If I were...

If I were...

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 what the poem could be about by making inferences.
You will read a poem in three parts, one part at a time.
After reading each part:

  • in the left hand boxes, write all the things you think the poem might be describing.
  • in the right hand boxes, explain how the evidence in the text supports your predictions.

Question 1Change answer

 
 
If I were a ____________________
 
If I were a _______________,
I would range over farms, plains,
houses, cities, and seas.
Part 1
I think this poem could be describing these things:                                           because:

Question 1Change answer

 


If I were a ____________________
 
If I were a _______________,
I would range over farms, plains,
houses, cities, and seas.
 
I would beat against the window panes of houses
with warm fires inside.
I would whip the leaves off trees.
I would flood rivers while I could,
Part 2
I think this poem could be describing these things:                                         because:

Question 1Change answer

 

If I were a ____________________
 
If I were a _______________,
I would range over farms, plains,
houses, cities, and seas.

I would beat against the window panes of houses
with warm fires inside.
I would whip the leaves off trees.
I would flood rivers while I could,
 
for all too soon, the sun will peep out
from behind a cloud
and I must pick up my black billowing skirts and leave
to whine over the oceans and beyond.
Part 3
Now I think this poem could be describing these things:                                         because:
 

Question 1Change answer

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

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

Three important points to tell students are:

  1. There is no right answer. The best answers are based on what they already know and the evidence in the text.
  2. As students move through each part of this resource, the first boxes are for brainstorming what the poem might be about, and the next boxes are for giving evidence from both the poem and their knowledge to support their predictions.
  3. Not to change any of their original ideas when new evidence is shown.
For this comprehension exercise, the poem is progressively revealed to students in three parts.
Level:
3
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
comprehension, inference, poem, progressive disclosure, School Journal, synthesis
Description of task: 
This comprehension task assesses a student's ability to use evidence in a text to work out what a poem could be about as it is disclosed in stages.
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 4
Reading for literary experience, set 4
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
    Y7 (04/2005)
Part 1 Suggestion:At least one of student's suggestions is consistent with all the evidence in the text, i.e., something that could range over farms, plains, houses, cities and seas, e.g., a cloud, a plane, a traveller, a god. very easy
Explanation:Student explains the links between at least one of their suggestions and all the evidence, i.e., how it can range over land and sea. very easy
All student's suggestions are in the singular, e.g., storm, not clouds/birds. very easy
Part 2 Suggestion:At least one of student's suggestions is something that could do:

  • all three verbs in the stanza, i.e., beat, whip, and flood, e.g., heavy rain, hurricane, storm, devil, monster.
  • one or two of the verbs, e.g., a naughty bird, a cat (two verbs); a moth, the sun (one verb).
 
 
 
easy
 
very easy
Explanation:Student explains the links between at least one of their suggestions and:

  • two or three verbs, e.g., heavy rain would beat against windows, whip leaves off trees and flood rivers; a naughty bird could beat against the window and whip leaves off trees.
  • one of the verbs, e.g., a moth could beat against the window.
 
 
difficult
 
very easy
All student's suggestions are in the singular. moderate
Part 3 Suggestion:At least one of student's suggestions is consistent with:

  • all three pieces of evidence in the stanza, i.e., something that is changeable/moving, has black billowing skirts, and whines, e.g., a storm, a cyclone.
  • one or two pieces of evidence, e.g., a wind (for two); a rainbow (for one).
 
 
 
moderate
 
very easy
Explanation:Student explains the links between at least one of their suggestions and:

  • two or three pieces of evidence, e.g., a storm could have black billowing skirts and whine as it moves off over the oceans (for three); a wind could whine as it moves away to another place (for two).
  • one piece of evidence, e.g., a rainbow comes and goes.
 
 
dfficult
 
 
easy       
All student's suggestions are in the singular. easy
At least one of student's final suggestions was consistent with all the evidence in all three stanzas of the poem. difficult

Results based on a trial set of 177 Y7 students.

Diagnostic and formative information: 

The data analysis of student responses identified four main areas of difficulty:

  1. Making explicit links to evidence.
  2. Using grammatical/syntactic evidence.
  3. Synthesising evidence.
  4. Vocabulary.

