Part 2: Building an Awareness of Thinking

Before we jump into the first stage of our framework, let's examine a little theory.  

What is thinking?

In King Midas and the Golden Touch, published by Dominie Press, the character Dionysus disappears in a bolt of lightning. As we read the passage aloud, one of our third graders whispered, "POOF!" When we called her attention to it, she responded, "I did?!"

This particular student was not aware of the "brain-talk" going on inside her head. We cannot expect her to analyze text without understanding that she has to interact with the information authors provide. 

Cognition and Metacognition

Research tells us that one of the most essential skills we can teach our English language learners is how to engage in metacognition. According to researcher, author, and professor Neil J. Anderson, "Understanding and controlling cognitive processes may be one of the most essential skills that classroom teachers can help second language learners develop." 

In order to understand and control cognitive processes, students need to first have an awareness that they are, in fact, thinking. Metacognitive processes paired with cognitive ones make this happen. 

By combining cognitive and metacognitive strategies that honor what language learners already know how to do, we can engage them immediately in grade-level reading activities. By doing so, we may prevent their literacy development from lagging behind that of their peers.

Cognition is defined as the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired. Readers can achieve cognition by utilizing comprehension strategies, such as making connections, questioning, visualizing, predicting, inferring, summarizing, determining importance, synthesizing and critiquing.

Metacognition is defined as the knowledge and regulation of cognition. Readers using metacognition choose which strategies to use and when to use them depending on what they are reading and for what purpose. Effective readers use the right strategies at the right time; moreover, they utilize them flexibly between reading events in order to boost cognition.

Fountas & Pinnell tell us that "Each reader builds a system for processing text, a network of strategic activities for reading increasingly challenging texts. This 'in the head' system is unique for each student." 

In other words, it's personal.

Readers with different levels of language acquisition, diverse background knowledge, and a range of literacy experiences approach and process texts differently. For this reason, a one size fits all approach -teaching a specific strategy and practicing that one strategy- may not be the most effective model.  

Where, then, do we start?

Listening to Brain-Talk

Teaching language learners to use metacognitive strategies, or to "think about their thinking", is a manageable way to start them on the path to becoming more active readers and thinkers. Whether he was meaning to or not, Terry Pratchett, the author of A Hat Full of Sky from the Discworld fantasy series, defined metacognition beautifully as Second and Third Thoughts: 

The third grader reading King Midas was not, as Terry might say, listening to her Second Thoughts. Her Third Thoughts, however, were active without her knowledge. 

In many cases, we need to activate a schema for thinking, or an awareness of thinking. We activate schema across the content areas in order to prepare students for learning experiences.  We do this by drawing on prior knowledge and providing necessary information to bridge familiar and unfamiliar knowledge. To encourage metacognition, we need to view thinking as a sort of content area as well. It also needs to be activated and developed. 

Our students come to us with valuable life experiences and understandings.  Their brains are full of information. Helping students understand what is there is the first step in becoming an efficient reader. When we show students how to tune in to their Second and Third Thoughts, we can get a glimpse of the processes and understandings that each student brings to the table. Then we can provide the appropriate and unique scaffolds that will build language and literacy.  

Building a foundational understanding of metacognition is crucial for comprehension and establishing or strengthening the relationship between the text, the author, and the reader. 

In our next post, Modeling: Thinking Aloud, we will explore how teachers can effectively scaffold this work.

Part 1: The Framework

When our children were little they'd lie next to us in their beds listening to story after story, fighting the urge to fall asleep. One of their favorite books was Good Night, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann. In the book, the zookeeper says, "Good night" to each and every animal in the zoo before going home at the end of his workday. Little does he know that Gorilla had stolen his keys and unlocked each cage as he tiptoed behind him. 

