Extending Thinking

Citation:

Carson, R., Darling, L., & Darling, L. (1962). 12. The Human price Silent spring (pp. 187-198). Boston, Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin; Riverside Press.

Rationale for choosing text:

            My partner for this group of assignments, selected all of these texts. They come from his environmental sciences class. He reported that this specific text has gone well in the past as it is easy to read, ideas and concepts are well explained, and students seem to relate to it. I wanted to read this chapter of Silent Spring, after reading the first one because it was so enjoyable. I found that it made me think of so many things that are not in the reading, which is what I liked about it and wanted to use it for the extending thinking assignment.

Text Frame:

Problem/Solution

Proposition/Support

Strategies used and resource:

            For this assignment I chose to use paired summarizing (McLaughlin, 2015; Vaughan & Estes, 1986) as a strategy to extend thinking. The other strategies that I chose in the previous two assignments have been more teacher dependent strategies. I wanted to use something that relies more on a students’ ability to independently construct and demonstrate meaning. This is also a strategy that fits with the situation that I will be teaching my reading lesson in, so I wanted to try it out before I use it.

Using Paired Summarizing:

            Paired summarizing is a process by which students pair up and go through a reading and then write a summary of it, share that summary with their partner, and summarize that. Students can then discuss the implications of what they took from the reading. Again as we have experienced with other strategies used, this is an awkward situation. I summarized my reading and shared them with myself to re-summarize and discuss the implications. Given that, below is the results of what I did.

            For the reading that my group chose, I broke it down into sections and summarized each section. I took a break and then re-read my summary and summarized that. My discussion was brief, but I noted several key issues that appeared in both:

Section 1:

            One of the main issues that pesticide use has created is the conflict between Natural and man-made disasters. Though human history we have had to worry about the natural occurring things that may kill us, not we have to concern ourselves with the things that humans have created that can cause disease and death. Pesticides being the example, are a silent killer that can have long-term negative effects. While we would like to think we are above nature, humans are a part of it and anything we do to one part of the environment, affects us all.

Humans must deal with the real world effects of the dangerous chemicals that we have put into our environment

Key words: Responsibility, man-made vs natural disasters, human’s & nature.

Section 2:

            One to the primary concerns of the use of pesticides is the delayed effects that of absorbing small amounts of chemicals that humans have put in the environment. Health officials point out that the worst disease can creep up on us with no obvious signs. This is a result of the link that we have to the environment and all of its components. Figuring out what is causing the disease becomes a very difficult task given the wide variety of symptoms in different fields of medicine and science.

Humans look for the obvious answers, when pesticide poisoning can be a silent and difficult to detect disease.

Key words: Inter-dependence, links to environment, non-obvious manifestations

Section 3:

            The typical human response is to think that it cannot happen to me. People have used pesticides and not gotten sick so it is their natural response to think that they are fine and everyone else should be as well. However, given the insidious nature of pesticide related disease people do not know that they are sick, which is the root of the disease problem. Pesticides have clear disease causing effects on the liver, metabolism through fat storage, and the central nervous system. Also keep in mind one of the confounding issues is that individuals have varying responses to chemical exposure, some will become diseased and some will not.

Humans typically think, “it won’t, or can’t happen to me”, which only increases the complexity of the pesticide exposure issue.

Key words: Human judgement, biology of pesticide exposure, more research needed

Impression of the text & strategy:

            The reading was great. I loved reading this chapter. Silent Spring is now on my reading list, maybe I will get to the entire book this summer. The strategy as I completed it, was a good summary experience. However, I clearly missed out on the benefits of the social component by missing out on a partner. Keeping this in mind I still had a better understanding of the key elements or the elements that meant the most to me after completing the paired summarization.

Challenges to students & teachers:

            This is a hands off activity for a teacher. It is up to the students to interact with each other through the text to construct meaning. I think this would be a great strategy to use after students have demonstrated that they are capable of engaging and comprehending texts.

Connection to broader themes:

            This is clearly a social constructivist activity as it relies on students to work together and socially create learning. As part of a larger plan of scaffolding learning, it can be used to push students to their zone of proximal development after they have demonstrated that they have learned to engage with and comprehend texts.

