use evaluation to examine information from the text, as well as author's point of view. Lastly, evidence helps the reader add facts and examples to their evaluation. This is an important strategy to incorporate in each core subject to help students evaluate text, and social situations naturally (Counseling Center). With the increased use of websites in educational settings, it is also important for students to be able to evaluate what they are reading online. The sheet provided to the right provides students with a way to evaluate the validity of a website and determine if it is a site that should be used (Kozdras & Welsh, 2014).
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Contextualizing Contextualizing is a type of strategy when students read a piece of text through the lens of their own experiences. Through relating their own life experiences while reading, students are able to differentiate the differences between their own view points and the view points the author of the text is pointing out, one of the key Acts of Comprehension. This strategy can be used across content areas in reading any type of material that is presented to the students (Counseling Center). Providing students with a chart to remind them of key questions to consider when contextualizing, like the one featured to the right, can be beneficial (Stanford History Education Group).
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Previewing This strategy is one that is described to be effective for previewing content area textbooks and literature. Often times by simply doing a good preview of the text, students can get a better grasp of what they are going to be reading and learning about. The “T” stands for title which often is overlooked and not analyzed in great depth. The “H” is for any headings throughout the text that can be viewed before reading. The “I” is for introduction and the “E” stands for every first sentence which both will give the reader a better sense of what the text is going to be about. The “V” stands for visuals and vocabulary, the second “E” is for end of chapter questions which will help students understand what they are looking for as well as the main points that will be made, and finally the “S” stands for the end of chapter summary. In following the steps associated with THIEVES, students will be doing an extensive preview of the text which in turn will help with their overall understanding. This is similar to the predicting skill as described in the Acts of Comprehension.
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Vocabulary development The Frayer Model is a strategy that is used for vocabulary development for students. It allows them to take any given word and further break it down and examine it for a deeper understanding of the word and its meaning. The students would take the word and place it in the center of a graphic organizer with four boxes surrounding it. They then would be asked in the first two boxes to list any examples that they can think of associated with the word as well as any non-examples they can think of. The other two boxes in the graphic organizer will be for listing essential characteristics and nonessential characteristics of the word that you are studying. Through using a strategy such as The Frayer Model, students will be further breaking down specific vocabulary words and being able to analyze what exactly the word is vs. what it is not based on examples and characteristics. Knowing vocabulary is also a key aspect of the Acts of Comprehension.
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