Although the text is simple and repetitive ("Good night, elephant...Good night, lion...") the zookeeper's kind words and the smiles on the animals' faces as they creep along behind him inspired plenty of discussion: 

"The gorilla is sneaky."
"The animals are cold and do not like sleeping outside."
And our favorite: "They love the zookeeper and want to go home with him."

We don't know for sure what Rathmann intended, but in our warm safe place we made our own interpretations and taught our children how to analyze text. 

As teachers of language learners we believe we can create a similar environment in our classrooms through Close Reading, especially for those students who may not have had comparable reading experiences. Widely used in classrooms to support reading comprehension, Close Reading is a process that involves a critical analysis of the content and structure of a text. A close reader keeps one eye on the overall meaning of a text and the other on the vocabulary, syntax, text patterns and features used by authors to deliver their message to their audience. 

Although Close Reading is a valuable tool to help students develop comprehension, it may be difficult for some language learners to utilize effectively. Comprehension resources (books such as Strategies That Work, by Harvey and Goudvis or Mosaic of Thought, by Keene and Zimmerman) provide us excellent frameworks with which to teach strategies to students. Many of our language learners, however, may have linguistic, vocabulary or cultural knowledge gaps that limit them from fully understanding how to put those strategies into play. 

A traditional literacy lesson might begin with teachers naming and modeling a comprehension strategy: "Today you will learn how to make connections between the characters and events in the story to events that have happened in your own lives." Following the demonstration, students would be tasked to read and search for connections between themselves and the text. As we know from experience, chances of performing with a high level of success on this assignment is out of reach for many learners. More importantly, by limiting comprehension to just one strategy, we may be stifling the thinking of these learners.


We'd like to offer a framework that fosters deep thinking with even the lowest proficiency students through a scaffolded Close Reading approach. We do this by "flipping the script" for how we teach comprehension strategies to language learners. First, we identify the strategies our students already demonstrate. Then, we use explicit language to help them define and expand their understanding each and every time they read.

The framework consists of two stages of instruction blending whole group with small group/conferring settings. The first stage (seen below in purple) begins with building an awareness of thinking. We like to think of this stage as "lighting the fire" and "fanning the flame". We accomplish this through a series of very focused, interactive read aloud lessons. During these experiences, the teacher models her thinking while concurrently observing students' reactions to the text. These personal reactions to text, which are oftentimes facial expressions, gestures, or even sound effects, are celebrated and affirmed with student-friendly annotations. After this modeling, many students are ready to try this work independently in their own books.

In the next stage of instruction (seen below in the green), we revisit annotations in a small group or one-on-one setting. We are essentially trying to answer the question, "What were you thinking here?" Through engaging talk, we get a glimpse of the processes that are occurring inside students' brains. At this point, we name and define the strategies at work using academic language. Finally, we create opportunities to refine and expand this thinking at deeper levels.

These procedures and scaffolds are intended to enhance students’ comprehension by calling their attention to their personal reactions to text and the comprehension strategies they ALREADY use.

In this six part blog series, we will look more closely at each of these steps. We'll explore the theory, tools, and methods that develop deep thinkers and readers at EVERY language level. We'll outline instructional sequences that you can implement immediately, share real-life examples that have worked for us, and walk you through the scaffolding necessary to engage EVERY learner.

Don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list to get these upcoming posts delivered right to your inbox!

Part 2: Building an Awareness of Thinking
Part 3: Modeling: Thinking Aloud for ELLs
Part 4: Observing and Affirming Student Thinking
Part 5: Naming and Defining Strategies
Part 6: Assessing and Expanding Strategy Work

Stay tuned...

Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing: Prioritizing Oral Rehearsal

Before we jump into lesson one of our published opinion unit, we prepare our students with a of week of genre immersion. The goal of this immersion is to encourage students to sound like the genre. This simply means students produce oral language that follows the structural and linguistic patterns of the genre. In order for students to successfully write these opinions and justifications, they first need to be able to say them. If they can say it, they can (most likely) write it.  

