Teaching Literacy in Authentic Contexts

Recently, the third grade team was reviewing language standards (from the MN K-12 Academic Standards in English Language Arts, 2010) as they collaboratively planned how they would teach their students about nouns. The third grade language benchmark 3.10.1.1 states that a third grader must "Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking" including: 

• Explain the function of nouns ... in general and their functions in particular sentences.
• Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns.
• Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood)

Before students are able to tackle these complex grammatical ideas, teachers knew they needed to first teach some prerequisite skills to their students. The teachers decided to focus their upcoming grammar instruction on being able to identify and create common and proper nouns.

In our Primary Years Program (PYP), "learners' needs are best served when they have opportunities to engage in learning within meaningful contexts," (p. 68 of Making the PYP Happen). The authors go on to explain that it is the school's responsibility to provide authentic contexts for language teaching and learning in all areas of the curriculum. Not only is this a requirement of the PYP, but teaching literacy concepts, processes, strategies, and skills in meaningful, authentic, relevant, engaging, and challenging contexts is considered best practice. After all, it is in authentic contexts that we adults actually use those literacy processes that we learned in primary school, so why shouldn't our students learn them in this way?

In their current unit of inquiry, Who We Are, students are constructing an understanding of the central idea that community forms when people realize they have things in common. During the unit, students study those who have left their community to come to a new one.

One way students learn about this is by reading the book The Long Way to a New Land by Joan Sandin. Since students were already reading the book, the teacher had the students use the text to learn more about common and proper nouns. Students were instructed to read through the book, identifying common and proper nouns by sorting them onto a t-chart that the students created from a blank sheet of paper. Common nouns on one side and proper nouns on the other.

When the students were given the chance to develop this literacy skill in a meaningful context they were motivated and engaged. And because the task was relevant, significant, and tied to the other learning that they were doing, students learned! When the teacher tested the students ability to identify and create common and proper nouns, all of her students (100%) demonstrated proficiency.

After reading about how one teacher successfully taught literacy, specifically grammar, in authentic context, how could you or have you explicitly taught literacy concepts, processes, strategies, or skills in authentic contexts?

I used to think ... Now I think ...

"I used to think ... Now I think ..." is a thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible (Ritchhart, Church, Morrison) that helps students reflect on how their thinking has shifted and changed over time. On March 20, 2014, I wrote about how this thinking routine could be used with Kindergarteners to show their thinking about cycles.

One of the advantages of thinking routines from Making Thinking Visible is that they can be used in a variety of contexts with a variety of topics over and over again. All teachers can use them, because all students need to think.

Recently, an English Language teacher proved the flexible nature of the thinking strategies when she adapted this thinking routine to fit her content and context. She had asked me if I would suggest a thinking routine that would help her small group of English Learners reflect on their writing and how they had improved during the academic year. After working with her students on this routine, I received the following e-mail:

"I took the 'I used to think' activity and turned it into a “We used to write…” for my small group of 4th grade girls. Since they hadn't done anything like that before, we did it as a group and I recorded their statements. It went well and I think I’ll keep using it in various forms. The girls had a lot of “Oooohhhhh yeah,” and, “AAAhhhhhh,” moments. It was great to witness. What made it even better is that we were sitting right underneath the sign of 'Reflective Alley'."

She also shared their thoughts she had recorded:

We used to write…

• We used to repeat words over and over in our writing: and, and then, then, he said, she said.
• We didn’t use “juicy” words at first. 
• We didn’t really really describe things.
• We used periods sometimes.
• We wrote short, simple sentences.
• Our writing was boring.
• We used too much dialogue sometimes.
• We used a little bit of expression or no expression at all.
• We felt that writing was boring. 

But now we write…

• We write in longer, expanded sentences.
• We write with more expression.
• We use more accurate punctuation.
• We can write in paragraph form.
• We use similes and metaphors.
• We have a balance of dialogue.
• We have a stronger author’s voice.
• We feel more satisfied with our writing--we feel like real authors now. 
• We feel like writing is not as hard as it used to be.
• We can write for a longer amount of time.
• We are more excited about writing projects.
• We write multiple drafts and do peer editing and revising, and we still do editing and revising with a teacher.
• We celebrate our writing.
• We talk about our writing and reflect on it.
• We share our writing by reading it to our peers and teachers. 
• We use our typing skills more.

