Welcome to the series High Leverage/Low-Lift Supports for Older Struggling Readers. We’ve compiled our best practices for reaching striving readers beyond third grade, and are excited to share these easy-to-implement strategies to support adolescent literacy instruction.
Since my first year of teaching, I’ve felt the weight of the responsibility to incorporate current events in the classroom. At times, this weight has left me frozen and ashamedly prevented me from teaching about our present reality in real time because of the fear that I won’t do it right (whatever that means).
Silence, however, is its own statement and teaching; it speaks of what I, someone who works with young people, feel is important/unimportant to discuss.
It took me a long time and fellow educators calling me in to understand that there is a middle ground; there is space between scrapping a lesson plan based on the latest headlines and pushing ahead with a curriculum written in another time, for another world. That middle ground, for me, lies in having a back pocket full of visible thinking routines.
A Brief History of Visible Thinking Routines
The Harvard Graduate School of Education has a truly awesome initiative called Project Zero. Here’s a brief history from their website:
“Founded by philosopher Nelson Goodman at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1967, Project Zero began with a focus on understanding learning in and through the arts. Over the decades, we have continued our inquiry into the arts and arts education, while drawing together diverse disciplinary perspectives to examine fundamental questions of human expression and development. Our research endeavors are marked by a passion for the big conceptual questions, a passion for close collaboration with practitioners, a passion for the interdisciplinary, a passion for the full range of human development, and a passion for the arts.”
I also really recommend watching this video!
Out of Project Zero came the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison and, from there, visible thinking routines.
Visible thinking routines are metacognitive strategies for tracking thinking while engaging with texts and the world around us. You’ve probably used or seen visible thinking routines before (see/think/wonder and KWL charts are two). They level out the playing field for learners, can be highly differentiated and customized to meet the cognitive needs and learning styles of a variety of students. Real talk: Without visible thinking routines, I'd be a reactive mess of an educator. I once went to a PD session where the facilitator said, "Protocols are about equity." In providing ways for all students to engage with challenging content and/or texts, visible thinking routines allow everyone entry points.
Visible Thinking Routines in Action
The world is a scary place. As a teacher, I was bombarded with questions about current events from my seventh graders. Luckily, I had visible thinking routines in my back pocket. During a particularly heavy news cycle, we might process by starting with a KWL chart. Then, we might read a NewsELA article on the topic. Students could annotate for a sentence, phrase, and word. We might close the lesson by filling in the "L" column of our chart and completing an "I used to think/Now I think" exit ticket.
Do It Yourself
Clearly, I’m absolutely smitten with visible thinking routines. I was introduced to them on my first day of student teaching in 2017 and have used them at least weekly and often daily in my classroom ever since. Stay tuned for a follow-up post about three of my favorite Visual Thinking Routines in action!
Check out the Storyshares Educator Toolkit for more practical tips for reaching older striving readers!