Teaching as Inquiry - Literacy

Inquiry Goal/ Problem-

My student's ideas in Writing and Reading at times are limited and lack critically thinking/ depth in their responses and ideas. Students need work on their oral language to enhance their critical thinking in reading and their responses in writing.

Week 3 - Oral language Task. - Links to Writing and Reading.

Students are going to individually take notes about birds. ( WALT- take notes and gather important information). This was scaffolded to my target learners. This was successful, students started to develop deeper thinking questions about birds and the learning.

Next steps:

Students will get into groups of four and discuss each of their findings. While one person talks the others will record ideas and take notes. ( I will be using the Shenna Cameron and Louise Dempsey 2016 Oral language Book) I will model this before the lesson and use a timer for each person to talk. I am hoping to see students talking about their notes and becoming more familiar with the topic and vocabulary which will help as they move towards a deeper level of thinking. The students will be in mixed ability groups which should provide support for lower learners.

Other opportunities to promote oral language and critically thinking:

-Question Dice - To allow for critical questions to support the student's inquiry.

- Say it square

For example:

	A	B	C
1	You are ….Say why …	You are ….Name 3 …	You are ….What did …?
2	You are ….How did … feel …?	You are ….Explain how …	You are ….Who was …?
3	You are ….In your opinion …	You are …. Talk about	You are …. Describe ….