Learning literacy strategies in authentic contexts

Children should learn literacy metacognitive and comprehension strategies in meaningful contexts. When we give our students the chance to refine their use of these strategies in authentic and relevant contexts, they'll more deeply understand why they're using them and the will more likely use them independently, out of the context they were originally learned.

In the Primary Years Programme, we are obligated to contextualize our students' learning by organizing all our curriculum into six transdisciplinary units of inquiry. How lucky we are that the PYP framework requires us to teach in a way that has been proven to be best practice. What is more, when PYP educators teach literacy strategies in the context of the Unit of Inquiry, they're able to cut through an overcrowded curriculum.

For more information on transdisciplinary learning and learning literacy strategies in relevant contexts see:

• Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry, IBO 2012
• The Primary Years Programme as a model for transdisciplinary learning, IBO 2010
• Lanning, Designing a Concept-Based Curriculum for English Language Arts: Meeting the Common Core with intellectual integrity, K-12
• Erickson & Lanning, Transitioning to Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction: How to bring content and process together

In second grade, students are busily investigating how people influence the world. During this unit, students inquire into the knowledge concepts of hero, making a difference, and personal strengths. During this unit, they are also learning the literacy strategy of summarizing. 

To help students explore both of the big ideas of hero (a knowledge concept) and summarizing (a process concept), the teacher met with guided reading groups to work with texts that were best suited for the students' developmental reading level.

To start, the students in different guided reading groups read a book about a particular hero. To support the students through one of their first times summarizing, the teacher just had the students write one important detail from the text on a post-it note. She then copied those details on the left-inside page of a folded piece of paper. Then, making sure to include all those details, the students told the teacher a summary of the book, while the teacher notated the students' thinking on the opposite-inside page.

Below are two examples.

Next, students were ready to write their own summaries. Below are two examples: 

The back cover of Carlos's summary book offers the reader a teaser to what the book will be about.

This student decided to highlight important vocabulary on the front cover of her summary book.

This student's summary took the form of a listicle of influences, accomplishments, and personality traits (next picture).

After reading about how this teacher taught a literacy strategy in the context of learning concepts from the unit of inquiry, how could you or have you taught students literacy strategies in meaningful, authentic, and relevant contexts?

Teaching Conceptually

In the fall of 2012, the Primary Years Program where I work received feedback from an evaluation team that our Program of Inquiry was too knowledge-based, focused on meeting state standards and less on having students develop conceptual understandings. The team recommended that we "revisit the units to ensure that they are conceptual in nature while still hitting the state’s mandated targets."

Since that time, we've learned all about writing concept-based curriculum. (Want to learn what we learned? Here are some worthwhile resources: Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom by Erickson and Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe)

Slowly, our program of inquiry is being transformed, as teachers diligently, meticulously, and collaboratively revise planners, making sure the written curriculum is clearly focused on students learning concepts and not just isolated knowledge and skills.

Something I'm still confused by though is how we put that plan into place. I understand how the written curriculum can be concept-based, but what about the taught curriculum? To help resolve this tension in my pedagogical understanding, I consulted some important resources. (Want to learn what I've been learning? Here are some worthwhile resources: Making the PYP Happen, Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison, and Transitioning to Concept-based Curriculum and Instruction by Erickson & Lanning).

Now when I plan a lesson, I make sure to include the five steps below. Note, these steps do not comprise my entire lesson plan and they are not a silver bullet (i.e. complete these steps and your students will understand concepts!) But it has been what I've been doing lately and what I've been noticing is that it helps me and the students focus on conceptual understandings and shift my focus away from only having them learn isolated knowledge and skills.

1. Start with a concept.
2. Pick a specific, concrete example of a person, place, situation, or thing that illustrates that concept.
3. Create an opportunity for students to explore that concrete example. 
4. Check for understanding by having them write a concept statement.
5. Reflect on their thinking and decide next steps.

Below, I describe (at length) how I recently used these steps to teach a lesson to third graders about perspective. Check out the slideshow I used to teach the lesson.

1. Start with a concept.

I wanted the students to understand that when people look at the same thing, there are often different perspectives. No perspective is right or wrong, just different.

I was clear with the students at the onset of the lesson that that big idea was our goal. Some might disagree with me and suggest that the whole point of inquiry is to have students uncover the big idea for themselves. If you find yourself in that camp, ask a provocative question instead that clearly communicates what the focus of the lesson is. In this example, I might have asked, "When there are a lot of different perspectives, how do we know which one is right?"