After reading about how English Learners used the Visible Thinking Routine "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." to reflect on how their understanding, knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding writing had changed over the academic year, how could you use "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." in your instructional practice?

Flow maps

In an earnest attempt to teach more conceptually, teachers must give students tools with which they can make their conceptual thinking visible. For instance, students can use a circle map (a type of Thinking Map®) to investigate the concept of form while when working with the concept of connection, they can use a double bubble concept map (another type of Thinking Map®).

Making students’ conceptual thinking visible is beneficial for a number of reasons. Students benefit from having “a greater awareness of the significant role that thinking plays in cultivating their own understanding,” (Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison in Making Thinking Visible, p. 15). When students are more acutely aware of their own thinking skills and how they use those skills to construct understanding, they gain greater independence in the learning process. Furthermore, making students’ thinking visible is beneficial for the teacher because it “provides us with the information we as teachers need to plan opportunities that will take students’ learning to the next level and enable continued engagement with the ideas being explored,” (the Making Thinking Visible folks again, this time, p. 27).

The flow map (a type of Thinking Map®) is a tool that students can use to make their thinking visible when they’re working with the concept of causation. (Note: although Thinking Maps aren’t from the Making Thinking Visible text, they fit the definition of a thinking routine, as define by one of its authors here.) When teaching a lesson to fifth graders recently about the short- and long-term impacts of decisions, I decided to put that thinking routine to work with them.

I was teaching a lesson I had written for an economics class I took at the University of Minnesota. Our summative project is to write a lesson using children’s literature to teach an MN Economic Benchmark (2011). I selected this fifth grade benchmark to teach: Economic Reasoning Skills (5.2.1.1.1): Apply a decision-making process to identify an alternative choice that could have been made for a historical event; explain the probable impact of that choice. For example: Decision-making processes - a decision tree, PACED decision-making process (Problem, Alternative, Criteria, Evaluation, Decision). Instead of using a decision tree or the PACED decision-making process as the benchmark suggests, I elected to use a flow map, so that students could see the way that decisions caused subsequent impacts.

As I invited students into the inquiry, I asked them what they knew about Nelson Mandela and Apartheid in South Africa. Then, I showed a short video that gave students a (very) brief overview of what Apartheid was. Once students understood (very) generally the situation in South Africa during Nelson Mandela’s life, I read them the picture book Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson as a way to investigate the connection between decisions and their impacts. As I read, we worked together to create a flow map, showing how the decisions of his parents, and then later on his own decisions, impacted future decisions Mandela would make, which would ultimately impact South Africa, its history, and its people in dramatic ways.

This is the original flow map we created as a class. Please note that students used the abbreviation "N" for Nelson Mandela. Because we were running short on time, I skipped the part about how Mandela went into hiding and fled to Egypt. That is why that decision did not make the flow map that is shown above. Also, I realized after teaching the lesson that we should have added the ultimate impact to the flow map: that Apartheid ended, although that was a major part of our discussion.

Then, in accordance with the economic benchmark and to further investigate the connection between decisions and subsequent impacts, I instructed students to creatively and critically think of an alternative choice that Mandela could have picked at any point during his life, instead of one of the decisions he did make. Students then needed to use the flow map structure to show the probable impacts of that alternative choice (with a clean sheet of paper laying OVER the original flow map). Below are examples of the students’ thinking.

This student decided to change the third decision made in Mandela's life (according to the text). Notice that with this alternative choice, Mandela never became involved in the anti-Apartheid movement, nor did he marry Winnie as was detailed in the book. This student clearly understands how different Mandela's life would have been had he made a different decision early on in his life. 

This student decided to change the fifth decision made in Mandela's life (according to the text). Notice this student understood the impact his decision to give up protesting Apartheid would have had on that set of laws, the history of South Africa, and its people ("Apartheid continued to go on"). 

This student also decided to change the fifth decision made in Mandela's life (according to the text). It is interesting how this student recognized Mandela as a leader because when he decided to give up the anti-Apartheid protests as an "alternative choice" this student recognizes that others would have given up as well. 

