What are "they"?

What are "they"?

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about predicting and making inferences.

Question 1Change answer

Read the first part of the poem:
 
Perhaps
_______
may not seem to be
a nuisance
but they are to me.
 
a)  Name all the things you think "they" might be:
     
 
b)  Which word gave you the best clue for what "they" might be?
     

Question 1Change answer

Read the first and second parts of the poem:
 
Perhaps
_______
may not seem to be
a nuisance
but they are to me.
 
Although I try
with all my might 
I cannot
tell the left from right
 
c)  Name all the things you think "they" might be now:
     
 
d)  Which words in these parts gave you the best clue for what "they" might be?
     

Question 1Change answer

Read the first, second, and third parts of the poem:
 
Perhaps
_______
may not seem to be
a nuisance
but they are to me.
 
Although I try
with all my might
I cannot
tell the left from right
 
and which
is hot
and which 
is cold.
 
e)  Name what you think "they" might be now:
     
 
f)  Which words in these parts gave you the best clue for what "they" might be?
     

Question 1Change answer

Read the first, second, third, and fourth parts of the poem:
 
Perhaps
 
_______
may not seem to be
a nuisance
but they are to me.
 
Although I try
with all my might
I cannot
tell the left from right
 
and which
is hot
and which
is cold.
 
But still
I'm only five years old
so when we're going any place
I let my mother
wash my face.  
g)  Choose the line from the fourth part of the poem that gives you the best clue: 
     But stillI'm only five years oldso when we're going any placeI let my motherwash my face
 
h)  What do you think "they" might be: 
 
i)  How could "they" be a nuisance?
   
Task administration: 

This task can be completed online (without auto-marking) or with pencil and paper.

For this comprehension task, the poem is progressively revealed to students in four parts. 

The task is suitable for a shared or a think/pair/share activity where responses could be given orally, discussed, and written in by the teacher, or written by the students. Initial responses could be recorded in one colour, and new ideas from others recorded in another. This would visually demonstrate shared interpretations.

Four important points to tell students are:

  1. The best answers are based on combining the evidence (clues) in the text with what they already know.
  2. On the student resource, the left hand spaces are for brainstorming what the poem could be describing.
  3. When reading a new part, use the new evidence to build on the previous evidence.
  4. To keep their initial ideas from earlier brainstorms when they move onto a new part and see new evidence. Their ideas are not wrong.
Copyright: 
"Behind the Stars: Poems for children" by Peggy Dunstan, published by Hodder & Stoughton (1986). Used with permission.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
comprehension, predict, inference, progressive disclosure, synthesis, poetry
Description of task: 
This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem to students. It assesses their ability to infer.
Curriculum Links: 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to
  • use comprehension strategies 
  • monitor their reading for accuracy and sense
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Making sense of text: processing system, set 3
Reading for literary experience, set 3
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
 

Y4 (09/2005)

a)

 

Student identifies any possible nuisance, e.g.,

  • Family, e.g., siblings, parents, aunts.
  • Other people, e.g., teachers, shopkeepers, librarians.
  • Physical obstacles, e.g., roads, cars, stairs, hills, lights, sirens, clothes, shoes.
  • Emotional obstacles, e.g., dreams, fears, nightmares.
  • Intellectual obstacles, e.g., times tables, words, computers, books.
  • Insects.
  • Any other logical response.

very easy

All student suggestions are in the plural.

moderate

b)

 Student identifies

  • "nuisance"

easy

c)

 

Suggestions are consistent with the left and right clue e.g.,

  • Sides of body, e.g., hands/gloves, feet/shoes.
  • Sides of other physical objects, e.g., roads, books, maps, mazes, directions.
  • Any other suggestion consistent with left/right clue.

moderate

All student suggestions continue to be in the plural.

difficult

d)

 Student identifies

  • ("tell the") "left" ("from") "right"


moderate

e)

 Suggestions consistent with either:

  • new evidence and previous evidence, i.e., hot and cold clue and left and right clue, e.g., taps, stoves, heaters or fan switches/dials/elements.
    or
  • new evidence only, i.e., hot and cold clue, e.g., drinks, meals.


very difficult

easy

All student suggestions continue to be in the plural.

very difficult

f)

 Student identifies

  • "hot" and "cold"


easy

g)

 Student identifies

  • "wash my face"


moderate

h)

 Student suggests

  • taps.


difficult

i)

 Response could be drawn from student's own experience, e.g.,

  • when you are five years old, you still need help/taps are too hard/don't know things.
  • when you are five years old, you can't see/are too short (to see the tops of the taps).

Responses could be drawn from text and/or prior knowledge, e.g.,

  • because the kid doesn't know which is which.
  • because the kid doesn't want to get burnt/could get burnt.


difficult

difficult
Results based on a trial sample of 178 students
Diagnostic and formative information: 

An analysis of student responses from the trial of this resource identified four main areas of difficulty:

  1. Student reflections of tasks
  2. Using grammatical/syntactic evidence
  3. Synthesising evidence across all parts of the poem
  4. Making connections to evidence

See below for an elaboration of each of these areas.

Next steps: 
1. Student reflections of task
In the small group trials of this resource, students reflected on this task. Their responses are typical of those from other trials of similar resources, and from students of varying ages. While the majority are excited by the openness of such tasks, and the challenges posed, there are learners who do find it difficult to take a risk, to step out of their comfort zone. These learners require support to be able to do so.
"It was fun because it was like a mystery."
"It was like a mystery that you had to solve."
"It was like a jigsaw where you had to find the pieces that fitted together with each other."
"It was frustrating because I didn't know the answer."
 
2. Using grammatical/syntactic evidence
In the first part of the poem, not quite half of trial students picked up on the clue that the answer should be in the plural, i.e., "but they are to me". The title of the resource "What are 'they'?" also suggests something that is plural, and this suggestion is maintained throughout the resource with the word "they" put inside quote marks within the student instructions. With no repeated direct mention of "they" in the poem to prompt them, students were increasingly choosing objects in the singular. By the third part of the poem the majority of students had suggestions that were in the singular.

Teachers could scaffold students into the poem by explicitly teaching what "they" means grammatically, as well as making a connection between the "they" on the student's sheet and the "they" in the poem. This would set them up knowing that all their responses need to be in the plural.

3. Synthesising evidence across all parts of the poem

Students easily identified the main clue in the first part of the poem, i.e., "nuisance". They obviously had strong associations with this word, many responses referring to younger siblings, parents, even teachers, and the inevitable array of insects! Their responses at this point tended to be animate objects. Over the proceeding parts of the poem, on the whole, students continued to identify the new and pertinent evidence, but failed to synthesise new evidence with previous evidence. Their responses were now a mixture of animate and inanimate objects, as the characteristics of the clues changed, but most could still be thought of as nuisances by young people.
The following are responses from trial students, who, at the third part of the poem, all identified the hot and cold clue, having also previously identified the left/right clue:

When readers synthesise, they integrate their evidence to form new understandings. They see the relationships between ideas/information and get a "big picture".

4. Making connections to evidence

In the trial of this resource, students had difficulty with the last question i), 'How could "they" be a nuisance?' This was the case whether or not students were on track in the preceding question. This suggests that students were not able to make explicit connections between their own experience or knowledge and evidence in the text that they had already found easy to identify. In the small group trials of this resource, it was found that with support and discussion, students were able to make such connections explicit.