2. Pick a specific, concrete example of a person, place, situation, or thing that illustrates that concept.

Because the third graders with whom I was working were learning about light and space, I decided to have them read different stories from several cultures about the Big Dipper. I was able to find a multitude of perspectives on those seven bright stars near the North Celestial Pole.

3. Create an opportunity for students to explore that concrete example. 

To explore different perspectives, I had the students make their thinking visible using a bubble map, so they could graphically compare and contrast the different perspectives they were reading about.

Typically, I would advocate for getting out of the students' way - literally. Give students the chance to discover the big idea themselves. Get out from in front of the class, while still being there to ask provocative questions, to give feedback, to remind, and to motivate.

That said (or rather pontificated), of the multiple classes I worked with on this perspective lesson, I had one class who were given more autonomy when reading the different Big Dipper stories. As you can see below, the quantity they were able to read through didn't match the classes who worked through the stories as a whole class.

The following bubble maps  came from classes that worked through this lesson as a whole group.

These student work examples came from the class that had more autonomy. These students worked in pairs. 

4. Check for understanding by having them write a concept statement.

Because my goal in this lesson was for the students to understand a concept, instead of being able to do a skill or know a fact, I needed to check their conceptual understanding. I had students show me what they were thinking by answering the prompt at the end of the lesson: "What can you tell me about perspective?" 

Typically, when I have students write concept statements at the end of a lesson, I have them share them in the whole group and I have the students negotiate together to create a whole-class concept statement that we test to make sure is timeless, abstract, universal, and transferrable. To read about how I've done that whole-class negotiation, check out examples with fourth graders, with third graders, and with fifth graders.

However, because of time restraints, I just had the individual students respond to the prompt and I didn't have them share in the large group.

As you look through the examples, remember that my aim was that I wanted the students to understand that when people look at the same thing, there are often different perspectives. No perspective is right or wrong, just different.

This student didn't correctly respond to the prompt. On a scale of 1-5, with 4 being "meets expectations", I'd give this student a 1.



These students also didn't correctly respond to the prompt, but at least their response reflects knowledge they learned during the lesson. I'd give these students a 2.





These students below all earn a 3, but for different reasons.

This student understands perspective, but gives the concrete example to explain, so I can't be assured that she understands this concept.

These students give me a response that shows they understand the concept of perspective, but I was wanting the students to go past the generic definition of perspective. These students do not.

The following students earn a 4, "meets expectations". They understand that when people look at the same thing, there are often different perspectives. No perspective is right or wrong, just different.

To me, these last two student examples earn a 5, because they go past what was expected of them. They have come to understand that although no perspective is right nor wrong, we can learn from other people's perspectives. This is an important conceptual understanding that went above and beyond the scope of this lesson.

5. Reflect on their thinking and decide on next steps.

You can see by my notes in purple above that I reflected on the students' thinking. I was able to do this with the third grade team, by following an adapted version of the Looking At Students' Thinking (LAST) Protocol (p. 263 of Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison). 

In that reflection meeting, I asked the teachers to look at the documentation of students' thinking and respond in three ways:

1. Students’ thinking - note specific evidence.
2. Questions.
3. Recommendations for next steps.

As we reflected, we decided that a good next step would be to explore the concept of perspectives again, but in a different concrete context. Teachers decided that looking at the idea of perspectives in relation to poetry (which is a key part of their next unit of inquiry) will be a good next step, especially for those students who had a limited understanding of this concept.

Making students' thinking visible and taking the time to analyze, discuss, and reflect on documentation of students' thinking helps us get closer to "switching the paradigm of teaching from trying to transmit what is in our heads to our students and toward trying to get what is in students' heads into our own so that we can provide responsive instruction that will advance learning," (p. 35 of Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison).

Above, I've just described what I've been doing lately to help me and the students focus on conceptual understandings and shift my focus away from only having them learn isolated knowledge and skills. What have you been doing lately that has proved successful at getting students to focus on concepts?

Writing conceptual statements with students

In a Primary Years Program, we must find a balance between “acquisition of essential knowledge and skills, development of conceptual understanding, demonstration of positive attitudes, and taking of responsible action,” (Making the PYP Happen, p. 10).

Learning specific factual content and skills is important, however educators must also identify the timeless, abstract, universal, and transferable concepts they want their students to learn. “The factual knowledge is what students must know in order to describe, discuss, explain, or analyze the deeper concepts. One cannot understand the conceptual level without the supporting factual knowledge. But there must be a synergy (emphasis added) between the two levels if we are to systematically develop intelligence,” (H. Lynn Erickson, p. 3, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom, 2007, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press).

