Engagement
| Title | Text link | Rationale | Text frames | Strategies & Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graphene: The next wonderful material |
Retrieved from ACS pp. 26-33) |
The article describes graphene as being a flexible, electrically-conductive substance which could revolutionize technological application and device. The content of the text inspires scientific inquiry and supports the opportunity for fresh innovation but the context and delivery uses technical language and presumes substantial background knowledge of chemistry. This text places me in what I believe to often be my students' perceived circumstance; faced with reading about something for which one has dim association and little prior understanding, though it may/does have perceptible relevance. |
Concept/definition Proposition/support |
Concept/Definition Map (Buehl, 2014, p. 236)
|
In making connections to the text, students are asked to use their prior knowledge and or experiences of the subject under discussion within the text to give the newly acquired information a context that they can relate to. This particular article I chose, as I'd stated in my rationale, because I knew that it was a subject with which I myself had little direct prior knowledge and so I would be in a situation when reading the article much as my students find themselves when asked to apply themselves to readings in my content. As it turned out, upon reading the article I found I've lost much of the chemical understandings I used to have and found elements of the vocabulary to be almost inaccessible. The very first segment is an analysis of the graphene compound as its molecular structure and its subsequent physical properties. Reading further, the author describes fabrication methods that are currently employed, practical applications of this material as a result of its properties, and challenges that the have yet to be surmounted in those and other plausible uses.
This text would definitely be concerning to my students to read but, as I found myself while doing so, once/if you get past the daunting first segment the vocabulary becomes less technical and the content less dependent upon specific prior content knowledge. In unpacking the applications you gain a sense even of some of the sophisticated jargon in that early portion, realizing its implication though not defining the term itself. I gained an element of wonder and motivation from the text as well; an inclination to learn more both to close the gaps of what I'd failed to grasp and to attempt to address the outlined problems.
As a physics teacher of ninth grade students I wouldn't choose this text as a reading to bolster my content curriculum but nonetheless I am considering adding this article to my arsenal of activities anyway. I am my students first science teacher at the high school level and the overarching sense of the text, as the redesigned concept map I propose would seek to engender, is one of opportunity and wonder. "Though yes, much of the content is in this text is presently inaccessible these are just some of the opportunities and questions out there to use what you can learn here at Century high school and afterward. Learning is a lifetime endeavor, there are always new things to see and another question we haven't answered." This text could become an introductory activity for my ninth-grade students to reading comprehension and strategy, that then may serve as a linking question and goal for a student through their high-school career of chemistry and perhaps back to me for a science research project on one of these very same applications in their senior year.
This activity would require students to use what have learned fundamentally in literacy to determine the thesis term graphene and to contextually define it between levels one and two of the concept map. Guiding instruction would caution them to attempt to form that definition too early, as later excerpts might give them greater sense of earlier unfamiliar jargon. As they read they are to identify properties of the material in "What can it do?" and applications under "How could we use it?". Though I have separated the properties from applications in this diagram there's obviously opportunity for discussion in the room as to how these are and must be entwined, a testament to the adage "form follows function"; or is that the other way round? The discussion opportunities would be substantive chance for practice in the collaborative learning that is requisite to the social construction of meaning, and a chance to introduce new avenues of inquiry and dissenting opinion; which permits the possibility of an experience in that nature of science as well.
The last section of my assignment is to sum up what you've learned, by this I mean to ask for each student to select out their big take-aways from the article and activity. This can include items about the nature of science and learning, strategy for reading complex texts and or things that they thought were really cool nuggets concerning graphene and its new potential technologies. By no means is this, or any summary in science, to mean the end of anything other than maybe the beginning.
- Supporting documentation and resources:
- Template concept map (Buehl, 2014, p. 236)
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