What or who am I?

What or who am I?

Pencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about making inferences to predict what a poem could be about.
You will read a poem in three parts, one part at a time.
After reading each part:
  • in the left hand boxes, predict all the things you think the poem is describing.
  • in the right hand boxes, explain how the evidence in the text, and what you know, supports your predictions

Question 1Change answer

My other _______________
 
Have you seen my other _______________?
I had it just before.
It shouldn't be too hard to find
it's somewhere on the shore.
It disappeared all by itself
when I was in the waves,
and that's the way my other _______________
usually behaves.
Part 1  
 
I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:  because:
 

Question 1Change answer


My other _______________

Have you seen my other _______________?
I had it just before.
It shouldn't be too hard to find
it's somewhere on the shore.
It disappeared all by itself
when I was in the waves,
and that's the way my other _______________
usually behaves.
 
Have you seen my other _______________?
It's green with white on top.
It's still quite newish looking,
'cause it's just come from the shop.
I need my other _______________
the sand's too hot to touch.
If you found my _______________ for me
I'd thank you awfully much.
 
Have you seen my other _______________?
Mum says, 'Not again!
I'm sick of buying _______________
Have a good look, use your brain!
Did you leave it in the dairy
when we went to get a drink?
Or is it down beside the rockpool?
Look, it must be somewhere. Think!'

 
 
Part 2  
 
Now I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:  because:
 

Question 1Change answer


My other _______________

Have you seen my other _______________?
I had it just before.
It shouldn't be too hard to find
it's somewhere on the shore.
It disappeared all by itself
when I was in the waves,
and that's the way my other _______________
usually behaves.

Have you seen my other _______________?
It's green with white on top.
It's still quite newish looking,
'cause it's just come from the shop.
I need my other _______________
the sand's too hot to touch.
If you found my _______________ for me
I'd thank you awfully much.
 
Have you seen my other _______________?
Mum says, 'Not again!
I'm sick of buying _______________
Have a good look, use your brain!
Did you leave it in the dairy
when we went to get a drink?
Or is it down beside the rockpool?
Look, it must be somewhere. Think!'

 
Have you seen my other _______________?
It isn't in the car.
Without a foot to walk in it,
it can't have gone too far.
I wish that I could stop this
it's been going on for years.
When summer starts,
my other _______________
always disappears.
 
 
Part 3
 
Now I think this poem is most likely to be about: 
 because:
 

Question 1Change answer

Pause, look, and think back:
Something I'm still wondering about is: 

Question 1Change answer

To do this activity, you used the reading strategy of making inferences.



Select any other reading strategy you used and describe when and how you used this reading strategy for this poem:

 
Making connections between what I know 
 yesno
Asking questions yesno
Creating a picture in my head, or visualising yesno
Identifying the writer's purpose yesno
Identifying the main idea yesno
Summarising yesno
Analysing and synthesising ideas and information yesno
Evaluating ideas and information yesno
 
Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pencil and paper or online.
 
Four important points to tell students are:    
  1. There is no right answer. The best answers are based on combining the evidence in the text with what they already know.
  2. On the student resource, the left hand boxes are for predicting what the poem could be describing, and the right hand boxes are for giving evidence from both the poem and their knowledge that supports their predictions.
  3. When reading a new part, use the new evidence to build on previous evidence.
  4. Not to erase any of their previous ideas when new evidence is shown.
  • For this comprehension exercise, the poem needs to be progressively revealed to the students in three stages. That is why it has been presented in three sections.
  • The poem can be enlarged or done on an interactive whiteboard for a class or group situation.
Copyright: 
by Don Franks. School Journal, Part 2, Number 4, Learning Media, 1994.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
comprehension, inference, analysis, synthesis, visualising, progressive disclosure, poetry, prediction, SJ-2-4-1994
Description of task: 
This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem. It assesses a student's ability to use evidence to predict what it could be describing. SJ-2-4-1994. Text provided.
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: 
  Y5 (05/2005)
Part 1 Student suggests at least one thing that could:

  • be taken to or found at the beach.
  • disappear by itself.
 very easy
very easy
Student explains links between object and evidence in text of it:

  • being at the beach.
  • being able to disappear.
 difficult
easy
All suggestions are in the singular. very easy
Part 2 Student uses new evidence to build on previous evidence, i.e., suggests at least one thing that could:

  • give protection from heat of sand.
  • be green with white on top.
 easy
easy
Student explains links between object and evidence in text of how it:

  • gives protection from heat of sand.
  • could be green with white on top.
 difficult
difficult
All suggestions are in the singular. moderate
Part 3 Student synthesises evidence across all parts and suggests at least one thing that is footwear. easy
Student explains links between text and the object being footwear, e.g., "without a foot to walk in it". difficult
All suggestions are in the singular. easy

Results based on sample size of 113 Y5 students

Diagnostic and formative information: 

An analysis of student responses from the trial of this resource identified one main area of difficulty:

Explaining links to evidence in text

Students found difficulty explaining how their suggestions linked to the evidence in the text. This was especially true where there were multiple clues within any one part. For example, in Part 1, students tended to focus on one piece of evidence only.
A model from the trial of this resource by a student who did explain links to multiple evidence in Part 1 is:
 
Part 1
  
I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:


a flipper 

 because:
it comes in pairs, you take it to the beach, it might have come off when they were swimming, and the waves brought it to shore.
 
Explaining how their suggestions built on the evidence across the parts of the poem was also a difficulty. 
A model from the trial by one student who did explain their synthesis across all three parts of the poem is shown below:
 
Part 2
  
Now I think this poem could be describing one of these things:


a shoe 

 because:
I lose my shoes all the time,  and (Part 1 evidence) the writer says the sand is too hot, and your feet are normally the only thing that touch the ground. And you buy them at the shop. (New evidence)

 

Part 3
  
Now I think this poem is most likely to be about:


a jandal 

 because:
The writer says in summer it always disappears (New evidence) and you wear jandals in summer. They could be green with white bits (Part 2 evidence) and float away without you seeing. (Part 1 evidence)
Next steps: 

To help students "unpack" the evidence and their thinking, some of the ideas in the following chart could be useful:

My/our inferences are...
We are inferring that...		 Quotes/evidence from the text are...
The clues the text gives are...		 My/our experiences are...
I/we know about this because...

 

    

 

    

 

    

Drawing on a range of reading strategies

In the trial of this resource, we found that one of the most common reading strategies that students identified using was visualising. This may be because the poem suited this strategy, or because of the students' ages. When encouraging students to use a range of strategies, draw to their attention that visualising is closely linked with making inferences. As Harvey and Goudvis point out:    

"Visualising strengthens our inferential thinking. When we visualise, we are in fact inferring, but with mental images rather than words and thoughts.
Visualising and inferring are first cousins, the offspring of connecting and questioning.
Hand in hand, they enhance understanding".

p.96, Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding

Good comprehenders use a range of reading strategies, and have the metacognitive skills as well as the understanding of those strategies to explain which strategy they used, where they used it, and how.
An example from the trial by a student who explained using a combination of strategies is:
Making connections between what I know and the text 
It might be shoes because I know that whenever I lose something my mum gets angry, and I know that if the tide is high everything floats away.
 
Asking questions 
I asked myself how can the other thing act the same.
 
Creating a picture in my head, or  visualising 
I saw some shoes in my head that were by the rockpool where I left them at Kaka Point.
 
Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4, Comprehension Strategies, p131-134, Learning Media, 2003. Also available online here.
Explaining Reading, A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies, Gerald G. Duffy, The Guilford Press, 2003.
Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding, Harvey, S. and Goudvis, A., Stenhouse Publishers, 2000.