As students work within the synergy between specific knowledge and universal concepts, they should make their thinking visible by synthesizing their learning into a conceptual statement. Erickson, calls these statements generalizations: “Two or more concepts stated in a relationship that meet these criteria: generally universal application, generally timeless, abstract (to different degrees), supported by different examples (situational). Enduring, essential understandings for a discipline,” (Erickson, 2007, p. 31).

Not long ago, I was working with fifth-grade students on the concepts of decisions, choices, and impacts by studying specific decisions Nelson Mandela made in his life and the impacts they had on his life, his country, and the world. (To get a more complete idea of what I did in that lesson, see my last blog post on Flow Maps.) Once students had read about, described, discussed, explained, and analyzed Mandela’s decisions and their impacts, I wrote the words, “Decisions, Choices, Impacts” on the board and asked the students, “based on what we learned today about Nelson Mandela, his decisions, and their impacts, what can we say that we learned about decisions, choices, and impacts in general?” I told the students that the first idea didn't have to be perfect, but we just needed to put something up so we could start to work with it.

The first student volunteered the following statement:

Next, a student tried to offer a completely different statement and I encouraged her to make edits to the one we already had, instead of completely starting over. Another student suggested the following edit:

When I asked her to explain her thinking (in order to make it visible!), she said, "because you could do something bad and it will also impact your life."

Then, another student mentioned the following edit:

I asked her to explain her thinking and she said that our decisions have impacts right away and when you grow up (we had discussed short- and long-term impacts during the lesson). So, we shouldn't just say, "when you grow up." I asked her if there was anything we could add instead, to communicate that decisions have impacts in both the short- and long-term, so she proposed the following addition:

After that, a student said he wanted to make the following revision:

When I asked him to explain his thinking, he said, "We can do lots of things - like pick something up (as he mimed picking up an object) - that don't impact our lives. But we talked about what happens when we make a decision."

At this point in the lesson, students weren't volunteering any more edits or revisions to the statement, so I read it aloud to them: "If you make a decision it can have an impact on your life in the future." Then, I told them we had to "test" our statement to make sure it was conceptual:

"Does this statement apply to Nelson Mandela?"

YES! the students responded.

"Could this statement apply to us?"

YES! the students responded.

"Ok, if this statement applies to us here in Minnesota, would it apply to a student in France?" 

YES! the students responded.

"If it applies to us here in 2014, would it apply to a 10-year-old in 1914?"

YES! The student responded.

Although I knew that our statement met the criteria for a generalization as outlined by Erickson, I had one more change I wanted to make. I told the students that since our statement applied to everyone, I thought we should change the pronouns "you" and "your" to "we" and "our". They consented and we were left with our final version:

Note: ordinarily, when crafting conceptual statements, generalizations, central ideas and lines of inquiry, it is advised to avoid pronouns. However, in the moment, working with the fifth graders, I felt using pronouns in our conceptual statement was appropriate to keep our statement directly relevant to the lives of the students.

After reading about how fifth graders wrote a conceptual statement based on the synergistic learning they had done, how could you or have you written conceptual statements with your students to synthesize their learning?

Synergy between facts and concepts: Art & 1st Grade

First graders are learning the concept of purpose. In order for students to construct an understanding of this abstract concept, classroom teachers are working with the students on author’s purpose. During their Unit of Inquiry, How We Express Ourselves, students learn the different reasons that author’s tell stories (to teach a lesson, to explain why something happens, to entertain, to retell a real event). Through these concrete examples, students are able to develop an understanding of the concept purpose.

First graders are able to apply their understanding of purpose in art class when they read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. After reading the text, students create masks of the characters in the book. Most importantly, art teachers discuss with the students an artist’s purpose for creating art (to use, to learn, to show others). Specifically they discuss the reasons why they created the masks - to learn about texture, an element of art. Again, by learning concrete examples of artist’s purpose, students are able to further develop their understanding of the complex, abstract concept of purpose.

“To stimulate more sophisticated, complex thinking, we need to create a synergy between the simpler and more complex processing centers in the brain. This interactive synergy requires the mind to process information on two cognitive levels—the factual and the conceptual,” (H. Lynn Erickson, p. 10, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom, 2007, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press).

Based on this story, ask:

• How do you help your students connect specific, concrete facts to timeless, abstract, universal, and transferable concepts?

• Do you find it is effective?

• How could you reexamine your practice on creating synergy between facts and concepts to have a greater impact on their learning?

Share your thoughts and ideas by commenting on this post.