We created a series of writing workshop lessons to support this language development. Writing workshop includes a mini-lesson, independent practice, and a closure, or share. We decided to prepare our class, which is primarily ELLs, for the specific work of the first bend, or section, of the unit. In this bend, students will evaluate a collection of items brought from home to determine which they think is the best and explain why. They will then evaluate each other's collections and decide if they agree or disagree with their peers' choices. 

Mini-Lesson

Warm-Up

1. Review definitions for "opinion" and "reason" using Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) techniques. If you don't know WBT, definitely click the link!
2. Shared Reading of Opinion poem and shared opinion writing from the previous day.

Here are the charts and poem we used:

Direct Instruction/Active Engagement 

1. Reveal a labeled collection (collection name labeled in purple, each item labeled in green)
2. Think aloud, observing features, and select the best item.
3. Use the "reason cards" to support opinion
4. Use a color-coded cloze to generate an opinion and justification sentence. Purple represents the name of the collection, green the selected item, and blue the reason.
5. Read aloud/echo read sentences together.

For the demonstration, we specifically chose collections that would allow us to utilize language from each reason categories.

Day One: Writing Tools (erasable marker, crayon, marker, pen, pencil)

Day Two: Candy (Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, Life Savor mints, Hershey Kisses)

Day Three: Movies (Jaws, Finding Nemo, Transformers, Coco)

Day Four: Pets (snake, hairless cat, collie, fish, turtle)

Day Five: Shirts (scratchy sweater, fluffy sweatshirt, tank top, t-shirt)

Independent Practice 

Around the room, we set up five different collections. Each collection was labeled in purple and each item was labeled in green. Again, these colors correspond to the cloze chart.  We placed the "reason cards" on a ring at each center. 

Students were heterogeneously grouped for this activity.  Each day, they visited a different collection center. Their task was to choose the best item in the collection. Using the "reason cards" as a guide, they negotiated a justification for their selection.  We met briefly with the groups, coaching and differentiating instruction based on the individual needs of the students.   

After about twenty minutes, the groups were instructed to come to the carpet with the purple collection label and the winning green item label. 

Share

On the carpet, groups quickly shared the winning item and the reasons for their selection during a brief turn and talk. Next, we revisited a Shared Writing piece from the previous day to help students internalize the structure and language of the genre. Finally, we selected one collection to write about as a class. 

Here's what our share time looked like across the week:

Monday 
Topic: Playground Equipment 
Method: Shared Writing using the cloze sentences  

Tuesday 
Topic: Balls 
Method: Shared Writing using the cloze sentences 

Wednesday
Topic: Blocks
Method: Shared Writing (no cloze)

Thursday
Topic: Books
Method: Shared Writing (no cloze)

Friday
Topic: Cars
Method: Shared Writing and Interactive Writing

As the week progressed, we released scaffolding so students took more control of the task. We started the week with a highly scaffolded piece of writing. Using the cloze sentences as a template, the teacher elicited the content from the students, guiding them to clearly see the structure of the sentence as she scribed.  We removed the cloze template mid-week as students became more confident with the syntax and grammar of the sentence.  Students were consistently producing oral language that "sounded like the genre" so we decided to Share the Pen during the lesson.     

Genre immersion activities, like the ones presented here, provide ELLs with a solid foundation for sharing and writing strong opinions. 

With informed teaching and the proper scaffolding, ELLs at any level CAN engage in grade-level writing tasks. It is true that ELLs need time to develop the language of school, but we, as teachers, can maximize that time by designing instruction that is focused, relevant and meaningful. If you missed a post in the Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing Series, you can find it here:


Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing: Introduction

Part One: Choosing Language Objectives

Part Two: Teaching Academic Language
Part Three: Developing Reasons

And as always, we'd love to hear from you!  

Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing: Developing Reasons

Expressing opinions comes naturally to many children. However, supporting their opinions with reasons is a bit more challenging. Many students have yet to master the descriptive language skills in English that enable them to justify their opinions. Statements like, "I like this car because it's cool" or "This is the best book because it's good" are commonplace in many classrooms.

