Exploring Resources: Oral Communication Strategies for Cross-Curriculum Applications

As a child, it is very common to learn how to speak before learning how to read and write. How excited do new parents get when their little baby speaks their first word? However, a few years later - when the child gets to school - a high emphasis is placed on learning the new skills of reading and writing. We can’t undervalue the importance of teaching oral communication strategies and skills to our students just because speaking seems natural. We should try to find time for explicit oral communication strategy instruction, but also incorporate oral communication activities in cross-curricular settings.

How can we incorporate oral communication strategies throughout the day in our classroom?

The resource I’ll be exploring today is an Ontario Ministry of Education resource called “Oral Communication, Think Literacy Cross-Curricular Approaches, Grade 7-12”. My focus is on intermediate level students, as I am in grade 7 classrooms. What I hope you keep in mind is that many activities or strategies can be simplified for uses in younger (or older!) grades.

Pair Work

Pair work is an effective way to get students accustomed to oral communication in a comfortable and small setting.

Think/Pair/Share is a common strategy that can be used in any lesson. Students are presented with a problem or issue and must turn to their partner to discuss. Educators are reminded to review skills needed to successfully participate such as listening, asking for clarification and respecting all points of view.

Gentile, J. (2015) Think-Pair-Share. Online Illustration. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1QDQnCW

Many educators like to us the Think/Pair/Share strategy in their “Minds On” section of the lesson plan. This strategy can be used in any subject/curriculum to set the stage for learning and get students thinking critically about the subject they are about to study.

As an alternative to the Oral Strategies document, ReadWriteThink.org has a strategy guide that you could use for extra detail about using Think/Pair/Share. I would also suggest looking at Think/Pair/Share in action with a video from Reading Rockets.

Small Group Discussions

There are many small group discussion activities and strategies, but I will highlight my two favourite. It is important to model success criteria for these strategies/activities to ensure their success.

Group Roles is a common group strategy that involves giving each student a very specific role to carry out therefore creating a well-rounded group discussion.

Often this strategy is carried out with “reciprocal reading” as demonstrated here, but we can actually use it effectively for group discussions in any subject.  Ashley Azzopardi has a great blog post on effective group work. In this post she describes an example of group roles. This is definitely important to check out!

Jigsaw is an awesome complex group discussion activity. It requires students to depend on their group members to learn. There are “home groups” of 3-5 students and expert groups that consist of one member from each of the home groups. The expert groups work together and then the students go back and share their findings with the home group.  This cooperative learning strategy is also a great example of differentiated instruction and universal design for learning. There is lots of information available elsewhere, but as an extra resource to the “Think Literacy: Oral Communication” document head over to Jigsaw.org.

Chong, J (2014). During Reading Strategies: Jigsaw/Patchwork Groups. Reading, Writing and Technology. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1PVqlcF

The following is a video from Reading Rockets on the jigsaw strategy. Note how they are utilizing the jigsaw strategy to read and connect to a science text. This is a perfect example of oral communication in a cross-curricular setting. These students are very young, but this strategy can easily be used for grade 7 classes as well. The jigsaw strategy in science also can target expectation reading and writing strands from the Ontario language curriculum.

Reading Rockets (2012). Jigsaw. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtm5_w6JthA

Whole-class Discussions

There are many useful whole-class discussions in the “Think Literacy: Oral Communication” document so please check them all out! I will only highlight one here.

Triangle Debate is a whole-class debate that is informal. It makes use of a graphic organizer and prepares students to argue their viewpoints respectfully and think critically about others’ ideas. Students are split into three groups:
- Group 1 argues for the issue,
- Group 2 argues against the issue and,
- Group 3 evaluates the responses through questions and comments.

As with any debating strategy it is imperative to review the success criteria. The “Think Literacy: Oral Communication” document has the information to help you do this.

Debate can be used for any subject – but specifically works well with science and health type questions. The debate should also be followed up with the reflection cards so students can think critically about their strengths and weaknesses. Another example of an oral communication reflection sheet can be found on ReadWriteThink.com. I think this strategy is an excellent way to formatively evaluate your students’ abilities to communicate and make specific recommendations for improvement.

THE ONTARIO CONTEXT

As usual, I like to ensure all my resources have a connection to the Ontario language curriculum. The “Oral Communication” resource is actually an Ontario developed collection of activities to support oral communication expectations across multiple subjects/curriculums. In this way, everything in this post has a strong connection to the Ontario language curriculum.

