As we round out the school year and our MAITs course on "Critical Thinking," I thought I'd share a few thinking routines I worked into lessons recently. For our reading of SPEAK, Laurie Halse Anderson's page-turning story about Melinda Sordino's first year in high school, I incorporated a number of thinking routines in sequence. To begin with, I had the students respond to the novel's cover artwork.
The students listed details shown in the illustration and thought about what the novel (with its title) might be about. Several students noticed smaller details, such as the fact that each eye is a different color, that there is no mouth (which they connected to the title "Speak"), that there was a marked contrast between light and dark, the appearance of leaves, and that the face appears to be torn in the middle. As students completed their reading, class discussion returned back to the cover illustration to determine what aspects now had meaning.
Next, the students completed the "3-2-1 Snapshot" routine on the character Melinda Sordino after the first twenty pages of reading. As this novel deals with the extremely sensitive topic of a girl's rape (but which is not directly addressed until well into the book), I was interested in seeing the students' impression of Melinda early in the story -- well before they understood what had happened to her and how it affected who she was. The results were fascinating, providing me with valuable insights into what they were thinking of the character and what they saw as important in the story so far. I also was surprised by some, as some students wrote "relatable" as one of their adjectives, suggesting that Melinda's feelings of alienation (she calls herself "Outcast" because no one will talk to her because she called the cops at a summer party) seem to suggest that these students also feel the effects of not being accepted.
The questions students wrote were somewhat expected: What happened at the party? And, why does Melinda have no friends? were common ones. Most interesting, though, and creative were the metaphors students came up with.
I used several of the metaphors students suggested and Googled images for some of these and created a montage of metaphors. The students viewed the metaphor montage and selected a metaphor to write about. They could select one that represents the metaphor they chose, or they also could select another. Students completed their explanations on a "What Makes You Say That?" answer sheet, and students passed back their writing so that classmates could read a variety of student responses. Through a Powerpoint slide, I presented each metaphor picture and the class discussed what quality of Melinda's personality it revealed. Needless to say, I was tossing a few "What makes you say that?"s at students, who then backed up their opinions with support from the story. And I believe the students were engaged by seeing their own metaphors and those of others. The one included here is the simile "as quiet as a stream with no water" -- one from Christian (who came up with the simile) and another by
Ashley, who offered another interpretation of this same simile. Another interesting metaphor was Julia's, one about a bird that needs to learn to fly. This, believe it or not, is a metaphor the author later uses later in the story.
The students listed details shown in the illustration and thought about what the novel (with its title) might be about. Several students noticed smaller details, such as the fact that each eye is a different color, that there is no mouth (which they connected to the title "Speak"), that there was a marked contrast between light and dark, the appearance of leaves, and that the face appears to be torn in the middle. As students completed their reading, class discussion returned back to the cover illustration to determine what aspects now had meaning.
Next, the students completed the "3-2-1 Snapshot" routine on the character Melinda Sordino after the first twenty pages of reading. As this novel deals with the extremely sensitive topic of a girl's rape (but which is not directly addressed until well into the book), I was interested in seeing the students' impression of Melinda early in the story -- well before they understood what had happened to her and how it affected who she was. The results were fascinating, providing me with valuable insights into what they were thinking of the character and what they saw as important in the story so far. I also was surprised by some, as some students wrote "relatable" as one of their adjectives, suggesting that Melinda's feelings of alienation (she calls herself "Outcast" because no one will talk to her because she called the cops at a summer party) seem to suggest that these students also feel the effects of not being accepted.
The questions students wrote were somewhat expected: What happened at the party? And, why does Melinda have no friends? were common ones. Most interesting, though, and creative were the metaphors students came up with.
I used several of the metaphors students suggested and Googled images for some of these and created a montage of metaphors. The students viewed the metaphor montage and selected a metaphor to write about. They could select one that represents the metaphor they chose, or they also could select another. Students completed their explanations on a "What Makes You Say That?" answer sheet, and students passed back their writing so that classmates could read a variety of student responses. Through a Powerpoint slide, I presented each metaphor picture and the class discussed what quality of Melinda's personality it revealed. Needless to say, I was tossing a few "What makes you say that?"s at students, who then backed up their opinions with support from the story. And I believe the students were engaged by seeing their own metaphors and those of others. The one included here is the simile "as quiet as a stream with no water" -- one from Christian (who came up with the simile) and another by 
Ashley, who offered another interpretation of this same simile. Another interesting metaphor was Julia's, one about a bird that needs to learn to fly. This, believe it or not, is a metaphor the author later uses later in the story. 
