Special STEM Section
Special STEM Section
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elementary students who have to maintain stamina in order to produce a thoughtful, analytic written piece.
When children are immersed daily in a writing workshop model they naturally can sustain the stamina for the writing portion of this task (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001). Teachers should provide scaffolded instruction to guide and coach students through the process of thinking and writing analytically.
During a lesson on text analysis, a fourth grade teacher began with examining the start of the 2021 season for the city’s professional baseball team and why it was a stronger start for the team in comparison to the previous season (this was an example of the teacher providing the inference to analyze). Then the class brainstormed approximately six reasons why the team was off to a stronger start. Each reason was examined for its relative strength to the task of analysis (this included the idea of providing evidence to support the individual reasons). This discussion resulted in weighing the reasons against each other in order to select the three strongest reasons. The teacher purposefully structured the lesson this way knowing that a common feature of state tests requires students to analyze text using the strongest reasons determined. Once the three reasons were selected, students needed to provide concrete evidence (similar to the textual evidence in a reading selection). The teacher guided students’ wording of the piece while scribing the students’ ideas for all to visually access. Once evidence was selected to support each of the three reasons given, the teacher provided instruction for taking each reason, along with the evidence, and incorporating students’ thinking to meld all of these crucial components. This instruction should follow along with the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model (GRM) (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). As these ideas are combined, the teacher scribed each of these components into a well-constructed paragraph for students to view. The teacher then read the paragraph aloud to students for the purpose of revision related to clarity and word choice. The second and third reasons then became the focus using the “we do” portion of the GRM, following the same series of steps as with the first reason. Once these individual paragraphs were constructed, the teacher modeled for the class how to craft an introductory paragraph and a concluding paragraph, prior to crafting the final piece with all of the paragraphs intact.
The next step in this multi-day process, which could take place during either the writing workshop or the guided reading portions of the literacy block (Mercurio, 2018), would involve using an actual piece of text or twin texts to assist students with the structure and completion of an analytic writing task. For narrative text, the analysis could focus on character traits (Manyak, Manyak, Cimino, & Horton, 2019), a big idea present in a selection, the importance of an object or event with respect to the overall plot of the story, a theme, etc. For an expository selection, the analysis could focus on the organizational pattern(s) of the text and how it influences the reader’s understanding, a common theme between two texts, or how two authors may have similar or different stances in regard to an overarching theme.
This example focuses on the analysis of a character’s traits. As was noted previously, good literature discussion which is conversational and not interrogational (Gunning, 2006) leads to a more natural form of analysis for many readers. Transitioning the oral analysis to a written format poses more of an instructional challenge for both educators and upper elementary students.
Grave 5: The Breadwinner. In Deborah Ellis’ novel, a young Afghan female named Parvana must disguise herself by dressing as a boy in order to earn money for her family during Taliban domination. For example, in Chapter 6 of The Breadwinner, the teacher may choose to focus on Parvana’s decision to disguise herself as a boy. To encourage students to closely and carefully read this chapter, the teacher may lead the analytic discussion and writing using the following questions: What does Parvana’s decision tell us about Parvana? What evidence from the chapter helped to support your description of Parvana? Be sure to use quotes and actions directly from the chapter to support your thinking. The richness of the discussion which ensues from these questions along with the many possible emerging themes and big ideas can be further enhanced through the use of a Socratic Seminar, prior to writing the analysis piece.
When text analysis is implemented in the elementary school, regardless of grade level, the teacher’s instructional routines remain the same. However, scaffolded instruction is nuanced based on the cognitive skills and development of the learners, and the observant kidwatching of teachers. Scaffolded instruction will require more rigorous literacy behaviors and responses as students move through the grades. The literacy abilities of first graders and fifth graders differ because of their reading experiences, world experiences, and other developmental milestones. Instructional routines that are scaffolded and aimed at promoting students’ analysis of text are listed in the appendix. Importantly, teachers must listen attentively as their students make their analysis of text public among their peers. We caution teachers to avoid overuse of only teacher-student interaction, but rather, to foster engagement of the entire community of learners. Encourage them to listen to each other and consider others’ perspectives. Posing questions such as “Who would like to add on to what Addie said?”; “Who agrees with Ben’s comment? Why?”; or, “Who has an idea to share that is different from Sophie’s about the evidence from this story?”, enables better listening among the students and creates a more student-centric environment in the class.
Students’ capacity for text analysis increases as they move along in their elementary school experience. What first graders’ exhibit in their literacy performances after scaffolded instruction should be evident throughout the other elementary grades. Each subsequent grade should enable students to build upon the foundational literacy responses to close reading and eventually cogent text analysis. As stated earlier, the important beginning steps learned in first grade promote success in moving along the “staircase” of complexity of text analysis. As stated previously, the appendix of this article is a representation of the increased actions taken by elementary students as they progress from grades 1 to grade 5.
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