If you haven’t tried these strategies, I hope you have a great experience trying them in your classroom. If you have tried them, I hope these resources can expand your thinking and help you master your implementation.

- AJM

PS. Cross-curricular applications of reading and writing strategies can be found here, on Edugains.com. 

Main source:
Ontario Ministry of Education and Training (2003). Think Literacy: Cross-curricular Approaches Grades 7-12. Queens Park, Toronto: Author.

Exploring Resources: Approaching Persuasive Writing Through Gradual Release Techniques

Real Change Now! (2015, October 9). Liberal Video. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD5FAzvltpI

As the latest election has come to a close, the country of Canada welcomes in a new Prime Minister. For several weeks, the public had been exposed to a variety of techniques utilized by various parties to win their support. The tactics were clever and the images and slogans used by the campaigns were strong and deliberate. Specifically, the speeches were written to persuade and argue the politicians' plans as the best choice for the citizens. Whether you are a politician trying to gain a seat in the House or a salesperson trying to pitch a product, the art of persuasion is a necessary skill. This week, I would like to focus on an area of writing that is perhaps underdeveloped and overlooked in our classrooms today… persuasive/argumentative writing.

Persuasive Writing 

How can we teach persuasive writing to our students?

I explored a fantastic article called, “Gradually Releasing Responsibility to Students Writing Persuasive Text” by Read, Landon-Hays and Martin-Rivas, which is found in The Reading Teacher. The authors mention that many studies have shown that teachers tend to neglect writing in their classrooms, and when they do teach writing, they focus more on narrative writing.  The article then highlights a unit on persuasive writing in a grade four classroom.

The authors make use of the IMSCI model for gradual release. This model proved to be highly effective in the grade four classroom, but I also believe it could be beneficial to use in the intermediate classroom as well.  The IMSCI model looks like this (click to see bigger image):

Read S., Landon-Hays M., & Martin-Rivas, A. (2014). Gradually Releasing Responsibility to Students Writing Persuasive Text. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 469–477 doi:10.1002/trtr.1239

When we look at introducing new types of writing to our students it is important to give them examples, analyze the examples to form a set of criteria, and then model how to create a piece of work that is similar. Let’s look at some other resources that can support the efforts to use the IMSCI (or similar gradual release models) in the Ontario context.

Supporting Resources

The IMSCI model is very compatible with the Ontario Curriculum for Language Arts “writing” strand. I will use the expectations in grade 7 as a guide. The ISCMI model and persuasive writing can be used to target many of the expectations.

During the inquiry and modeling processes, educators can look at identifying “2.2 Form” (p131) and “2.3 Voice” (p131), while also “1.4 Classifying Ideas “(p130) using a graphic organizer.

•  Educationworld.com has and excellent article reading activity to use with students to get them started with persuasive writing. The article comes with a simple graphic organizer that helps students identify the audience, purpose and voice.

• Grade 6 teacher Mackenzie Grate, used a mock trial to reinforce “2.5 Point of View”(p131) with her students as introduction to argumentative writing. This resource is really neat and even has a mock trial script included to get teachers started.

Readwritethink.org offers some complete unit plans on persuasive writing. These plans are written to the American Common Core standards but there are many activities that relate to the Ontario curriculum expectations for “writing”.

• Check out this collection of lessons on writing letters to the school principal that makes effective use of shared and collaborative learning in the writing process. 

• This unit plan on environmental issues offers much more time for individual writing but also makes an effort to include peer review through peer conferences.

**Don’t forget to check out Readwritethink’s Persuasion Map – an online graphic organizer for augmentative writing**

When starting a persuasive writing unit it is important to provide topics that are relevant and of interest to the students, such as the most recent Canadian election. If you feel stuck, check out the NY Times list of 200 prompt for argumentative writing to get you started. 

It's a process...

Ohi, D. (2011). The 4 stages of writing. Illustrated comic. Used with permission from http://bit.ly/1WK5M3e

Lastly, remember… writing is a process and therefore teaching writing is also a process. Let’s do our best to give our students the tools to identify and create pieces of persuasive writing in an effort to meet curriculum standards and become thoughtful and expressive humans.