To become strong opinion writers, students need to think broadly and deeply about their arguments. Inspired by Nancy Fetzer, we created these "reason cards" to scaffold the task. There are seven cards: sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell, action and emotions. Below the corresponding image is a sample word list. 

Whenever we model or prompt for a justification, we utilize these "reason cards."     

We hold up each card one by one, point to the image on the card, and prompt students categorically in the following way:

"Do you like this_____ because of...

• the way it looks/what you see (touching eyes)
• the way it feels (rubbing hands together)
• the way it smells (touching nose)
• the way it tastes (touching mouth)
• the way it sounds (making a sound effect)
• what it does (moving arms back and forth)
• the way it makes you feel (placing hand over heart)"

Once students identify a reason category, we prompt them with some of the vocabulary on the card using gestures and images. For example, when we read the word "humongous" we hold our arms out as wide as possible to show the meaning.  When we read "bitter", we contort our face to convey meaning. We like to keep a picture dictionary close by for visual support, as well. Students can use the words presented, or use them as a jumping off point for a word of their own.  

For newcomers, it's helpful to explicitly teach the sensory words. We spent a few days focusing on these words in a small group setting.  

We did a taste test,

 

...went on a photo scavenger hunt, 

stinky shoe

rough carpet 

colorful hands

...used an interactive pocket chart to read the words in context (we covered LOTS of grammar in this activity: syntax, subject/verb agreement, pronouns), 

...and built a word wall together.

Putting these "Reason Cards" into the hands of the students has proven to be extremely beneficial. Flipping through the ring forces the writer to slow down and contemplate the options. They consider new ways of thinking and search for more sophisticated language to match that thinking.  

In our final post in this series, we'll share a few ways to make oral rehearsal both authentic and engaging. 

Part 4: Prioritizing Oral Rehearsal

If you missed our earlier posts, you can catch up here:
Part 1: Choosing Language Objectives
Part 2: Teaching Academic Language

Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing: Teaching Academic Language

In our last post, we explored how the structure, language features, and vocabulary of a genre can help us determine language objectives. (You can check out that post here, if you missed it.) Today, we will dive deeper into some strategies for teaching academic language. 

Academic language must be explicitly taught to English language learners. This teaching  can be done in different contexts: during a word study block, in small groups during reading or writing workshop, or during an Interactive Read Aloud. 

We incorporate explicit academic language instruction into our morning meeting. We call these academic words our "scholarly" words.  Following the responsive classroom protocol, we engage in a greeting, share, activity, and morning message on a daily basis. Every week we choose a high utility academic word and incorporate it into our share time. We follow an instructional sequence that provides authentic practice with the academic word.  Here's a glimpse of our instructional sequence. We spend one week on each word. Once the students catch on to the routine, it takes about ten to twelve minutes from beginning to end. This particular week our "scholarly" word was "agree." 

To start, we practice the word in isolation. We say the word, clap the parts, spell it, write it, and classify it. We use a call and response approach to keep the energy high. The teacher will begin by inviting students to the task.  This language can be seen in the arrows above. Students respond with the statement in quotations. For example:

T: Scholars, let's clap it.

S: I can clap each part. 

T: a [clap] gree [clap] 

S: [repeat] 

T: a [clap] gree [clap]

S: [repeat] 

T: Which part is louder? 

S: gree 

T: Yes, "gree" is louder. That is the stressed syllable. A-gree. Repeat. 

S: A-gree

Next we explore the definition of the word. We will tell a short (micro) story that uses the word in context. Then, we teach the definition.

T: Scholars, let's define it! 

S: What does it mean? 

T: (Using gestures) Agree means to think (point to brain) the same (hold up hand in stop gesture) way (hold up other hand in stop gesture).   

S: (Mimicking gestures) Agree means to think the same way! 

