Starting the Inquiry with Background Knowledge

Patrick Tomasso

I was listening to the Principal Center Podcast and the guest was talking about reading comprehension and how students need background knowledge.

Cool. I can give students more background knowledge, I thought.

[Principal Center Radio Podcast – The Principal Center] Natalie Wexler—The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—And How To Fix It #principalCenterRadioPodcastThePrincipalCenter https://t.co/up8G5vDwPl via @PodcastAddict pic.twitter.com/4abeErXrzr

— Thomas Hammerlund (@thammerlund) October 5, 2019

Then today I was attending a PYP Workshop on assessment and the ATLs. We did an activity on the skill [ATL] of observation. We observed raisins moving up and down in a glass of 7-Up.

The words and concepts we were using (ie, surface tension, carbon dioxide, buoyancy, floating, sinking, absorbing, etc.) would be really challenging/impossible for an EAL student to come up with or describe.

This had me thinking about the next unit and how I could incorporate more background knowledge.

I thought back to a strategy I heard from a now-defunct podcast where you give all students an article and tell them to come up with one question. Then have the students make categories out of the questions.

From there the students do research.

My plan for the Tuning In phase of the next unit is to do the above in a few periods and present their findings. From there I will build on what they find and address any misunderstandings.

That's the plan until it changes.

This may be an obvious thing, and I used to do this, but somehow I got out of the practice. Somewhere along the line ...