Transcript Reading Comprehension

Promoting Higher-Order
Thinking
Toward a More Comprehensive
Comprehension Curriculum
Peter Dewitz; [email protected]
Toward a Conceptual
Understanding of HOT
• What are the characteristics of High OrderThinking?
• Describe some examples of High Order
Thinking.
• Consider some non examples of Higher
Order Thinking.
• Apply these ideas to the comprehension of
Papa's Parrott
Sources of a Higher Order
Thinking Curriculum
• Education and Learning to Think, L.
Resnick, 1987
• Teaching for Thinking, R. Sternberg &
L. Spear-Swerling, 1996
• A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching,
and Assessing, L. Anderson et al.,
2001(B.Bloom the sequel)
Characteristics of Higher
Order Thinking - Resnick
• Involves nuanced judgment and
interpretation
• Construct new formulation of issues
• Imposing meaning, find structure in
apparent disorder
• Is complex and total path to
understanding is not visible
Characteristics of Higher
Order Thinking - Resnick
• It is non-algorithmic - the path or course
of thinking can’t be spelled out in
advance
• It yields multiple solutions and involves
multiple criteria
• Demands self-regulation and is effortful
Social Requirements of
High Order Thinking
• Higher Order Thinking develops when
living in a community that values and
practices such thinking
– Accepts uncertainty
– Accepts and rewards social risks
– Questions authority - challenge the
authority of the text and the teacher
What HOT is not:
According to Resnick
• Following known paths and routes to
understanding
• Believing that the meaning in text is apparent
or “literal”
• Working to replicate the meaning of others graphic organizer can lead to a conformity of
thinking
Problems in Resnick’s
Formulation
• What Resnick means by reading
comprehension includes many attributes of
Higher Order Thinking
–
–
–
–
Employing a broad set of knowledge
Building coherence among elements in a text
Making inferences, elaborations
Monitoring the constructive process
• Is reading comprehension HOT?
A Reading Example of High
Order Thinking - Resnick
• Reciprocal Teaching
–
–
–
–
–
Self-questioning
Generating inferences*
Seeking clarification
Summarizing
Making prediction
• Conducted in a safe supportive setting
Teaching for Thinking:
Sternberg, Spear-Swerling
• Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence
– Critical-analytic thinking - analyzing,
judging, comparing, contrasting,
examining
– Creative thinking - discovering,
producing, imagining, supposing
– Practical thinking - practicing, using
applying, implementing
Characteristics of
Thinking: Sternberg, SpearSwerling
• Analytical, creative and practical
thinking are all thinking - no hierarchy is
implied
• Each of the three types of thinking has
implications for reading comprehension
and instruction
Examples of Thinking:
Sternberg, Spear-Swerling
• Analytic: Comparing and contrasting two
character within a piece of literature or
comparing and contrasting two pieces of
literature
• Creative: Constructing an alterative
interpretation of a character’s motivation going beyond the given
• Practical: Applying character traits and
motives beyond the text to life - elaboration
Steps, if there are any, in
High Order Thinking
• Deciding what is the problem or how to
approach the text - allows for and
encourages multiple interpretations
• Defining the problem [the interpretation]
– The issue or theme that seems to be most important to the
author may not be to the reader
• Realizing that problems [interpretations] are
ill-structured - completing a graphic organizer
may not lead to new insight
Steps, if there are any, in
High Order Thinking
• Solutions, understandings, arise when problems
are considered in light of real life contexts.
• Realizing what information [prior knowledge] will
be necessary to reach some interpretations
• Solutions to problems [interpretations] depend
on the context in which the texts are discussed.
• Realizing there is no one correct interpretation
and the thinking process is complicated and
messy.
Social Requirements of
Triarchic Theory
• Acknowledgements that there are no right
answers.
• Teachers and students are both learners.
• The discussion is the end not just the means
to the end.
• The creation of the solution [interpretation] is
a critical part of the process of higher order
thinking.
A Taxonomy: Learning,
Teaching and Assessing
• Knowledge Dimension - Factual, conceptual,
procedural, metacognitive
• Cognitive Process Dimension - Remember,
Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate,
Create
• We can bring different kinds of knowledge to
bear to create outcomes in the different
Cognitive Process Dimensions
The Taxonomy
Cognitive Process Dimension
Remember
Factual
Know.
Concept
Know.
Procedural
Know.
Meta
Cognitive
Know.
Understand
Apply
Analyze
Evaluate
Create
The Taxonomy: When
does Higher Begin
• Remember - not here
• Understand - possibly here because it
includes inferences and interpretations
• Apply - possibly here because students carry
out a task and it can be new and creative
• Analyze - definitely here because attributing
motives or point of view raises the level of an
instructional experience
The Taxonomy: When
does Higher Begin
• Evaluate - definitely here because the
reader can evaluate the themes and the
methods of the writer.
• Create - definitely here because we
may want the learner to use the same
rhetorical devices in his or her own
writings.
Apply to Papa’s Parrot
• Knowledge – factual and conceptual - narrative structure or
genre
– conceptual knowledge of parent - child/adolescent
relationships
• Cognitive Process
– Understand - infer and interpret feelings and
insights Harry and his father gain about each
other
– Analysis - attribute the role of the parrot to the
process of self-discovery
– Evaluate the author’s rhetorical techniques
Papa's Parrot: Applying
Higher Order Thinking
• Strategy instruction develops the “required
inferences”
• Strategies - self-questioning, clarifying,
monitoring, summarizing - promote these
inferences.
• Higher Order Thinking develops insights or
interpretations that go beyond the required
inferences
• Higher Order Thinking is the disposition to
develop these interpretations
Papa's Parrot
Required Inferences
HOT Inferences
• Harry’s feelings for his
father
• Mr. Tillian’s feelings
toward Harry
• Causes of Harry’s
change in behavior
• Mr. Tillian’s new
feelings.
• What Harry learns
about Mr.. Tillian and
how
• Is Harry’s reaction to
the parrot realistic?
• Why does the author
use animals to bring
meaning to peoples
lives?
• Is the growing distance
between parents and
young adolescents
inevitable?
More HOT with Cynthia
Rylant
• Why doesn’t Mr. Tillian simply tell Harry
about how much he misses him?
(Evaluation)
• Why does the relationship not change at
home? (Evaluate)
• Compare the role of the animals in two or
more of Rylant’s short stories. (Evaluate)
• Create a short story in which an animal helps
people grow or attain some insight in some
way.(Create)