In an effort to make myself post more often, I have decided to do one post a month on a literacy strategy that I use in my science classroom. Hopefully, I will post more than just once a month, but at least this forces me to get in a post and if nothing else will remind me to blog! So here is my June Strategy. I'm not sure the name of this strategy but I'm going to call it "Two article viewpoint" activity. In this activity the students work in pairs. They are each assigned an article on the same topic. One article is for an issue and one article is against an issue. Each student takes notes on their article. They then meet up and discuss/compare notes. Then together they write a 3-5 sentences summary of the issue.
This strategy is useful for preparing for a debate, and also to teach about reliability of sources and looking at who wrote the article/crediantials. I just hand out a two column worksheet with a box at the bottom. Partner A reads first article and fills out the left column. Partner B reads article 2 and fills out the right hand column. Then pairs share and come up with a summary together.
A simple strategy to help with reading /analyzing articles!
