Teacher to Teacher

If people cannot write well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

–George Orwell

We are more than a decade into the 21^st Century and Orwell’s quote is as relevant as ever.  Information and misinformation travel at the speed of megabytes per second via text messages, Facebook status updates, blogs, tweets, etc. In addition to these online sources, we have television and radio news networks trying to fill up much of their 24 hour schedules with speculation masquerading as news.  When it comes to the clutter and clamor of the omnipresent media, our students need to be able to separate that which is reasonable and true from all that is questionable and maybe even preposterous.  Helping our students further develop their critical thinking skills is one way to help them deal with the multitude of messages coming their way.

When students become better writers, they also become better at examining how others develop and defend ideas.  They become better critical thinkers.  I didn’t fully appreciate this concept until I went back to school to work on an administrative endorsement.  Every course involved a lot of writing.  Some of the courses were online, and because of the nature of online courses, a great amount of writing was required.  The more I wrote for my classes, the more I began to realize that becoming a better writer was also making me a better thinker.  Writing forced me to have a good understanding of my subject in order to effectively communicate my thoughts,  research, and conclusions to my teachers and classmates. I also had to be able to defend my ideas, because writing also exposed me to scrutiny and challenge.  I came to appreciate the importance of being my own devil’s advocate.

It is possible for people to be good writers, and their messages turn out to be intellectually bankrupt.  Political speeches and propaganda are possible examples of this type of writing.  The writing sounds reasonable and maybe even inspiring, but turns out to be as substantial as a soap bubble when pricked by the slightest scrutiny.  It is important that we challenge the thinking behind our students’ writing.  We need them to be able to defend their positions and cite their sources of information.  We also need to teach them to establish the validity of their sources.  In addition, students need to critique the writing of others in order to discover how the writers develop their arguments, and to discover the writers’ biases, assumptions, or examples of lazy thinking.  These challenges will take them beyond just writing and on to deeper thinking.

This type of writing requires students to take big risks.  In order to prepare students for the challenges that will be directed at their ideas, they need to be able to trust their teachers and their classmates.  Teachers need to develop a safe and trusting environment in which discussion of multiple viewpoints is encouraged and no one feels personally attacked when asked to defend his or her position.

Orwell’s statement, found at the beginning of this blog entry, provides direction in helping our students become the critical thinkers they need to be.  In order to help our students think for themselves, and keep others from thinking for them, we need to have them write often in every subject while also challenging their assumptions, arguments, and conclusions in a safe and supportive environment that allows for risk-taking.

For additional information, see the links below.

Foundation for Critical Thinking

http://www.criticalthinking.org/

What is Writing?

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/pdf/writing.pdf

An excerpt from the book How to Write a Paragraph

http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/SAM-HowtoWrite.pdf

We all know the importance of being intentional in addressing vocabulary in our classrooms.  Part of this intentional process is selecting the appropriate words to specifically teach.  Some words are more important to learn than others.  But how do we decide?

Fortunately, there is some guidance for us as we make these decisions.  Archer (2003) suggests we select words that:

1. Are unknown to students,
2. Are important to understanding the text, and
3. Are likely to be encountered in the future

Beck, McKeown, & Kucan (2002) have created a three tier model to help us think about which words to teach.  These three tiers do not coincide with the RTI three tier model that we’ve been discussing with our teachers, so don’t confuse the two.

Tier One words are basic words that are frequently encountered in life (i.e. clock, bed, radio, come, see).  Most students have the concept of these words and don’t need any specific instruction.  If a student is unfamiliar with a word in this tier, it is usually sufficient to just provide the definition or an example rather than explicitly teaching the word.  Not much time is spent in teaching Tier One words.

Tier Two words are also known as the “mortar words.”  These are the words that are high frequency academic words found across a variety of content areas and knowledge domains (i.e. fortunate, absurd, facilitate).  Tier Two words should receive instructional emphasis.  Language Arts teachers should include many Tier Two academic words in their instruction.  Language Arts teachers should not necessarily rely on the words chosen by the reading textbook publisher as the words with the most utility for students.  Many of the vocabulary words suggested in a reading textbook are rare words that can be expected to occur once or fewer times in a million words of school texts (Hiebert as cited in Lehr, Osborn, & Hiebert, 2004).

Tier Three words are low frequency words that are usually specific to a particular content area or knowledge domain (i.e. tundra, isotope, lathe, lava).  These words don’t generalize well to other content areas.  These are the “bricks” held together with “mortar” of the Tier Two, or academic, words.  Although content area teachers will spend more of their time teaching Tier Three words, they should also include some Tier Two words that generalize across subject areas.

Tier Three words are often easier to identify than Tier Two words.  Textbook publishers identify many of the content specific vocabulary (Tier Three) necessary for students to successfully comprehend the material.  Selecting Tier Two words is not as clear cut.  The suggested vocabulary in most reading textbooks is not always the best resource.  A better resource for finding high frequency academic words is Coxhead’s Academic Word List.  It consists of 570 word families which occur frequently over a wide range of academic texts.  Teachers  should use Coxhead’s list to begin dividing the instruction of these academic words across subject areas and grade levels.

Don’t leave vocabulary learning only to chance.  Teach the important words that matter today AND tomorrow.  Teach the words that drive comprehension of the key big ideas and provide an academic toolkit for long term academic proficiency (Feldman, 2009).

References

Archer, A. (2003).  Dr. Anita Archer: Vocabulary development.  Retrieved March 19, 2009 from http://www.fcoe.net/ela/pdf/Vocabulary/Anita%20Archer031.pdf

Feldman, K. (2009).  “Response to intervention and older struggling readers:  Special education reform as part of meaningful school improvement.” Educational Service Units Professional Development Organization.  Kearney, NE. 18 Feb. 2009.

Lehr, F., Osborn, J. and Hiebert, E. (2004).  Research-based practices in early reading series:  A focus on vocabulary.  Retrieved March 19, 2009 from http://www.prel.org/products/re_/ES0419bw.pdf