Objectives: The objectives for this phase were to analyze the comparison and contrast macrostructure using point-by-point comparison, utilizing a graphic organizer to extract information from text, and identifying discourse markers.
Background knowledge activation/Review (5 minutes): The students had to use text structures to pre-read page 179, specifically looking at the headings, images, and captions, and create a brief outline of information for the content on the page. The researcher reviewed the outline students created for the background knowledge activation/review and created one outline for the class from the responses the students provided.
Modeling (10 minutes): The students received a KWHL (what I Know, what I Want to know, How I will research the information, and what I Learned) chart as a pre-reading
instructional strategy. Using the think-aloud stage, the researcher modeled how to complete the first three columns of the chart (the K, W, and H columns). The researcher provided one item for each column. For example, “I know that sound waves need a medium to travel, but I want to know if some mediums allow sound waves to travel faster than other mediums. I can research my answer by conducting an experiment.” Following the think-aloud, the researcher explained how to use the KWHL chart as a guide for reading science text. After modeling how to use the KWHL chart, the researcher provided the students with guided practice.
Guided practice (15 minutes): The students were instructed to share what they know about sound waves as the researcher wrote down their answers on the board to create a class KWHL chart on the board. Once the researcher and the students completed the K column, they moved on to the W column. For the W column, the researcher provided a lot of assistance because students were unsure of what they would want to know about sound waves, so the researcher had to provide them with additional support to guide them through the idea that based
94
on what information they already know, they can think of things they would want to know. The students completed the H column with little guidance, listing several resources for information. The researcher then instructed the students to turn back to pages 178 and 179 and using the text feature strategies add to either column K column or column W.
Background knowledge activation (5 minutes):After the students had added at least two ideas to the KWHL chart, the researcher asked students for words they have read or used to compare and contrast two things. As the students shared answers, the researcher wrote the answers on the board, creating two columns, one for comparison and one for contrast.
Guided practice (10 minutes): The researcher provided the students with a comparison and contrast graphic organizer (see Appendix H), and instructed students to turn to page 179 and identify parts in the text where transverse waves and longitudinal waves are compared or
contrasted. As the students viewed page 179, the researcher used think-aloud and questioning to guide the students through identification of points of comparison to add to the compare and contrast graphic organizer. The researcher and the students extracted four points of comparison: ways to transfer energy, speed of wave, direction of travel, and type of waves.
Independent practice (5 minutes): To wrap up, the researcher instructed the students to add what they learned about transverse waves and longitudinal waves onto their KWHL chart.
Language support for ELs: The researcher used leveled questions (i.e., yes/no, one word responses, choice responses) as an instructional strategy to prompt the students to content-area– based answers (Nutta et al., 2014). She also used translations of instructions and vocabulary. The W column was challenging for some students because there were several students who had just moved into the US less than six months previously, so their background knowledge was quite different, and their difficulty with polysemous words became evident. One student shared
95
in Spanish, “Me gustaría saber porque algunas olas son mas grandes” (I would like to know why some waves are bigger), which the researcher interpreted as asking why waves (i.e.
electromagnetic waves versus sound waves) differ. However, that is not what the student meant. The student was referring to ocean waves, which the researcher then replied that oceans waves are a type of wave, but not necessarily sound waves. For ELs, the researcher continued to ask leveled questions to ensure that there were no further misconceptions. She began with yes/no questions for the students who did not speak English. She provided choice questions, and one- word responses.
Materials used:
Vocabulary handout with definition and translations
Fusion science textbook
Researcher-created PowerPoint
Comparison and contrast graphic organizer
White board and markers
Notes on discussion: The students during this phase answered any explicit question that the researcher asked. Because of the goals of this phase and time constraints, the students were not allowed to have open and extensive discussions with the class or researcher.
Notes on intervention: This phase of the intervention was very researcher driven; the majority of time was spent on guided practice. This may be because the researcher introduced too many objectives for this lesson.
96
Phase IV: Using Pre-Reading Strategies, Macrostructure Features, Discourse Markers, and