I have always LOVED an improv game, even as a youngster. I remember when my 5th-grade teacher had us participate in a mock Salem witch trial prior to our social studies unit. This role-play activity was engaging, and lively, and made me feel confident as we dove into a topic I had very little schema with.
As an educator, I now realize my teacher was building our background knowledge around a very complex topic prior to our unit.
Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, authors of Shifting the Balance: Six Ways to Bring The Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom, discuss how children need more opportunities to become experts in the world around them. As students start to understand the world around them, they are more apt to draw on that knowledge when faced with near learning experiences.
Let’s explore some fun and meaningful ways to build your readers’ background knowledge.
Mind Mapping Tricky Topics and Themes
Like many of you and your students, I am a visual learner. I go bananas for a snazzy anchor chart or a bulletin board that highlights BIG IDEAS in stimulating ways. There is a palpable sense of relief in my body when
I can digest a complex text topic such as urban sprawl with visual coherence.
At the most recent NCTE conference in Boston, many of our literacy colleagues used mind maps to launch their sessions on complex topics such as failure, citizenship, and liberation.
A mind map is a visual strategy to organize words and phrases associated with a topic. Mind mapping can be done in ANY content area and with ANY grade level. Prior to reading a text with a complex topic or theme:
- Place the topic or theme in the center of the paper, word doc, or chart. It is crucial not to define or provide scaffolding here, as you want to see what your readers come up with on their own.
- Ask students to chat about the words or phrases that come to mind when they hear that topic.
- As they chat in pairs or groups, you can walk around and capture their ideas and then display them on the map. We recommend writing their ideas on individual post-its. You’ll see why below.
- Ask students to notice any patterns or inconsistencies in the words or phrases of their peers.
- Encourage students to help you group similar ideas together. Using Post-its here helps you group the ideas quickly.
- Have students reflect on what the topic or theme means based on the mind map. This could be a written or oral response.
As students dive into the text, you can revisit the mind map as a class and notice how much background knowledge they had prior to getting started. You also have the opportunity to help students revise and expand the map with new thinking.
Guided Inquiring with Layered Text Sets
Texts come in all shapes and sizes. When I say text, I don’t just mean a book or an article. A text could be:
- A book
- An article
- An infographic or drawing
- A video clip or audio recording
- A poster
- An email, letter, or journal entry
- AND SO MUCH MORE
One of my favorite ways to springboard my readers into a complex topic is to introduce supporting texts to help confirm, revise, and extend their schema. This is a form of guided inquiry, which involves instructors assisting students in mastering and learning through the process of active investigation itself.
- First, find a launching text that confirms or echoes what your students likely already know about this complex topic.
- Then, use a different text that challenges the point of view of the first text. This will help your students start to ponder more deeply about the topic and challenge their previous understanding.
- Send students into groups to discuss and chart what they have come to understand thus far about the topic and write down questions they want answered.
- Finally, introduce the text you plan to use during instruction and have students monitor their understanding based on their group reflections.
Hunting for great texts is no easy task! You’ll want to gather texts from a wide variety of sources, with varying points of view. That being said, collaboration will be your best friend here! The more voices you have during the planning process of a guided inquiry activity, the wider your students’ foundational knowledge will be.
Virtual Field Trips
While Ms. Frizzle was one of my biggest teacher influences, SADLY, her field trip planning methodology isn’t realistic. While I would love to take my 1st graders to the Great Barrier Reef when we discuss the impact of pollution on the ocean, I can’t.
There are going to be texts our students come across that ask them to step into unknown realms and think at a high level. Research has shown that students who have banked expertise and experience, even if it’s seemingly insignificant, will have a leg up in comprehending the text. Recht and Leslie (1988) gathered two groups of children, one group of on-grade-level readers who knew very little about baseball and another group that struggled with reading but knew a lot about baseball. The students who had a foundational understanding of baseball with limited decodability outperformed their more text-fluent peers.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a visual gal. So in an effort to channel Ms. Frizzle and give access to students who mirrored this kind of processing style, I started taking my students on virtual field trips. This started at the beginning of the year when I talked about my hometown of Austin, TX, which many of my southern California kiddos had never heard of let alone traveled to. As the year progressed, I started preempting my lessons about complex topics and themes with a visual walk-through.
- Find a video or virtual tour related to your text topic. We recommend using videos or tours that DO NOT have narration. We want students to share their thinking and reflections without scaffolding.
- Have students notice and note their findings with their peers. This can be done orally or in a written response, or a combo of both!
- As they chat and write, the teacher walks around and captures their ideas, and then displays them. We recommend writing their ideas on individual post-its.
- Encourage students to help you group similar ideas together. Using Post-its here helps you group the ideas quickly.
- Have students reflect on what the topic or theme means based on the mind map. This could be a written or oral response.
There are MANY MANY other ways to build your readers’ background knowledge that goes beyond your traditional KWL chart. We cannot wait to pick up more tips and strategies as we visit your classrooms in the coming semester!
More Resources:
- The Ramped-Up Read Aloud by Maria Walther
- To Read Stuff You Have to Know Stuff by Kelly Gallagher
- Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst
