Learning with Ms Riley
Lanyon High School English
Starring the hands of students in Year 9 English Level 2
Pedagogical Approaches to
English Year 9
• Cooperative Learning Groups
• Cooperative Reading (4 resources model)
From this…
• Essay Scaffold & CQ Rubric
• Placemat
to this…
• Functional Grammar Retrieval & Poetry
My Classroom
Cooperative Learning Groups
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The year 9 English classroom is set up in cooperative learning groups. (4/6 classes in this
space)
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Gen Y likes collegiate support but planned pairing of students supports nervous learners and
facilitates ‘New Learning’
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Most learners appreciate a helping hand but instructions about degree of help need to be
explicit to avoid ‘free loaders’.
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All learners learn well but gives an
opportunity of leadership or ‘coaching’ to
more capable students
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Weaknesses – encourages social interaction
– strong classroom management needed.
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Works in all situations except where
individual assessment is required.
Year 9 English Classroom in cooperative table groups
Cooperative Reading
4 Resources Model - Allan Luke & Peter Freebody
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Cooperative Reading is a strategy used in the school from Yr7 to Yr10 and helps students to
think critically about a text from 4 different perspectives by using the 4 roles.
Reciprocal teaching gives students agency.
Text Participant – how do I participate in this text?
Text Analyst – what does this text do to me?
Code Breaker – how do I make sense of this text?
Text User – how do I use this text?
Students formulate their own ‘fat’ questions
and write a reflection about their shared learning.
Strengths are the same as for cooperative
learning.
Weaknesses – some students need to be
encouraged to write more than ‘token’ questions.
Senior students all reflected that they learnt
more deeply about the text.
This kind of strategy works best with practice
- teachers need to really understand the roles
and the kind of questions generated by each
- professional development recommended.
Cooperative Reading of ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E. Hinton
Essay Scaffold & CQ Rubric
PEC Paragraphs (Point, Evidence/Elaboration/Explanation, Concluding sentence)
Criteria Quality Rubric
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The Essay Scaffold explicitly reminds students about the structural expectations of essays.
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Strategies like the ‘5 Whys’ aid students in gathering ideas for the elaboration.
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Paragraph boxes remind students to stick to one idea per paragraph and the amount of space
sets the expectation for paragraph length.
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A great way to get students to draft their work.
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Purpose is to break the essay into steps
a strategy highly recommended for students
with special needs eg. Autism
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Strengths - are the expectations of structure
are explicit – everyone on the same ‘page’.
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Weaknesses – some students become
overly reliant on the ‘look’ of the scaffold.
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Senior students all reflected that they
appreciated knowing exactly what was
expected - CQ is even more explicit!
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This kind of strategy just really works!
Students using Essay Scaffolds to write essays on ‘The Outsiders’
Placemat
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The Placemat is a collaborative thinking tool.
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It values the individual first by allowing everyone space to record what they know or think.
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Collaboration begins when negotiation about the ‘main idea’ happens and is recorded in the
central oval of the worksheet – a synthesis or distilling of ideas – sometimes just ‘in common’.
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Purpose is to value everyone and then
encourage collaboration.
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Strengths - everyone feels valued.
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Weaknesses – some students rely solely on
what their neighbour wrote – need to
encourage students to work ‘alone’ first.
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Everyone can do this one – achievable
learning for everyone.
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This kind of strategy works well for initial
impressions of a topic or to reflect at the
end of a unit or any kind of brainstorm.
The Placemat at work…
Functional Grammar Retrieval
Poetry and the ‘WHY’ factor
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The 3 aspects of Functional Grammar are:
Mode (What is it?), Field (Where is it?) & Tenor (Impact)
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Explicitly teaches the ‘rules’ of creating texts.
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Helps students to understand how they are being positioned by a text.
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Retrieval chart is simply a neat way to record their findings.
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Strengths – students engage in higher
order thinking – the step beyond
‘what is it?’
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Weaknesses – is there a downside to
higher order thinking and deep knowledge?
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Instead of just giving students the criteria
to construct a text they go on the journey
of investigation themselves – much more
meaningful, memorable and powerful!
Functional Grammar Retrieval of Literary Devices in Sonnets