• a three-phase plan for learning,
• a one-page guide for planning lessons on this type of strategic processing – learning & connecting with text features – that incorporate the gradual release of responsibility,
• a three-step anchor chart with actionable steps & questions for each to prompt student thinking,
• a kid-friendly list of features with purposes and visual examples for quick reference(3rd grade and higher).

Preparation

Select a text that has strong supporting/extending features – graphs, maps, photos and captions, etc. Locate 3-4 features that you can focus on during the Phase 2 part of the lesson. If you’re unsure whether the features are strong, think about how you might answer the questions posed in steps 1-3 on the ANCHOR CHART – What is the purpose of the feature? What am I learning from the feature and how does it connect to other ideas in the source? Why is this all important to consider? If you can make a strong case for the power of feature to move your learning forward, then that’s a good choice.

Prep your anchor chart. My anchor charts are always three actionable steps with questions (or stems) students can ask themselves for each.

Plan your think aloud. So that you are ready to model, for at least one feature, plan out what you will say in response to the questions on the anchor chart. For my lesson, I chose to model with a caption and two photographs (see image below). I planned a think aloud that would include a response to each of the steps/ questions in the anchor chart. My plan for a think aloud was something like the following:

(STEP 1: IDENTIFY PURPOSE) I know I need to pay attention to the photographs because they can show me a picture of what the author is trying to describe in the text. (STEP 2: LEARN) I see a photograph of some type of landscape that looks like a field of food being grown; I know the author said the Earth’s population is growing exponentially so I’m thinking that more and more land will be needed to grow nutrient-rich foods. But here’s another smaller photo and it’s very different – it’s just a plant in a container with no soil. I know the author said that researchers are working on how to produce more food – maybe this is one way. (STEP 1 AGAIN) Let me check out the caption because that will give me more information about this photo. (STEP 2 AGAIN) Oh, yes. There are some farmers who are being innovative and figuring out how to help nutrient-rich foods grow without soil. That must be what’ s in this photo. That would definitely help us feed Earth’s growing population. Wow. I’ve just learned a lot by stopping to think about these text features and how they connect to the ideas in the text. (STEP 3 SYNTHESIZE) Let me summarize my learning and why I think this is important…

Phase 1 Meet the Source – Learn Vocabulary, Preview & Predict, Read & Confer, Discuss

I introduced the word vulnerable with the five step approach to introducing vocabulary. Then the students previewed the text and made a few predictions. Based on those predictions (as they related to the word vulnerable), we set a purpose for reading, “Let’s read to find out about populations around the world that are vulnerable to hunger.” (CAUTION: I’m not crazy about this book – particularly a section towards the end that talks about school lunches that might be offensive; we clipped that section so students would not read.) As I conferred with students, I paid attention to what they were able to say about the features in the text – photographs, captions, diagrams, maps; they revealed a need to go deeper, especially to make connections between the content in the feature and the main ideas in the text.

Phase 2 – Meet the Strategies – WHAT, WHY, HOW & Think Aloud

The next lesson focused on closely reading and thinking about two important feature points in the text – a photograph/caption and a map/diagram. (Of course, I snuck in some more vocabulary.)

Then I moved into the WHAT, WHY, and HOW of the strategic processing (in the one-page guide for planning) that students need to do to get the most out of a feature. When I shared the WHAT, I also presented the handout with the list of features, their purposes & examples; I did not belabor this. As stated earlier, the HOW is always a three-step anchor chart with clear action steps and questions students can ask themselves. (Mine are always super plain; please feel free to copy and make it more visually appealing ;).

After I shared the HOW, I led an I DO (with the think aloud described earlier) and engaged students in a WE DO for a map/diagram (see image below). For both, I referred to the ANCHOR CHART as a guide for the kind of thinking we need to do. Each time, we also jotted notes on a sticky note as reminders of our thinking (that we can use during Phase 3). (Ideally, I’d have a third feature for a WE DO when students to work on with a partner – but I was giving a demonstration lesson and, alas, time did not allow for that.)

Phase 3 – Meet the Response

I shared the prompt for writing (see image below): Using what you learned from the text features, explain the world hunger problem and one way scientists are working to solve it.

I did not ask students to just start writing. I supported individuals as they each created an outline of their thinking and then we orally rehearsed before they started writing. And then I conferred, conferred, conferred. OMG. This is a lot of work in itself, a whole other blog entry or a book ;).

A FINAL THOUGHT – I’d do another couple of lessons – WITH ADDITIONAL SOURCES ON THE SAME TOPIC (i.e., a text set) with a focus on in Phase 2 on these features. I’d also choose a text set on a topic you are studying in science or social studies. The students I taught had to carry the load of learning a lot of new, unfamiliar content while also strategically processing the content. They were not in full control of the content by the end but definitely understood better; they definitely deserve a chance to bring the background knowledge they built with this first text to another source of information.

Hope this helps.

S