 -AJM

Sources:

Ministry of Education, 2008. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8 Language. Retrieved from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf

Read S., Landon-Hays M., & Martin-Rivas, A. (2014). Gradually Releasing Responsibility to Students Writing Persuasive Text. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 469–477 doi:10.1002/trtr.1239

Exploring Resources: Teaching Reading in the Ontario Classroom

In my last “Exploring Resources” blog post, I looked at “Media Literacy”. This week, I will examine resources for the “Reading” strand of language arts and, like the previous post, it will have strong connections to the Ontario curriculum.

 Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

Reading Resource

ReadWriteThink is a resource founded by the NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English) an American professional association for educators of English studies, literacy and language arts. ReadWriteThink resources can be sorted by the learning objective that educators or parents are looking to find. Reading Fluency and Vocabulary are two of many “reading” related objectives that can be found.

I discovered an amazing lesson support tool called the K-W-LCreator. A KWL chart is a tool that helps activate a student’s prior knowledge before a reading as well as consolidate information after reading.  Students list what they already know (K), what they want to learn (W), and then summarize and reflect what they actually learned (L). This chart is something that is typically completed on paper or chart paper in the classroom. The advantage to this online tool is that students can embed links inside the K-W-L chart, giving it another dimension of interaction that is very useful.

IRA/NCTE, 2011. ReadWriteThink: KWL Creator. Online tool. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1e8gnhn

The tool could be used by individual students, by teachers to model on the projector for the class, or both. It is really easy to use and students can also save their work after the “K” and “W” sections so they can complete the “L” section after reading. I highly recommend you check it out!

To further illustrate the usefulness of ReadWriteThink I want to share a very detailed lesson plan that involves reading and reading strategies. This lesson is called, “A Prereading Strategy: Using the Vocabulary, Language, Prediction (VLP) Approach” and is targeted towards middle school students. This five class, 45-minute period lesson plan uses a nonfiction reading about forces of nature to cover vocabulary, prediction and summary skills. The lesson plan explains the goal of each session and gives the educator an extreme amount of detail and all the necessary resources to execute it. The plan also highlights points for assessment and student reflections. I really like this lesson plan because of it complexity and extensive resource availability. Even if an educator didn’t want to use the whole plan, reading the objectives and activities are excellent anchors for a lesson that may be more specific to prior events in that teacher’s classroom.

The Ontario Context

The NCTE is an American resource, but the contents can still have very strong Ontario curriculum connections. Each lesson plan resource, like the one discussed above, has a “Standards” section that shows the curriculum connections across each state in the USA and also the NCTE’s National Standards for the English Language Arts. These expectations can be easily matched to the Ontario Curriculum K-8 Language.  For example, the VLP lesson I discussed above has key reading standard for informational text that conform to the Grade 7 common core standards for New York state. Such standards include:

• Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
• Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
• Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events)

(NTCE, 2015. ReadWriteThink – Common Core Standards. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1Rwk7yH)

If we compare to some of the Grade 7 Ontario standards for reading, we can see common standards. Such connections include:

• Comprehension Strategies (pg127)
• Demonstrating Understanding (pg127)
• Extending Understanding (pg128) 

(Ministry of Education, 2008. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8 Language. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1Lep545)

There are many resources that can help educators and parents with their child’s reading. It is important to remember that any step towards helping our students is an important step, but for educators in Ontario it is important to crucially evaluate our resources for their connections to our curriculum objectives.

Extended Resources for The Ontario Context

The Ministry of Education in Ontario heavily supports the reading strand of the Ontario Curriculum for Language.  Here are a few resources that are Ontario connected:

•  E-workshop is an Ontario online teaching resource that contains many learning modules for reading that are aimed at junior level students (grades 4-6). The example above is a learning module for shared reading, which is a very useful reading instructional approach to use with students. Head on over and watch the videos to gain some tips for shared reading.
• EduGains has a list of documents and webpages that are connected to the Ontario curriculum and are useful for educators. Topics include, “Inferring During Reading”, “Literacy Assessment” and “Reading Fluency”.  There is also a specific reading section that is for Classroom Learning Grade K-6 which would be useful for junior level educators.
• The Ontario Teacher’s Federation website has a lesson plan resources section. This specific lesson plan document I linked to has 48 lesson plans for various grades that are based on the book “Reading With Meaning” by Debbie Miller. It covers all grade levels. I think this is valuable to educators who are getting familiar with Miller’s technique.

- AJM