Finally, as a way to give students the chance to demonstrate their conceptual understanding of the connection between decisions and their short- and long-term impacts, I asked the students if they could decide to take a break from reading over their 9-day spring break. Students were given the option of showing their thinking in paragraph form or in a flow map. I was checking to see if they understood that the decisions they make today have impacts that will last long into the future.

This student, who decided to demonstrate her conceptual understanding in paragraph form, was able to identify both a short-term impact ("if you don't read you might not be as fast as you could before") and a long-term impact ("I decide to read because it is good for you and later on in my life I will be a good reader") of a decision. 

This student used a flow map to show her conceptual understanding of decisions and their impacts. She too writes about short-term impacts of her decision to keep reading ("I won't get behind in reading") and long-term impacts of the same decision ("I decide to go to college after high school"). 

After reading about how fifth graders used a "flow map" as a thinking routine to construct conceptual understanding, how could you use or have you used "flow maps" in your instructional practice?

Teaching comprehension strategies to students using engaging and challenging texts

One morning, an elementary teacher casually asked the students if they had heard about an event currently in the news: the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that had gone missing. The students started to share the bits and pieces of information that they had heard from various sources and instinctively, the teacher started to make the students’ thinking visible by writing down on the board what the students were saying, under the heading: “What we think we know”. Sensing that some of the information on their list was faulty, the teacher instructed the students to do a little research on their Chromebooks to either confirm or debunk the ‘facts’ that they had amassed.

The students took to the internet, searching for news stories and articles that would give them the information they needed. Students also wrote down questions that came up as they read further about the current event. Moving around the room of engaged students, the teacher realized that what had started as a ‘mini-inquiry’ (Daniels, H. & Harvey, S. (2009).Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.) could easily be turned into a whole-group mini reading lesson.

Following the scope and sequence of the reading curriculum, students had been learning the comprehension strategy of comparing. Learning this particular strategy allowed students to meet the Minnesota ELA Reading Benchmark: “Compare and contrast texts in different forms ... in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.” Over a break, the teacher designed a learning experience for the students that would allow them to apply the comprehension strategy of comparing, while still motivating them with their interest in the missing plane.

To support the students’ learning, the teacher identified three different articles about the missing plane: one from CNN, one from Al Jazeera, and one from Fox News. (NOTE: the texts were complex, but the students were capable of reading and understanding the articles selected with appropriate support. To find a general reading level of texts online try these resources: http://read-able.com or https://readability-score.com). The students were to compare the texts, noting important similarities and differences. Through the structure of this purposeful inquiry, the students were able to extract meaning from the texts they read and come to the conceptual understanding that news articles are written from the unique perspective of the journalist (and the journalist’s organization) and it is the responsibility of readers to synthesize what they read and make judgements for themselves.

After reading about teaching comprehension strategies to students using engaging, relevant, challenging, and significant texts, what is:

• An instructional practice you’ll continue to use because of the story.
• An instructional practice you currently use that you’ll reexamine in light of the story.
• An instructional practice you don’t currently use, but will try because of what you read in the story.

Using Google Docs to provide feedback on students’ writing

Fourth graders in one classroom are writing personal narratives using Google Docs, which they have electronically shared with their classroom teacher and other support teachers with whom they work. Drafting in Docs meets 4th grade ELA benchmarks:

• 4.6.5.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, use a writing process to develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, and editing.

• 4.6.6.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.

More importantly though, it allows teachers to comment on student work through the shared document, which encourages and challenges learners to continually improve their writing. Students read these comments, reply to them, revise and edit their narratives accordingly, without ever having to meet one-on-one with the teacher.


Professor John Hattie researched different influences and measured their effectiveness on student achievement (for a summary of his findings, check out this infographic). He found that providing students with effective feedback has high influence over student achievement. In order for feedback to be effective and useful though, three conditions have to be met: “the learner needs the feedback; the learner receives the feedback and has time to use it; and the learner is willing and is able to use the feedback,” (Sadler in Hattie, p. 153, Visible Learning for Teachers; Maximizing impact on learning, 2012, New York: Routledge).


Here's another powerful example on the effectiveness of critiquing and feedback on student performance: Austin’s Butterfly.

Based on these different stories, ask:

• How do you use feedback with your students?

• Do you find it is effective?

• How could you reexamine your practice on giving students feedback to have a greater impact on their learning?

Share your thoughts and ideas by commenting on this post.