07.+Team+Analysis

=Team Analysis=

A. This strategy is for after reading/viewing, either non-fiction or fiction. The teacher decides of 5-6 key ideas/themes that he/she would like the students to take away from the reading. Students work in small groups to have a discussion about the issue or topic being studied. Students share their understandings and reflect on and add to others summaries and discussion points.

First one group presents their summary statement. The teacher scores the ideas, but does not share what he/she is looking for. The next group then affirms points from the first presentation, and adds their own thinking, offering "insight or personal comment" (322). The teacher has already decided on the main points that he/she is looking for, so after the 2nd presentation he/she assigns points which might go up or down depending on the ideas that were repeated, extended or added to. Students are not aware of which ideas they have scored points on. The next group quickly discusses what they can repeat and add in order to score more points. Each team takes turns "developing the interpretation". Bennett calls the mark a "mirror of how they thought relative to other groups and relative to the teacher's criteria" (323).

Goal of strategy is to help students pull out key ideas, summarize and make connections between each other's thinking.

Audience: students

Prior knowledge: students need to have some group skills already in place, ie listening and cooperating with each other. Teaching, time-frame" This activity can take up to an entire block depending on how deep the students get into their discussion.

Source: Bennett, Barrie Brent, and Noreen Carol. Rolheiser-Bennett. //Beyond Monet: the Artful Science of Instructional Integration//. Toronto, Ont.: Bookation, 2006. Print.

B. Step-by-step description of how to implement the strategy.

I used this strategy after completion of //To Kill a Mocking Bird// (Harper Lee). Students had read the lesson, and I planned this lesson with Barrie Bennett. I had never used this strategy, and wanted to see it in action by the 'expert'. We came up with five main ideas that I wanted students to remember about the story. We created a chart with the five themes down the side, and the team numbers across the top. The students knew there were six possible themes, and went at their group discussion with vigor and excitement, as it if were a puzzle.

After the first presentation received .5, they were stumped, but the next group realized that they needed to have more clarity. With each presentation scores went up and down, and the students really enjoyed presenting. With each presentation he tallied (as he listened) the main ideas that matched my themes, and that was how he came up with a score.

It really went against what we have been told about not giving criteria, but they were searching for themes to score points vs achieving a standard. By the end of the lesson we shared my themes, and then each theme became an area of the room. If students thought that theme was most significant in the book, they went to that area and had to explain to each other why they chose that area. At the end, the students quickly summarized why they were in that area, and tried to convince the others to come to their area.

Considering there was no marking on my part, the level of thinking and extension of brain power was quite amazing, I would use this strategy again. The students LOVED the lesson, and loved Barrie. My favorite part of the lesson was just before when I introduced him to them (as they were being remotely broadcast to the district inservice so they were a little stressed.). He asked them if they had any questions, and one girl said to him, what will you do if we aren't nice to you. He said, "What will you do, tell me to fuck off or something?" They were stunned, burst out laughing, and fell in love with him then and there!!

C. Extension: This activity led to sophisticated thinking, lots of connections, discussion, so extension is not necessary. Teachers who observed the lesson were impressed that even weaker students participated fully.

Follow up assignments: Students wanted to do this activity again and again with everything we read from then on.

D. Controversy: In the book, Barrie suggests that the scoring might be controversial and to use caution, he also suggests that you can adjust the formality of the speaker ie: standing, sitting, turn taking etc.

How this strategy increases an enjoyment of reading. As students engage in thoughtful discussions about literature, they will transfer that understanding to new texts. Their understanding of theme(s) will also transfer, and they will develop greater sophistication in their ability to "read into" text and decipher the themes and levels of insight/inference that we get as expert readers. Resarch tells us that once students start to develop levels of inference, their enjoyment increases.