What or who are they?

What or who 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 making inferences to predict what a poem could be about.
Read the following poem by David Hill (from School Journal, Part 4, no. 1, 2002 or available at NZPoetryBox) in three parts, one part at a time.
 
After reading each part, use the left hand boxes to predict all the things you think the poem is describing. Use the right hand boxes to explain how the evidence in the text, and what you know, supports your predictions.

Question 1Change answer

There they were this morning,
High up on an office block.
Part 1
I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:  because:

Question 1Change answer

There they were this morning,
High up on an office block.
 
One was polishing the sun,
Another rinsing fleecy clouds,
A third rubbing the blue sky.
Part 2
Now I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:  because:
 

Question 1Change answer

There they were this morning,
High up on an office block.

One was polishing the sun,
Another rinsing fleecy clouds,
A third rubbing the blue sky.
 

If I come back tonight,
Will they still be there -
One scrubbing the shooting stars,
Another washing the moon,
A third wiping down the Milky Way?
Part 3
Now I think this poem could be describing any one of these things:  because:
 

Question 1Change answer

Pause, look, and think back: 
How did the verbs 'polishing, rinsing, rubbing, scrubbing, washing, wiping' help you understand what this poem could be about?

Question 1Change answer

The focus of this task has been making inferences. Describe when and how you used any of the following reading strategies:
 
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: 

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. On the student resource, the left hand boxes are for brainstorming 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, but 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: 
School Journal, Part 4, Number 1, Learning Media, 2002.
Level:
4
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
comprehension, inference, poetry, progressive disclosure, synthesis, self-assessment, SJ-4-1-2002
Description of task: 
This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem to students. It assesses their ability to use evidence from the poem to work out what it could be describing. SJ-4-1-2002. 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 5
Reading for literary experience, set 5
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
  Y9 (04/2005)
Part 1 At least one of student's suggestions and its explanation is consistent with things being high up, on a building, e.g., "I have seen pigeons perched high up on buildings early in the morning". easy
All student suggestions are in the plural. easy
Part 2 At least one of student's suggestions and its explanation is consistent with things being able to polish the sun, rinse the clouds and rub the sky, e.g., rainbows seem to clean the sky, rinse it and rub it. (Accept magical beings, metaphorical interpretations, flying objects, and people.) very easy
All student suggestions continue to be in the plural. easy
Part 3 At least one of student's suggestions and its explanation is consistent with things being able to scrub the stars, wash the moon and wipe the Milky Way. (Accept same answers as for Part 2, including astronauts.) easy
ll student suggestions continue to be in the plural. difficult

Results based on trial set of 153 students.

Diagnostic and formative information: 

Due to the fact that the poem used in this resource lent itself to being interpreted metaphorically, trial responses were marked generously. An analysis of student responses identified one main area of difficulty:

Using grammatical clues

  • In the trial of this resource, a number of students misread the word "on" as 'in' during the first part. As a result, students were under the misconception from Part 1 that something was inside an office block, rather than on it. This initial misreading meant that the proceeding parts were cumulatively misinterpreted.
  • The trial revealed that students easily picked up the "they" clue in Part 1, i.e., the implication being that the poem is describing something in the plural. Students maintained consistency with this evidence in Part 2 quite well. By Part 3, however, 66% of students had lost that connection, their responses being a mix of plural and singular, i.e., a majority of students did not continue suggesting possibilities only in the plural.
Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4, Comprehension Strategies, p131-134, Learning Media, 2003.
Explaining Reading, A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills, and Strategies, Gerald G. Duffy, The Guilford Press, 2003.