For students and teachers the idea
of higher order cognition, or critical thinking can be somewhat elusive.
Difficult to teach in a meaningful way, difficult to understand and apply with
purpose. Skyscraper is a means to an end. It is an anchor chart that contextualizes
what would be abstract to the minds of young readers. Different levels of
thinking require different actions on the part of the reader. Skyscraper is a
mediator that gives students a framework in which to work, so they can envision
and articulate more nuanced thinking.
Children often ask why can't I take
the elevator to the top floor? Sorry, there are no short cuts when it comes to
thinking. Over time, children learn that questions tasks grow more complex as
they climb the floors to their thinking process.
Skyscraper is what you get when
overlapping Bloom's taxonomy and the Question Answer Relationship (QAR). Bloom
provides a levels approach for guided questions and or task, while the QAR
provides for easy to understand language that describes their actions in order
to answer questions or complete assigned tasks. For example, an "On Your
Own" task may be to evaluate a passage by writing an opinion. They
validate their evaluation as they learn how to extrapolate ideas from the text
to create something new - their written opinion. Thinking in terms of Common
Core State Standards (CCSS), text dependent answers is one of the six major
instructional shifts.
So is the Staircase of Complexity. Think of the anchor standard as the pole
that runs to the ceiling and each step of a spiral staircase as representing
each grade level. The CCSS is designed to match developmental expectations that grow with the student. In order to grow our capacity for intellectual curosity - children need to envision how concepts expand - going from part to whole. It is that kind of thinking that inspired the conceptual design of Skyscraper. Thinking runs from basic
"Right There" gathering knowledge where I can point to with my finger to the answer - to
abstract comparisons of my thinking juxtaposed to that of the author.
Britton once wrote that comprehension is taught on a sea
of talk. This is so very correct, each
time you ask your students to do a “turn and talk” they are learning to make applications
for their thinking. What does this look like? You contextualize a vocabulary word during an interactive read aloud lesson, you provide a sentence outside of the book, you ask the students to make a connection to the word as they turn and talk to a partner. Later you may challenge them to use the word in an original piece of writing - you've gone from third floor thinking to sixth floor thinking all with the use of a word, and a purposeful task.
Wide reading through many genres driven by critical thinking and inquiry is the stuff that fosters imagination and a love for reading. So come in, sit down let's read, write, talk, and then create something new. This is how as we climb up, up, up to the top of the Empire State - once you've seen the view from a broader perspective everything looks different.
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