These areas of difficulty are elaborated on below.

Next steps: 
1.  Explaining the link between inferences and evidence A model of inference based on evidence in the text made by a student from the trial of this resource is:

Part 2Now I think the poem could be about: 
Rain
because:I know that rain can flood, beat against the window and whip leaves off trees, and these are all the phrases the author uses.

Inference involves linking evidence in the text with prior knowledge, which can come from personal experience, from another text and/or from "the world".  

A useful think-aloud and/or conversation for teachers and students to have when learning the strategy of inference is:
When I use the strategy of inference, I think, 'Do I know this because I've experienced it myself, or have I read it somewhere else, or learnt it by being told?'
 
2.   Singular/Plural clues 
Use of grammatical evidence

While students were largely able to use content evidence to support their answers, some were less able to use grammatical evidence. In this resource, such evidence was given at the outset by the word "a" in the title of the poem and repeated in the first line. 85% of student suggestions were in the singular in Part 1, falling to 40% in Part 2. This suggests that students were not making links to the prior evidence in Part 1, and a possible misconception that each of the "I" statements in this part were representative of separate objects. In Part 3, student suggestions that were in the singular rose to 72%. This suggests either that students did integrate their thinking with previous parts, or something was cueing them into the singular. This could be due to the fact that in this part there is only one "I" statement.

A model of a student articulating the singular/plural issue from the trial of this resource is shown in the box below:
"You can't be a rain, but you can be a cloud."

Some students may need cueing into the title of the poem and its repetition in the first line:"If I Were a _______________".

The use of collective nouns that can also be used in the singular may need clarifying. In trials of this resource, 'wind' was marked as singular if it was consistently articulated in the singular, as you can have "a wind".
 
3.   Synthesising evidence across all parts of the textArticulating difficulties with synthesis

The trial revealed that by the end of Part 3, 75% of students' suggestions were not consistent with evidence across all parts of the poem, i.e., a majority of students were not able to suggest an answer that was consistent with evidence in all parts. Less than a quarter of these students articulated an awareness that their answer was inconsistent with at least one piece of evidence in the poem. This suggests that being aware of or articulating these inconsistencies is an area of difficulty for students.

An example of a student from the trial who did articulate an awareness of their inconsistency is:
Something I’m still wondering about is: How a bird could flood rivers. 

A model of synthesis by a student from the trial is shown below: Part 3Now I think the poemis most likely to be about:                 because: A storm                                         He can go anywhere he wants                (Part 1 evidence)                                                    and [be]cause [of] things a storm does    (Part 2 evidence)                                                    and [it says] pick up his black skirts        (Part 3 evidence)                                                    as in dark clouds.

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

  4.   Vocabulary understandings 

Examples of student vocabulary misunderstandings from the trial of this resource are:
Student suggestion Student explanation Likely misconception
A mountain The writer uses the word "range", and you call mountains ranges sometimes. Student used the word "range" in a noun context.
A king Because a king could take control of anything. Student interpreted the words "range over" as implying a position of power.
An angel The writer uses the word "plains", and an angel can fly higher than plains. Student confusion between the homophones plains and planes.
A ship Because on a cruise ship you can be on the ocean and drink wine. Student read wine for whine.
 
In Part 1 of the poem used in this resource, the word “range” is used. This word has a variety of meanings. Students may benefit from the following vocabulary clarification activities to begin this reading comprehension task:
a) Brainstorm all the possible meanings of the word "range", giving a sentence for each context. Recording the brainstorm on a chart could be helpful, for example:
Different sentences the word "range" can be used in: The meaning of the word "range" in this sentence is:
   
  
b) On the chart identify similar uses of the word "range", e.g., verbs with similar actions, nouns.c) Look at Part 1 of the poem. Write this sentence onto the chart and identify what the place of the word in the sentence tells us about the sort of word it is, i.e., is it a noun or verb? (It is a verb.)d) Which group of verbs identified in b) is it most suited to? (Look over/tower over/move over/have control over/be in charge of/move between/move around/include.)e) Students fill in the boxes on their sheet for Part 1.f) Go on to Part 2 and then Part 3 for further evidence.
 
Resource
The poem comes from School Journal, Part 3, Number 3, Learning Media, 2003.