What is it?

What is it?

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about predicting what a poem could be describing by making inferences.

You will read a poem, one part at a time. After reading each part, do the tasks for that part.

Part 1

Beneath these clothes 

my _________ is free. 

It spreads itself 

all over me.

 

a)  Describe and/or draw the picture you saw in your head when you read this part.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
b)  What were the main words in this part that helped you make this picture?
 
 
 
c)  Something I'm still wondering about is ...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Part 2
 
Around my legs 
and up my nose  
on ears and arms 
and bits like those.
 

d)  Describe and/or draw the picture you saw in your head when you read this part.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
e)  What were the main words in this part that helped you make this picture?
 
 
 
f)  Something I'm still wondering about is ...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Part 3
 
And when I'm growing 
as children do, 
my amazing __________ 
is growing, too.
 

g) Describe and/or draw the picture you saw in your head when you read this part.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
h) What were the main words in this part that helped you make this picture?
 
 
 
 
 

Pause, look, and think back:

i) One word has been taken out two times in this poem. What do you think it is?

 
 
 
j) Write down the main clue from each part of the poem that tells you this is what the poem is about.
 
Main clue from Part 1: __________________________________________
 
Main clue from Part 2: __________________________________________
 
Main clue from Part 3: __________________________________________
 

k) What things did you already know, that helped you work out what this poem is about?

 
 
 
 
 
 
Task administration: 

This task can be completed with pencil and paper.

For this comprehension exercise, the students need to have the poem progressively revealed to them in three parts. That is why it has been presented in three sections.The poem can be enlarged as appropriate for a class or group situation, or projected onto a screen and revealed to the students part by part. Another way of presenting this task is to print the poem as is, and cut it into strips to give to individual students part by part.

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 drawn and/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. There is no right answer. 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. Not to erase any of their initial ideas from earlier brainstorms when they move onto a new part and see new evidence. Their ideas are not wrong.
Source: School Journal, Part 1, Number 1, 1988, Learning Media
Copyright: 
Text was first published by Learning Media Limited on behalf of the Ministry of Education.
Copyright Bev Kemp 1988.
Permission granted for classroom use in Aotearoa New Zealand.
 
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
comprehension, visualising, inference, synthesis, poetry, progressive disclosure, SJ-1-1-1998
Description of task: 
This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem to students. It assesses their ability to infer. SJ-1-1-1998. 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: 
    Y4 (09/2005)
Part 1 a) Descriptions demonstrate that student has made connections to the evidence in the text of something that could:

  • be under a person's clothes and spread by itself, e.g., skin, hair, rash, their spirit.

All suggestions are in the singular.5
difficult
 
 
very easy
b) Student identifies words that imply something is on a person's body, e.g.,

  • "Beneath these clothes"
  • "spreads (itself) over me".
 very easy
Part 2 d) Descriptions demonstrate that student has made connections to the evidence in text of something that could be:

  • around and on a person's body, and up their nose, e.g., skin, hair, rash, their spirit.

All suggestions are in the singular.
moderate
 
 
easy
e) Student identifies words that signal something is on a person's body and up their nose, e.g.,

  • "Around"/"up"/"on".
 very easy
Part 3 g)
 Descriptions demonstrate that student has made connections to previous and new evidence of something that:is on a person's body/is part of them and grows with them, e.g., hair, skin, spirit  
Diagnostic and formative information: 

An analysis of student responses from the trial of this resource identified two main areas of difficulty. These are expanded on below:

Synthesising evidence to make inferences

While the majority of trial students had no difficulty identifying relevant evidence, they did have difficulty synthesising it to make inferences that drew on all the evidence in the text. For example, at b), 47% of trial students identified the words "beneath these clothes" and 42% identified "spreads itself over me" as the main words that helped them to visualise at a). However, only 37% synthesised this evidence and visualised something at a) that could be on a person's body and spread by itself. The following table captures some responses from trial students who did not synthesise the evidence.

Responses at a) Likely misinterpretation of evidence
A pet rat, a flea/spider (6%) Can be under a person's clothes, but moves as opposed to spreads.
Sunscreen, tummy button (15%) Can be under a person's clothes, but does not move/spread.

At g), 37% of students described something that was consistent with all the evidence across the poem. This increased to 47% at i). Other responses here were consistent with the new evidence of growing with a person, but not as part of or on a person, i.e., not connecting with Part 1 and 2 evidence. Examples of these follow.

Responses at i) Likely misinterpretation of evidence
Blood, bones (13%) Does grow with a person and move, but are inside a person, not on. (Bones is in the plural, which does not fit grammatically with the poem.)
Height (16%) Does grow with a person, but is separate from them, and moves rather than spreads.
 
Articulating inconsistencies between ideas and evidence
The majority of trial students did not articulate their thinking at c), f), or k).Both c) and f) are reflective tasks, asking students to reflect on their previous thinking. With the difficulty students had synthesising the evidence in preceding parts, low-level responses or no responses at these reflective points suggests that either students are unaware of their inconsistencies or lack the ability or inclination to tease them out in a written form. 
 
Next steps: 

Synthesising evidence

For those students who are not synthesising all the evidence, repeating the task at j) as a shared task, could help to bring the pieces of the jigsaw together.

j) Write down the main clue from each part of the poem that tells you this is what the poem is about.

Main clue from Part 1: _________________________________________

Main clue from Part 2: _________________________________________

Main clue from Part 3: _________________________________________

 

Articulating thinking

At k) students are asked to explain how they know what they know, i.e., draw on evidence from prior knowledge and/or experience. 80% of trial students did not achieve this.

With increasing emphasis on students being able to unpack their thinking, students can be scaffolded into this by a think/pair/share activity, and/or by teachers modelling a think aloud conversation with themselves in front of students. In her article 'Snapshots of our journey to thoughtful literacy', in 'The Reading Teacher', Volume 59, Number 1, September, 2005, Holly Diehl  describes the process one school undertook to develop thoughtful readers. She believes that metacognition – thinking about their own thinking – is the key for thoughtful, active readers.The school's process began with the basics: Reading is thinking. They believed that once students became aware of the thoughts in their heads, they could then develop command over these thoughts...

Diehl used an idea from Tovani (2000), to introduce her students to the concept of reading as thinking: Listening to their voices.

"One voice is my saying voice...it just is me reading the words. [Note: Tovani (2000) referred to this voice as the reciting voice.] ...My other voice is the one that helps me understand what I'm reading. It's my conversation voice. It's like I'm having a conversation with the author...

Connections to the text are very important to help understand and remember what you are reading, but you have to be careful with them. Sometimes one thought will lead to another, and before you know it, you're thinking about something else. Let's call this the distracting voice because it leads you away from the text." [Part of teacher modelling conversations with students.]

Following Wilhelm's (2001) recursive phases, the process moved from modelling, to scaffolding, to independent use. Graphic organisers were used to record and reflect on the strategy itself, as well as the different voices they had during the shared book readings. When the students were comfortable with the idea of paying attention to their thinking, Diehl felt they were ready to move into the more specific reading strategies.

Diehl, Holly, L. (2005). Snapshots of our journey to thoughtful literacy. The Reading Teacher, Volume 59, (1), 56-69.Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don't get it: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.