Text Rendering: First Turn, Last Turn

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Identifying significant lines of text is a reading skill.  Many students will describe this process as being intuitive claiming, “the line just SEEMS important”.  Students who struggle with this skill find this response frustrating.  While there may be some intuitive sense to identifying important information in a text, students can also unpack this intuition by reflecting on the reasons why they have chosen a quote and sharing those with their peers.  These protocols help students develop critical reading skills by collaboratively engaging with others’ choices.

Process

  1. Choose a passage for students to read: 
    1. Language based texts: 20-50 lines
    1. Media or image-based texts:  6-10 frames depending on the depth and complexity of the images, panels, or stills.
  2. Form groups of 4-6 students.
  3. Ask students to independently choose 2-3 lines of the passage, or 2-3 different combinations of images or aspects of the text, they find interesting or significant.
  4. Identify who will be sharing first (oldest, youngest, longest hair, etc.)
  5. The first person shares their line or aspect but does not comment on it. 
  6. Moving clockwise, each group member shares their thoughts on why they think the person might have chosen that line or aspect from the text as being ‘stand out’ or significant.  The group members share one at a time with no crosstalk or discussion.
  7. The original contributor for the round goes last, sharing their thoughts on why they chose the line or aspect as being interesting or significant.
  8. Repeat the pattern until everyone has shared their line or aspect (trying to avoid repetition, hence making more than one choice for the passage/text).
  9. Ask students to reflect in pairs, small group, as a class or in their portfolios:  How is your thinking about the text now, different from when you first read it (if at all)?  What was it like to hold your own thoughts until last?  How did this effect the collaborative experience?

Credits

Adapted from: “The Adaptive School:  Strategies and Moves for Facilitating Groups”.  Thinking Collaborative, https://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/as-resources.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Shopify.

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