Overall impression

            While it is still an awkward exercise doing this alone, it was beneficial to do. This was a first run for the reading lesson activity that I will be using, so it was good to have done at least this to understand the process of using it. Hopefully, the reading lesson goes well and I will have a better understanding of its use with partners.

References:

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content area reading: teaching and learning for college and career readiness. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Vaughan, J. L., & Estes, T. H. (1986). Reading and reasoning beyond the primary grades. Newton, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Guiding Thinking

Citation:

Colinvaux, P. A. (1978). Chapter 9: The ocean system. In Why big fierce animals are rare: an ecologist's perspective (pp. 89-96). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Rationale for Choosing

My partner, Ted Watson, uses this text as part of his environmental science class. He said that they found it to be difficult reading and as such it would be a nice contrast to the first reading that we selected. I do not want to shy away from having students read difficult texts or even texts that are poorly written. It is a useful skill to be able to identify what is wrong with a text or difficult about it to keep it in context.

Text Frame

Concept/Definition

Proposition/Support

Strategies used and resource:

Pyramid Diagram (Buehl, 2014; Solon, 1980)

Using Pyramid Design

            Pyramid diagram is a graphic method to select specific information from a text and organize it into categories in an effort to develop main ideas. It can be done to guide students use of a text, draw conclusions, and write organized summaries. It can also have a social component if it is done in a group setting, but does not have to be done what way. The general steps are as follows:

1. Students are given a focusing question that is used to guide them through a reading.

2. As students read the text and write down individual pieces of information. They can use note cards as an organizing tool

3. Students then organize the individual pieces of information into categories with titles that they decide on.

4. Students then organize the information under the categories with headings.

5. Student then place a rectangle above the categories and write out a summarizing sentence to the entire exercise, with a title of the pyramid above that.

6. Students then write out a summarizing paragraph using the summarizing sentence as the topic sentence and the pieces of information as supporting sentences.

You can see the results of using the strategy on the reading we chose below:

Guiding question: What are the characteristics of the ocean that determine how much food it can produce for human consumption?

 

Pyramid Diagram Summary:

            Oceans are vast places that lack the necessary components to support increased food production for human consumption. Deserts are deserts that provide humans with as much food as they are capable of at present. Oceans produce 92,000,000,000 tons of plant while land produces 272,000,000,000 tons. Chemical fertilizer is lacking in the oceans and this is what accounts for the difference in plant material produced. In the oceans plant life occurs at upwellings, where nutrients are brought up from the ocean floor. Upwellings only occur in .1% of the oceans. These upwellings cycle nutrients from the ocean floor to the plants and then animals that consume them. With humans at the top of the food chain, we make poor use of the calories produced in the oceans.

Impressions of the text & strategy:

The text

            This reading was difficult. I found that it was written awkwardly, had excessive use of metaphors & subjective statements, and vague or contradictory statements. There were also references to other chapters that were in the book containing this chapter, which made it difficult to understand the reference, since I did not read those chapters. Also, as I technical writing I found it difficult to read as there were many fact and science based statements that had no references attached to them. Given that, I think that this would still be a good reading for students to be exposed to because sometimes this is exactly what scientific reading and writing is.

The strategy

My impression of pyramid diagram is that it is a comprehensive strategy to have a student engage in a directed reading of a text. To look through a text to answer a specific question in that way that this strategy lays out is a very detailed way to have students pay attention to the reading. However, I found it very labor & time intensive to go through the text looking for answers like this. This caused me some frustration given the difficulty that I had with the text and the time that it took.

I would keep in mind the time constraints that this would have given the length of the reading. It might work better to have students break this up into three activities: 1) read looking for information based on the guiding question, 2) create categories 3) write summaries. Part #1 here would take the greatest amount of time, and I would hope that students would be able to check their work in parts 2 & 3 in this way. I know I found it difficult to do the entire strategy at once, and several times had to stop at awkward break points.

I particularly liked the summary writing idea as I think that it gives students a chance to practice writing while they are checking the individual facts that they found in the reading. I found that many of the facts that I found in my first and second reading of the material were not important to the guiding question or main idea of the reading. This was a good check on alignment of content and understanding that I think would benefit students.

