Mining for Meaning: Using Reading, Thinking, and Writing

Strategies to Appeal to the Intellect

• Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

How is “thinking” like a miner’s helmet?

How is “reading” like a miner’s lamp?

How is “writing” like a miner’s pickaxe?

ReadingThinkingWriting

All social scientist employ a variety of key cognitive skills from the science, mathematics and language arts. They use an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human behavior, organizations, institutions, beliefs, and attitudes across time and space.

Courses with highly technical language or content specific vocabulary can introduce as many as 3,000 words unfamiliar to high school students. This staggering amount exceeds the number of words taught in most foreign language classes.

(Holliday, William G. “Helping Students Learn Effectively From Text”, 1991)

Feldman and Kinsella explain that teachers must discriminate in their choices and focus on either “words that are related to the central lesson concepts or words that have general utility in academic context” (2005)

•Concepts:• “Big Idea” words that get

at the central concept addressed the text or lesson

• General academic words that are commonly used and applied across the content areas and grade level

• Jargon:• Words that are specific to the subject area

and are frequently taught to students at particular age and proficiency levels

• Related worlds that might help engage in academic discourse about the topic and ideas or themes

Receptive Vocabulary•Includes words that we recognize when we hear or see them.

Expressive Vocabulary•Words that we use when we speak or write.

•Students typically have a larger receptive vocabulary than expressive vocabulary

Sharecroppers became a symbol of the discrimination against minority groups that the Civil Rights movement tried to address in lawsuits and in primary elections. Protests and demonstrations were used to call attention to the way minorities groups were badgered and hurt by those in power. Their goal was to integrate minority groups like African-Americans, woman, and Hispanics so that they could enjoy all the rights and privileges in American life. New laws established by the Civil Rights movement established exciting new territories for minorities to explore and enjoy.

Working with your group, take the definition cards and place Working with your group, take the definition cards and place them in the order that the words appear in this summary them in the order that the words appear in this summary statement.statement.

• What minority group do you see in this picture?

• What other minority group do you see?

• What would you have to do to integrate this picture?

• How does this scene demonstrate discrimination?

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• What are the most common forms of writing in the Social Studies classroom?

• What are the most common reasons Social Studies teachers avoid using writing in instruction?

Why should all students write:

Because writing is thinking!

• Requires analysis and synthesis

• Makes you refine ideas

• Requires you to clarify, organize and express

• Allows you to reach and express deeper understanding

Once we have a basic understanding, we need opportunities to talk and write about what we are learning. At this point, we might begin to understand.

Writing –to-learn activities can be used to help students reflect on and explore ideas and concepts they are reading about in class, thereby helping students to construct meaning. These writing activities are intended to be brief and can be assigned at any point during the class period.

Within you group and using your slate, compare the three tab books. What similarities and differences do you see in the books?

What are the advantages for struggling writers to this approach?

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