Literacy Strategies and an Inquiry Institute

Back in our 12th week of the semester, we were tasked with finding a literacy strategy to utilize while reading the weekly readings and that we could foresee us using in a future class we would be teaching.  I was able to find a KWL chart.  This chart allows you to write what you already Know about a topic, what you would Want to know and what you Learn as and after you read.  It would typically be used when reading in informational text such as a textbook or informational book. 

Chart found at https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading/comprehension.

Reflecting again back on the Inquiry institute, two things that really stuck with me and that I really liked was the rubric rating how much inquiry was incorporated in the lesson.  There were about 5 different rating categories and 5 different levels of inquiry based instruction and how much the students were able to inquire into the lesson.

The second aspect of the institute that I really enjoyed was the crime scene.  We were able to complete a crime scene where the scene was already set up for us and we were given details and witness accounts and had to guess which suspect completed the crime.  This activity was the murder of a florist, but could be could be adapted for other crimes that incorporated other industries.

One thing that I loved about the lesson was the one lab where we got to dissect flowers.  It was a very fun activity for the attending teachers to complete, but the whole delivery of the lab was really great as well.  The flower was placed in front of us without instruction and we were given a worksheet to guide us in the process of dissecting the flower.  We had to inquire about the purpose of the flower, dissecting kit, and tools before we began since there were no previous instructions.