Part A: Rationale

The students of class 4NM vary in their literacy needs across the board. Of
particular concern are student 1 and student 12 who seem to have fallen
behind, with their progression on reading development. The print-based
text chosen for this lesson is Islands in my garden by Jim Howes. The text
is currently listed as a recipient in the grade 3/4 category of the Victorian
Premiers Reading Challenge (Victoria State Government, 2015). It
seemed like a fitting choice to explore reading comprehension with cross
curriculum properties in the science field. It provides many opportunities
for text to self-connections as the topic is something all children are likely
to encounter. My animated screen based text is the movie trailer A bugs
life (Animation Trailers, 2012). It continues to explore the world from a
bugs viewpoint and ties in with the curriculum priorities.
When taking part in the reading process our thoughts are often generated
by words and/or images on the page, and part of the all-encompassing
process of the literary experience (Probst, 1994). The importance of
literary experiences like this is often overlooked.
The lessons were constructed based on a transactional perspective. From
this viewpoint, meaning is not something that is explicit or the same for
everyone; it is a direct result of the interaction between the reader and
the text (Rosenblatt, 1988). The first lesson explicitly focused on making
text to self-connections. Making these types of connections is one of the
best practices. It helps students understand what they have read in the
past and how it might be relevent to current practices and ideologies
(Trinkle, 2009).
The thinking strategy used in this lesson is the Think, Pair, Share routine.
Research concluded that a routine such as this one is a low risk choice
allowing students to participate in their own learning and allows teacher
to check the understanding of students and intervene if needed
(Kaddoura, 2013). Choosing a routine such as this one enable different
point of views to be shared among students, and brings about this idea
that the way in which we convey meaning is based on our personal
experiences.
The focus group for each lesson are at the phase and sentence level of
meaning. The group is set to follow the instructional strategy known as
guided reading. The aim of any guided reading session is to empower
students to read- help them build a repertoire of strategies they can use
to tackle a text (Fountas & Pinnel, 2012). One strategy in particular listed
by Fountas & Pinnel (2012) is the thinking beyond the text strategy in
part of which children make connections and predict (pp. 273). This is a

strategy the focus group explores. A task with a learning intention focused
on relating text to themselves helps these students use their prior
knowledge to discover what they know and use it to find out what they do
not know. Finding connections between the text and themselves is a task
that builds and practices this strategy.
The second lesson continues to focus on the idea of our text to selfconnections in relation to insects. However, in this lesson the task is
extended. Students are asked to critically analyse parts of the movie
trailer and describe what the animator does in scenes to make us feel a
certain way.
The focus of the lesson is based on critical theories of literacy. Examining
a multimodality text involves looking at the semiotic system (A. Scott,
personal communications, August 11, 2015).
Helping readers interrogate the meaning potential of the semiotic
and multi-modal resources of a text is an important consideration in
todays educational environment.(Serafini, 2012, pp. 160).
Therefore in this lesson, students look at the semiotics systems as a way
of exploring how the author controls the way we see, think and feel.
The instructional strategy used for the whole class (over the two lessons)
and the focus group for this lesson is a Read Aloud. This was because,
when a read aloud is used
learners are challenged to use and practice new language by
making meaningful text-to-self and text-to-world connections,
allowing for deeper processing of the new language and deeper
understanding of the ideas connected to that language. (Giroir,
Grimaldo, Vaughn & Roberts, 2015, pp.640).
Lastly, the thinking routine that was used in the second lesson was a
routine known as What makes you say that?(Ritchhart, 2011, pp. 165).
The focus of this lesson was for students to pose and answer questions
using evidence. This thinking routine invites students to provide evidence
based on their claims, and supports them in their ability to create
explanations amongst other skills (Ritchhart, 2011). For the activities in
lesson two. This proved to be highly useful students must base their
statements about what feeling the author evokes based on the semiotics
systems.
Word Count: 798 words

Reference List:
Animation trailers. (2012, November 4). A Bugs Life- Official trailer 1998
[HD] [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Ljk2YJ53_WI
Australian Curriculum. (n.d.). Science scope and sequence [pdf].
Retrieved from
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/science/curriculum/f-10?
layout=1
Australian Curriculum. (n.d.). English scope and sequence [pdf]. Retrieved
from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/curriculum/f10?layout=1#cdcode=ACELY1692&level=4
Fountas, C. I., & Pinnel, S. G. (2012). Guided Reading: The romance and
the reality. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 268-284. doi:
10.1002/TRTR.01123
Giroir, S., Grimaldo, L. R., Vaughn, S., & Roberts, G. (2015). Interactive
read-alouds for English learners in the elementary grades. The
Reading Teacher, 68(8), 639-648. doi:10.1002/trtr.1354
Howes, J. (1998). Islands in my garden. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Roland
Harvey Books.
Kaddoura, M. (2013). Think Pair Share: A teaching learning strategy to
enhance students critical thinking. Education Research Quarterly,
36(4), 3-24. Retrieved from https://web-a-ebscohostcom.ezproxy1.acu.edu.au/ehost/detail/detail?sid=6a6e85d0-7c9c4450-b11d02f5120fc211%40sessionmgr4002&vid=2&hid=4214&bdata=JnNpd
GU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=99990253&db=ehh
Probst, R. (1994). Reader-Response Theory and the English curriculum.
The English Journal, 83(3), 37-44. doi: 10.2307/820925

Ritchhart, R. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote

engagement, understanding and independence for all learners.
Retrieved from http://reader.eblib.com.ezproxy2.acu.edu.au/
(S(brjnylbh11l3bci0aox3ufqq))/Reader.aspx?
p=706891&o=168&u=K3Nzq5S3woqsmYMdTX7FpA%3d
%3d&t=1440513918&h=BCF5E7A1D18160A8C747F8B50DEC60DEB
F4E3117&s=37764374&ut=459&pg=1&r=img&c=1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=2#
Rosenblatt, M. L. (1988). Writing and reading: The transactional theory.
Retrieved from http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?
id=pur1.32754062234459;view=1up;seq=1
Serifini, F. (2012). Expanding the four resource model: reading visual and
multi-modal texts. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 7(2), 150164. doi: 10.1080/1554480X.2012.656347
Trinkle, C. (2009). Reading for meaning: Making connections and
searching for answers. School Library Media Activities Monthly,
25(6), 48-50. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy1.acu.edu.au/docview/23713568
5/fulltext?accountid=8194
Victoria State Government. (2015). Book list years 3 and 4 by author [pdf].
Retrieved from
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/events/prc/Pages/booklist.asp
x

Liane,
You have some good ideas in your rationale and you found
good support for those ideas.
Your lessons have good ideas and the texts connects wellyou need to develop and clarify them in places- the second
lesson has an unclear comprehension strategy- but if its the
authors purpose- that will fit well for the thinking routine if
you develop it a bitCredit.