During my time in Teacher’s Education I found a useful
resource from a website called eworkshop. On this website I found a video in
which the teacher refreshes the class so that they can use their prior
knowledge to learn. To refresh the class, the teacher discusses the differences
and similarities between fiction and an informational text (non-fiction). Then
from her review of informational texts she moves into her lesson on Graphic
Organizers. This whole lesson is included in a very useful video example that
can be accessed here.
This video shows teachers how to incorporate a lesson
that teaches students to “read and demonstrate an understanding of variety of
literary, graphic, and informational texts” (Ontario Curriculum: Language p.
11). The video also provides a lesson example that would teach students to
“recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and
demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning” (p. 11). The
lesson plan in the video also provides students an opportunity to classify
different reading genres by using “knowledge of words and cueing systems” (p.
11).
This lesson could be used for the beginning part of a literacy
lesson and implemented to teach about any type of genre. The chart is an effective
way to show the similarities and differences between two genres of literature
to make sure students are fully aware on how to classify and differentiate
certain genres. Then the lesson could be taken further, and the students could
be prompted to pick one of the genres from the chart and create their own
example of it. Then they could get together and peer edit their work, and
finally present their reflections of their work to the class. This will ensure
that the 4th and final overall expectation for reading is accomplished by
allowing students to “reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas
for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and
after reading” (p. 11).
The Article “Comprehension Strategies for 21st Century
Schools” is a great resource for the part of the lesson where students would
pick one of the genres from the chart and create their own examples of it. The
article discusses different tools students could use to demonstrate their comprehension
of texts.
1. Newspaper Article
1. Newspaper Article
One way was to summarize a reading
and include at least one quote from the text. Then from this summary they
could use a Newspaper building site to make a newspaper article about the text.
A great Newspaper building site for students can be accessed here. This website has many different templates that students can enjoy using. The
newspaper article strategy will allow teachers to assess how well students
summarize, which also shows what points of the text they believe are the most
important to include in the summary.
2. Puppet Pals
Another way to show comprehension is
to do a vocal response with a character and a background. In my opinion I believe
this would be really useful to make informational texts fun. Just imagine if
your students had to show their comprehension of some form of directional
informational text by making a step by step instruction video with a sock
puppet relaying the instructions. That would be hilarious! Students can make
videos like these using free iPad apps like “Puppet Pals” and “Sock Puppets.”
3. Comic Strip
Another tool to show comprehension is
to get students to make a comic strip that described an excerpt of a fictional
text, or the most important points of an informational text, including images
that students feel relate to the reading. The comic book activity is amazing
because it is an alternative way to look at the text and to make it modern,
which is great to keep students interested in what they are reading with this
exciting and new way to look at the information.
I believe that this reading will impact literacy
teacher education because it provides us with lots of resources that can be
applied to the classroom to create a blended learning environment. This would
allow us to have more opportunities for student engagement and for assessment.
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