Supporting Metacognitive Conversation

FTLA Course planning workshop January 22, 2013

If a fish were an anthropologist, the last thing he would discover is water.

-Margaret Mead

Throw me a lineIm drowning! . . . think about the student who is having difficulty in a certain subject area not as one who is dumb or lacking in aptitude, but rather as someone standing outside of the conventions, rituals, and expectations of discourse in that fieldall of which are second nature to the specialist but to a newcomer can be undecipherable.
*Tobias, Sheila. (Winter, 1988). Insiders and outsiders. Academic Connections. New York, Office of Academic Affairs, The College Board, pp. 275-279.

We might consider teachers as insiders (experts) and students as outsiders (novices) in a subject area. Insiders/experts in a subject area really know their field, BUT. . .they may have an expert blind spot *. . . They know their field so well that they may be blind to the learning needs and challenges students face in trying to learn topics, processes, and concepts in that field.
*Nathan, Mitchell and Petrosino, Anthony. (Winter 2003). Expert blind spot among preservice teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 4, pp. 905-928.

Our Goals:
Help students learn to read and think like insiders (experts) in a subject area Overcome our own expert blind spot blending subject-area knowledge with important understandings of how novices acquire the conventions, rituals, and expectations of discourse in that field
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In Reading Apprenticeship we work on both of these goals by:

Making our own invisible thinking and reading processes visible and accessible to students; Giving students access to their own and each others thinking and reading processes; Facilitating classroom conversation metacognitive conversationabout these reading processes
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The metacognitive conversation provides a powerful and productive window: For students, into the teachers and other students reading processes, so they can broaden their repertoire of strategies and deepen their subject area knowledge. For teachers into students reading processes, so they can plan instruction to focus on students actual learning needs.
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Dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship

Teacher Practice Rubric: Preview the Text

Think about rows, columns, and organization. What do you notice?

Read and Talk to the Text

Choose one or two of the Goals to read in more depth. Note confusions to clarify, questions to explore in pair discussion, and connections to your learning Note areas that resonate for you because youd like to focus on them this semester
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Pairs Talk
Talk with a partner, help each other clarify the rubric Collect questions, confusions, issues for the whole group discussion

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Consider Schema
World/ Personal: Schema from your lived day to day experience Text: Schema about how different text forms and genres are structured Discipline: Schema learned as a result of school; specialized knowledge Language: Schema about how words are built and fit with other words

Planning to embed literacy goals

If you have a current course text with you, get it out now. Otherwise, choose one of the texts we have provided (Biology, Chemistry, History, English, Math, Nursing). You will get to take turns being an expert and a novice in this activity.

Trade texts with a partner from another discipline

Read the unfamiliar text and capture your reading process, asking yourself as a reader:
What strategies did I use to make meaning from or negotiate the text? What schema knowledge did I bring to the text?

And asking yourself as a teacher:

What challenges might students encounter when grappling with this text?

With your partner, take a closer look at Text #1

Discuss the novice partners experience reading the text and consider with one another what challenges students might have with the text. Make notes on the Text and Task notetaker.

Still with Text #1

Choose a key chunk of text, one that:
Contains an important concept; or Is particularly challenging; or Speaks to an instructional goal in terms of content or literacy.

Novice does a Think Aloud with the chunk of text while Expert takes notes

Articulate literacy goals for text #1

What RA routine might be most helpful for students to use when grappling with this text? What kinds of supports can you design to build on students strengths and extend their fluency, stamina, and comprehension as a reader of texts in your discipline.

Time to take a closer look at Text #2

Discuss the novice partners experience reading the text and consider with one another what challenges students might have with the text. Make notes on the Text and Task notetaker.

Still with Text #2

Choose a key chunk of text, one that:
Contains an important concept; or Is particularly challenging; or Speaks to an instructional goal in terms of content or literacy.

Novice does a Think Aloud with the chunk of text while Expert takes notes

Articulate literacy goals for text #2

What RA routine might be most helpful for students to use when grappling with this text? What kinds of supports can you design to build on students strengths and extend their fluency, stamina, and comprehension as a reader of texts in your discipline.

Debrief Activity
Having any novice reader make their thinking visible with a text that falls within your expert blind spot is usually a very eye-opening experience! When we read with students in mind, we can plan to support literacy acquisition as we teach towards our content matter.

Lesson planning to support both content and literacy goals

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Reflect on your Instructional Goals

What content or conceptual knowledge are you trying to teach? What metacognitive and/ or literacy goal is related? How can you approach instruction to support both goals?
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