Challenges To Students

            As I said the strategy itself is time and labor intensive. Students must be engaged and focused to find the facts that form the bottom layer of the pyramid. But this is the point of the strategy, to focus students on comprehending the reading. It also resulted in repeated readings of the material. I would be concerned about burnout or disengagement of the students because of this.

            I also found the reading difficult and easy to tune out to. Some of this may have been the prior knowledge form earlier chapters in the book which may have helped me see the connection to a larger theme. As a result, if I were to use a chapter out of a book such as this reading, I would want to be sure to frame the context of the reading for the students.

Connections to Broader Themes

            The entire summary activity is a metacognitive exercise to check for learning (Tracey & Morrow, 2012). I used several reading strategies such as re-reading, underlining, drawing diagrams, and writing out questions as I read the text, in response to writing out the summary. Pyramid design is also aligned with engagement theory as it includes elements of themes, student choice, and hands on activities (Guthrie, Wigfield, & You, 2012; Tracey & Morrow, 2012).

Overall Impression

            The pyramid strategy was a beneficial strategy to select the main ideas and summarize a reading. However, I would reserve it for only a few cases and most likely easier readings because of the time it took to complete the method. I think students’ comprehension would benefit from learning how to use this strategy.

References

Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Newark, Del.: International Reading Association,.

Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & You, W. (2012). Instructional contexts for engagement and achievement in reading. In S. Christenson, A. L. Reschly & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 601-634). New York: Springer.

Solon, C. (1980). The Pyramid Diagram: A College Study Skills Tool. Journal of Reading, 23(7), 594-597.

Tracey, D. H., & Morrow, L. M. (2012). Chapter 4: Constructivism Lenses on reading : an introduction to theories and models (2nd ed., pp. xx, 251 p.). New York: The Guilford Press.

Because this blog has become a little boring, here are some other pyramids that I like:

Framing our reading - Engagement

Engagement Example

Citation:

Carson, R., Darling, L., & Darling, L. (1962). 10. Indiscriminately from the Skies Silent spring (pp. x, 368 p.). Boston, Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin; Riverside Press.

Rationale for Choosing:

Classic environmental text laying the foundation for why we should care about the environment. After reading parts of it, it provides a historical context for conservation efforts as well as a compelling evidence for why and what we can do to take care of nature.

Text Frame:

Problem/Solution

Proposition/Support

Strategies used and resource:

Prereading Plan (Langer, 1981; McLaughlin, 2015). Prereading Plan or PreP, is an engagement tool to have students access their prior knowledge on a subject. This is done by having students respond to a cue (topic or idea) with a brainstorm list of everything that they know about the topic. It is put into a list with a brief reason behind why it is related. This is done before the reading and then the list is revisited after the reading is completed to see if anything changed.

Challenge to Students

            I think that one of the benefits of this reading is that it is accessible to most high school students, especially the students of an independent school. There may be some initial challenges with the chemicals used and the historical context, but that reading does a good job of making all of this easy to understand.

Why Prereading Plan?

I chose the PreP strategy because it seemed like an easy way to engage with prior knowledge, while also interacting in a social setting within the classroom. I did not get that experience when doing this by myself, however, a group of students being able to discuss and talk about the ideas on the list would make for a good constructivist activity.

Prior knowledge can be an issue as students may not know what to expect during a reading. Without knowing it, I have previously used this strategy after reading the first few paragraphs. After identifying the main idea or cue, I have been able to engage prior knowledge that leads to better understanding of the reading. As I think about it, a title should be a good cue, letting the reader know what they are about to read so they can think about what they already know about the topic. PreP also ended up being a good summarization tool by reviewing the list after the reading. It helped me to look for the main ideas.

My Experience using Prereading Plan

Pre-Reading Impressions:

This was awkward to do before reading the text. I have never read Silent Spring, so I am not exactly sure what it is about. I have heard about the negative impacts of the use of pesticides on the environment, but not sure exactly the nature of this chapter. So, I guess that I feel just like a student in this situation, however I have no cue to read from. I only read the first few sentences of the book description on Amazon.com to give myself a cue to use. The process was good to tap into previous knowledge, but also to try and be creative to develop more brainstorm responses. You can see the Pre-reading cue that I used and the brainstorm list.

