Inquiry and Reading Apprenticeship Pedagogies for Student Success Cindy Hicks Professor Emerita of English, Chabot College Reading Apprenticeship Professional.

Inquiry and Reading Apprenticeship

Pedagogies for Student Success

Cindy Hicks bull Professor Emerita of English Chabot Collegebull Reading Apprenticeship Professional Development

Facilitator

Welcome

bull Please introduce yourself to one person sitting near you

bull First think about one thing you would like to share about yourself something not necessarily work related What is something you have done that you are glad you did Have you experienced anything new lately Whatrsquos the best book you have read How do you like to spend your time when yoursquore not working If you could have a theme song what would it be Anything that you donrsquot mind sharing

bull Then tell your partner your name and one thing about yourself

Workplace competence requires

bull Basic Skills--11130891113089reading writing arithmetic and mathematics speaking and listening

bull Thinking Skills--11130891113089thinking creatively making

decisions solving problems seeing things in the

minds eye knowing how to learn and reasoning bull Personal Qualities--11130891113089individual responsibility self-

esteem sociability self-management and integrity

(According to the Secretaryrsquos Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills Department of Labor)

Higher Education Goals

bull Basic Academic Success Skills Core Communication and Quantitative Skills

bull Higher-Order Thinking Skillsbull Discipline-Specific Knowledge and Skillsbull Liberal Arts and Academic Valuesbull Work and Career Preparationbull Personal Development

(Adapted from Thomas A Angelo and K Patricia Cross)

Developing Competence

Achieving Literacy Goals

RAInquiry

What is Inquiry in the ReadingWriting Classroom

bull Inquiry is an instructional focus that engages students in activities to help them develop skills or strategies for dealing with data in order to say or write something about the data (Hillocks)

bull The data appear in the ldquotextsrdquo students are reading or viewing

bull The inquiry is posed in a prompt

bull Students develop knowledge and cognitive strategies for effective reading and analysis as they develop responses to the inquiry

Developing Inquiry Prompts in the ReadingWriting Classroom

bull Present students with sets of data about a controversial situation

bull The data should include information about the controversy and various perspectives on the controversy

bull The prompt should ask students to support an argument or a recommendation to resolve the controversy or at least to move forward on it

Adapted from George Hillocks ldquoWhat Works in Written Compositionrdquo

Examples of Inquiry Promptsbull Adapted from a study by Lynn Troyka cited in Hillocks

You are a legislative analyst for a member of the city council and have been asked to write a position paper on the problem of pollution in our small coastal community and how it affects our tourist trade

Consider the statement of the problem and the views presented by

-the conservationist concerned about the balance of nature in the

area

-the executive of the chemical plant responsible for the pollution

-the unemployed male hoping to be hired at the chemical plant

-the member of the Department of Environmental Conservation

responsible for working out a compromise

Then write a recommendation for the position the city council member should take on this issue Support your argument

Another Inquiry Prompt

bull From Robinsonrsquos Texts and Contexts

Carefully examine the information above on gun-related violence and come to a conclusion on whether handguns should be banned or licensed in the United States on a national basis

Traits of Inquiry Promptsbull Inquiry prompts refer students to the data which may appear

in the textbook in videos in interviews on the internet in workplace observations etc

bull The data are limited That is the information students have to work with is sufficient to allow ldquostudents to concentrate on the strategies of formulating and supporting generalizations predicting and countering other arguments and so forth without being overwhelmedhelliprdquo (Hillocks)

bull Inquiry prompts afford instructors the opportunity to strategically and intentionally engage students in acquiring knowledge and practicing strategies for effective reading and critical thinking

Critical Reading Prompted by Inquiry

bull Having a clear purpose for the reading

bull Allocating attention to important rather than trivial content in this case content related to the inquiry or problem at hand

bull Identifying patterns

bull Forming testing and verifying predictions inferences and conclusions

bull Critically evaluating contentevidence for bias internal consistency and compatibility with prior knowledge

bull Considering and evaluating counterexamples

bull Applying new knowledge broadly in this case to respond to the inquiry

Reading Apprenticeship Supporting Inquiring Minds

bull Reading Apprenticeship a research-based instructional framework creates a partnership of expertise between the teacher and students drawing on what content area teachers know and do as skilled discipline-based readers and on learnersrsquo unique and often underestimated strengths

bull RA provides a way to seamlessly integrate reading and writing instruction

bull Embedding RA into an inquiry-based class empowers the students ldquoto figure things outrdquo

bull Embedding RA allows instructors to see and hear how students are thinking and learning

