This routine is perfect for helping students to examine claims or statements closely and use evidence to support their thinking. This routine really helps students reason with evidence, look at what is missing and identify contradictory information that disproves the claim or statement allowing students to see things from both sides. When I first began using this thinking routine I saw great possibilities for its use in the Mathematics classroom. We would examine statements and claims centered around mathematical concepts and elicit our prior knowledge and use current evidence to support or disprove the claims. Together with my learners we navigated the initial phase of development for this routine. As the teacher I really grappled with ways to expand this routine beyond the subject area of Mathematics. I wanted to provide my learners with additional situations we could use this routine to scaffold our thinking in different ways and to move beyond seeing it as only being able to use it in Mathematics. We began to experiment with this routine across the curriculum, often using it as a vessel to make important links between curriculum areas. One of the areas I found it to be really beneficial for learners was when we explored different themes in literary texts. Take for example the quote from Cathryn Louis "Greed, in the end, fails even the greedy." We used this quote as our claim and explored how it related to the characters in our animated text Ruckus. We used contextual clues and inferences to show how the characters actions and behaviour highlighted the theme of greed. We linked to other texts we knew that also supported the theme of greed and posed questions and wonderings to explore further. In the initial phases of development this is highly structured, but as the routine is used on a regular basis across all Key Learning Areas the students are able to use it and apply it seamlessly. Claim . . .Support . . .
Question . . .
Discussion Prompts:
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AuthorHi, I am Alice. I am a primary teacher and leader in New South Wales, Australia. I have been teaching for the past 14 years in both the Public and Catholic school systems. I am passionate about supporting and mentoring colleagues to think deeply about their efforts to cultivate thinking and learning opportunities for students. Read more Archives
August 2023
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