Critical Reading with Google Docs – 6401

TIPC Ratings

This lesson did not focus on research as the texts were provided and students were discouraged from seeking outside information on the texts before they completed their annotations and initial reflections. As a result, this lesson was not rated for research and information fluency.

One of the objectives of this lesson was to introduce students to working collaboratively in Google Docs, so initially, the work was directed by the teacher. However, over the three days in which this lesson occurred, students progressed from directed work to more self-directed use of the tool. Initially, students worked independently to annotate texts, then worked in groups to learn how to annotate a document together. By the third day, students were asked to make decisions about annotations, group formation, and group annotations without direct teacher instruction. As a result, this lesson scores in the approaching range for communication and collaboration.

Another objective of this lesson was to empower students to ask their own questions of a text and to value the things they notice, find interesting, or find difficult in a text as a starting point for critical analysis. As such, students were asked simply to highlight words and phrases that caught their attention for whatever reason, positively or negatively. On a second reading, students were asked to make comments about the highlights that were still interesting or difficult to them on the second reading, indicating why they thought they had made these highlights. During group discussion, students compared their highlights and reasons and tried to come to a better understanding of the portions of the text that were worth notice and why, and a clearer formulation of the questions they still had about the text. Next, through a full-class discussion, students shared and discovered common readings of the text. Finally, students were asked to return to the text and write about their individual reading of it, taking into account the points raised in discussion, but making decisions about the reading that made sense to them individually. Over the three days of this lesson, the complexity of the text increased and the direct teacher guidance decreased. As a result, this lesson scores in the approaching range for critical thinking and problem solving.

Students were encouraged to notice and ask questions about aspects of the text that were significant to them. Through discussions, they were able to clarify their thoughts on the text and discover new ideas about it. When they returned to write their individual analysis, they constructed a reading of the text that pulled from discussions but ultimately relied on their own interpretation of what they noticed and wondered. As a result of this analysis and individual meaning-making, this lesson scores in the approaching range for creativity and innovation.