RA Inquiry-Based Instruction

bull Reading is a problem-solving activity

bull Students and their instructors engage in inquiries about how they make meaning from texts

bull Thinking is made visible extending opportunities for inquiry and effective instructional intervention

Dimensions of Reading Apprenticeship

Three Key RA Routines

Reading Apprenticeship routines engage students in the four dimensionsmdashpersonal social cognitive and knowledge buidingmdashby sparking and sustaining metacognitive conversation RA routines allow students and instructors to make their thinking visible

bull Think Aloudbull Talk to the Textbull Metacognitive Logs

The Metacognitive Funnel

Developing Studentsrsquo Reading Reasoning and Writing Handguns Inquirybull Think Aloud A Reading Apprenticeship routine to help

students develop skills or strategies for dealing with data in order to say or write something about the data

bull The inquiry prompt Carefully examine the information on gun-related violence and come to a conclusion on whether handguns should be banned or licensed in the United States on a national basis

Practicing Think Aloud with the Handguns Inquiry

bull Model Think Aloudbull Provide Guided Practice (Think Pair Share)bull Debrief

Opening a window into our thinking

bull What did my partner or I dobull Where did my partner or I do itbull How did that affect our reading and understanding

What does a Reading Apprenticeship Classroom Look Like

bull A focus on comprehension and metacognitive conversation

bull A climate of collaboration

bull An emphasis on student access equity and independence

bull One will see

bull Modeling by the instructor

bull Guided practice for the students

bull Lots of talk among the students and between the students and

instructor about how they are making meaning from a text 20

RA in a CNA Class

bull Pam Butterfield at Renton Technical College has embedded Reading Apprenticeship into her Certified Nursing Assistant Class In this brief clip students write a Metacognitive Log to support their learning from their text

bull As you watch this video keep your own Metacognitive Log On the left in the ldquoEvidencerdquo column write what strikes you as you view the video On the right in the ldquoInterpretationrdquo column expand upon what struck you If you notice the students engaging in inquiry and ldquofiguring things outrdquo make a note of that

bull httpreadingapprenticeshiporgresearch-impactvideosclassroom

Success Reading Apprenticeshipbull ldquoOverall Reading Apprenticeship comes in many forms and shapes

Instructors use it in different ways and community colleges have provided varying levels of support However when it is fully understood and incorporated into developmental courses in genuine ways RA changes the ways that classes are conducted and helps instructors move away from remedial pedagogy to more active and more student-focused classes and more sophisticated analysis of texts appropriate for college-level coursework We think it deserves greater consideration in community colleges as one way to address the inadequate reading preparation of students in ways that are consistent with the efforts to prepare them for college-level work rdquo -W Norton Grubb et al ldquoInnovation in Developmental Education The Landscape and the Locus of Changerdquo 49

RA Student OutcomesInstructors who have embedded Reading Apprenticeship into their classes report such positive outcomes as

bull More reading with increased engagement and confidence

bull Stronger writingbull Development of a range of strategies to support

comprehensionbull Higher levels of interaction between and among

teachers and studentsbull Increased retention 23

Success Inquiry Pedagogy and Writingbull ldquoInquiry focuses the attention of students on strategies

for dealing with sets of data strategies that will be used in writingrdquo

bull In the readingwriting classroom inquiry coupled with sentence combining and scales are ldquoapproaches to writing instruction [that are] more effective [than the writing-as-process model] hellipOn the average these treatments are nearly four times more effective than free writing and over two-and-a-half times more powerful than the traditional study of model pieces of writingrdquo

-George Hillocks ldquoWhat Works in Teaching Composition A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Treatment Studiesrdquo 162

For More Information

wwwreadingapprenticeshiporg

Nika Hogan Community College RA Coordinator

mhoganwestedorg

Todayrsquos presenter Cindy Hicks RA Professional Development Facilitator

chickschabotcollegeedu

THANK YOU

RA and Reading Instruction

bull Some strategies and other specifics of RA may be familiar to instructors who have studied adult academic literacy

bull The framework provides a ldquobig picturerdquo one that scaffolds studentsrsquo efforts to read challenging texts by embedding reading instructionsupport into discipline-specific classrooms

bull RA focuses on both the cognitive and non-cognitive domains since both are vital to learning