T: Agree means to think the same way. Please teach your partner the definition of agree. Teach! 

S: Ok! [Students teach with words and gestures.]

We embed grammar into this routine as well. Since opinion writing is generally written in the timeless present tense, we make sure to highlight the subject verb agreement, as seen on the "Use It" slide. 

"I agree with Mrs. K."  

"Mrs. Quinn agrees with Mrs. K."

As depicted in the "Try It" slide, the next activity invites students to use the word in context using a model sentence and then an open-ended sentence frame. In this example, students are presented two opposing opinions and need to decide which one they agree with. We always begin by modeling the sentence frame with a series of options.  This allows us to highlight the patterns in language.  For example, a noun or pronoun will always follow the word "because:" 

I agree with Mrs. K because students will hurt their eyes.
I agree with Mrs. Quinn because video games can teach you new things.
I agree with Mrs. Quinn because she went to college.

We've learned to use more obscure examples when we model, ones we know the students will not use. The scholarly word and grammatical structures are new to students so leaving them with familiar ideas to use helps reduce the cognitive load. After 

We finish our routine with a share time. We craft share topics that prompt students to utilize the "scholarly" word in their response. Students share with partners first, and then a select few share out to the group.

To support vocabulary development and retention, we maintain a "scholarly" word wall. Words are categorized by part of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives. This word wall is separate from our high frequency word wall. 

This routine provides our students with explicit vocabulary instruction. It also gives them ample opportunity for oral rehearsal. 

In our next post, we'll explore ways to encourage development in opinion writing.

Part 3: Developing Reasons

Preparing ELLs for Opinion Writing: Choosing Language Objectives

As language teachers, we consider the linguistic demands of the learning tasks in each unit we teach. So naturally we started by asking, "What language will the students need to be successful writers in this genre?"

Narrative, information and opinion writing have distinct features. The language of stories looks and sounds much different than the language of opinions. When selecting language objectives, we always let the genre be our guide. We consider the three following areas as we establish objectives: structure, language features, vocabulary.  

Structure

We first examine the building blocks of the genre. Students need to have an understanding of how a text is structured. Every text goes through a series of steps to achieve its purpose. For each genre, these steps are more or less predictable. We refer to these as the stages of the text. Stages shape a text, defining its structure. 

There are many kinds of opinion writing including reviews, expositions (arguing for a point of view), and interpretations. Although each of these maintain the same purpose - to evaluate - they have different structures. 

Our first grade students will be writing reviews in this opinion writing unit. A review has three stages: context, description, evaluation. A review begins by stating the subject of the review and a few relevant details to provide context (author, location, classification). In the description, the writer offers a short summary of events or a description of key features. In the final section of a review, the writer shares opinions or recommendations with supporting reasons. 

While our unit objective is for students to use the full structure of evaluative texts, our initial teaching focuses on developing the evaluation stage. The foundation for any opinion text is claims and justifications; therefore, we introduce these building blocks first. Context and description become increasingly more important as students shift to reviewing books, movies and places in the community.

Language Features

In order to be successful opinion writers, students need to have command of the following language features: 

We treat this list as a menu of options, selecting the grammar objectives that meet the needs of our students. It is helpful to choose the widest-reaching objectives, ones that will give the learner the biggest advantage.  

Vocabulary

It is also important to consider the salient vocabulary, specifically the Tier 2 words, that students will come across, and need to OWN in this unit. In order for students to own these words, they need to not only know what they mean, but use them correctly in context. It is imperative that teachers explicitly teach these words so students have a language to discuss and analyze their writing. 

With so many possible goals to choose from, selecting language objectives can seem overwhelming.  Allowing genre to guide this process really narrows the pool of options and makes the task more manageable. This approach also ensures that we are selecting goals that are specific and functional.

In our next post, we will explore an approach for teaching academic language for opinion writing.

Part Two: Teaching Academic Language