Pre-Reading Cue:

Negative Effects of Pesticides

Pre-reading PreP

Brainstorm Response	Reasons
Bald Eagle Eggs	I can remember hearing radio discussions about removing pesticides (maybe DDT) from use due to softening of bald eagle eggs.
Run off into water	I think that I also remember hearing about pesticide contamination of
Pro/Con Pesticides	There may be negative effects of pesticides, however there is a benefit to their use in terms of yields of crops through limiting destruction from pests. There is so much here, need to read it to get more info
Effects on Humans	Heard recent discussion about the use of neonicotinoids and their possible carcinogenic effects
Organic Farming	Makes me think about the methods that are available before humans developed pesticides

Post-Reading Impression

            Overall, this was an interesting activity. I think that it was very different than a student would experience for two reasons. First, I was looking at it as a teacher, so I was not experiencing it as a way to engage with the material, but how to actually implement it. Secondly, I did not have the proper prompt because I, had not read the work before, which would have defeated the purpose of the activity. I used the prompt from reading a two sentence summary of the entire book, and not the chapter that was part of this reading. As a result of reading the chapter there are a few changes that I would make, have a better prompt and as student’s would do, I would change several things on the list and the reasons.

            The prompt that I should have used was “spraying pesticides from the sky” or “action without information”. Those were the two general themes that I took from the reading that could have created a discussion list in the classroom. The reading itself was about the use of pesticides sprayed from the sky. So this would have activated students’ prior knowledge about anything they know about this. The second prompt was the general theme that ran through the chapter when it was talking about the government’s use of spraying pesticides without having enough information about the effects that it would have. This could engage prior knowledge about the general practice of doing something, without knowing what will happen.

            The changes that I made to my brainstorm list were significant. I took out all except for the organic farming one, which I added to. I added the ideas of current mosquito control methods, action without information, and stewards of the environment. I think that this was useful for me, and would be for students. I was trying to list out as much as I knew about the topic, even though it was slightly off. And the reading made much more sense as soon as I read the first paragraph. The changes to the list helped me develop the key themes of the reading that a student could take with them. Overall, this was an easy, and effective way for students to engage prior knowledge, and also summarize a reading.

Below you can see the changes that I made in response to reading the chapter.

Pre-Reading Cue:

Spraying pesticides from the sky OR Action without Information

Post-Reading PreP

Brainstorm Response	Reasons
Mosquito Controls	Throughout the reading all I could think about were the methods that have been discussed to control mosquitos in the wake of the zika outbreak.
Action without information	Government acted on things that were not real problems, without knowing the likely outcomes or responding quickly to changes
Responsibility- Stewards of the environment	The reading make me think about human being role in the world considering the chemical and technological advances that we have access to. We have a responsibility to a high ethical and moral standard
Organic Farming/Killing the beneficial	The original idea still stands, however specific examples of livestock, good insects, and crops were brought up by in the reading.

Connections to broader themes

            PreP also seems to fit in well as a metacognitive strategy to literacy by having student access previous learning, as recommended to enhance comprehension (Tanner, 2012). PreP could be used as part of a larger metacognitive strategy by having students use it identifiy what was learned by reviewing the list and then reflecting back on the process of as a whole to determine if they have a new understanding about how they learn.

            PreP could also be a specific strategy under the umbrella of engagement theory as it stresses the use of themes in a social environment (Tracey & Morrow, 2012). If it also takes place in a student centered discussion it would rely on student choice of the theme. Under the engagement theory this could lead to a more engaged reader

Group Experiences

            While me and my partner chose different reading strategies, we both found that the social aspects of the activity were very important. The act of sharing ideas and discussing them is a vital component to utilizing texts in a constructivist classroom. PreP can help facilitate this by having students offer and defend ideas that are related to the pre-reading cue and connecting them through discussion.

References:

Langer, J. A. (1981). From Theory to Practice: A Prereading Plan. Journal of Reading, 25(2), 152-156.

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content area reading: teaching and learning for college and career readiness. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Tanner, K. D. (2012). Promoting Student Metacognition. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(2), 113-120.

Tracey, D. H., & Morrow, L. M. (2012). Chapter 4: Constructivism Lenses on reading : an introduction to theories and models (2nd ed., pp. xx, 251 p.). New York: The Guilford Press.