Word Play

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Word Play

• Quick Strategies to Improve Adolescent Literacy
• Heather Mullins
• HPS Middle/High Schools
• Instructional Coach

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What is Literacy?

• The ability to communicate through a wide variety
  of media
• Visual
• Auditory
• Oral
• Interactive media
• Written text

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What are the literacy skills students need to
learn across the content areas?
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Quick Strategies

• Focus on Facts
• Big and Little Questions
• Everyday Words
• The Billboard
• Viewing with a Purpose
• Seen itHeard itThought it
• Answer This!

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Focus on Facts

• Skills
• Vocabulary
• Continuous Evaluation
• Visual
• Summarizing
• Speaking
• Listening
• Writing

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Focus on Facts

• Metacognition Questions

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Big and little Questions

• Essential Questions vs. Stepping-Stones Questions
• Conceptual thinking
• Building connections
• Teacher-generated questions and student-generated
  questions

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Big and Little Questions

• Metacognition Questions

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Everyday Words

• Brain-Friendly
• Student Choice
• Vocabulary building
• Connecting Knowledge

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Everyday Words

• Variations
• Allow students to choose words from a list
• Have students draw pictures that represent words
  Display drawings on a word wall.

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Everyday Words

• Metacognition Questions

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The Billboard

• Uses visual imagery and vocabulary to summarize
• Share some billboards
• (Google images has some great billboards)
• Ask students
• How are billboards used to convey messages?
• What is the purpose of a billboard?

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The Billboard

• Students
• Use vocabulary
• Connect new knowledge
• Create images
• Periodically summarize
• Use text features
• Devise a plan

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The Billboard

• Metacognition Questions

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Viewing with a Purpose

• Previewing guide
• Provide overview
• Ask students what they already know about the
  topic
• Front loading for class discussion
• Goal setting for viewing

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Viewing with a Purpose

• Options
• Break viewing into small chunks to discuss
  effectiveness of student viewing strategies
• Couple with Seen itHeard itThought it
• Definitely have a plan for students during the
  video

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Viewing with a Purpose

• Metacognition Questions

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Seen itHeard itThought it

• Students will
• Analyze visual and aural information
• Interpret what they see and hear
• Draw inferences

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Seen itHeard itThought it

• Metacognition Questions

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Answer This!

• Empowers students
• Ensures teachable moments about levels of
  questions
• Promotes careful reading, listening, and viewing
• Provides formative assessment x 2

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Answer This

• Encourage students to create questions that
  require students to use a lot of information to
  answer

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Summary

• Literacy strategies
• Provide formative assessment for you
• Give students an opportunity to become actively
  engaged in the topic
• Help students to become independent learners
• Promote metacognition through activities and
  questioning

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References

• Beers, Sue (2008). Adolescent literacy.
  Alexandria, Virginia Association for Supervision
  and Curriculum Development.
• Leslie, C. (May 2006) "Metacognition through
  Group Practice in the New Media Classroom," M/C
  Journal, 9(2). Retrieved 02 Jun. 2009 from
  lthttp//journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/11-lesli
  e.phpgt.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
License. For more information, visit
http//creativecommons.org . Credit info
Heather Mullins, Middle and High Schools
Instructional Coach mullinshe_at_hickoryschools.net