Using Colouring Pages for APK/Synthesis

A few weeks ago, my school laptop wouldn't connect to the network in our school. I was planning on sending my work to the photocopier before class (sometimes I'm not always prepared) so I quickly photocopied a colouring page and had my grade 10s do an activating prior knowledge/synthesis activity.

I instructed my students to do representations (in the form of patterns) in the "waves" below the ground under the train station. The representations had to be of their favourite books, their favourite genres, or in the case of one student, their favourite teams. I didn't want any text (some did anyway), but I wanted to be able to guess the genre/book they were representing. I had them activate their prior knowledge (what was it that they remembered from their favourite books/genres?), and synthesize what they knew about the books/genres. The second part of the synthesis was to represent what they knew in a visual way, and of course the patterns threw in another twist.

Below are a few different pages I received.

This student used skulls, crossbones, and blood to represent violence in both a genre and her favourite book. However, she also likes to read about love, mystery, and fantasy. She's a Harry Potter fan too.

This student likes books about angels, fairytales, and likes the Hunger Games novels. The colours represent the intensity of emotions she feels, usually one mood which fluctuates (pink love - a "fluffy" kind, which changes to passion, the red love).

This student also likes to read about love, music, mystery, and fantasy. Another Harry Potter fan. This student included a "rainbow" of colours because she likes to read books where characters experience a variety of emotions.

This student is one of my hockey players, he chose to complete the page in the colours of his favourite teams. For book club, he read a book about hockey and how to improve his game.

8 Reading Comprehension Strategies - Plain Language

Approximately 2 weeks ago, I ran a meeting based on my October 2012 SAGE presentation with part of our school's core senior high teaching team. As a group, we discussed the 8 different strategies and determined what we are already doing in our classrooms, as well as what language we are using (if any).

Basically, it was an informal vote, and we isolated two of our priorities: asking questions, and monitoring comprehension. These were the two areas where we have not specifically worked on in any of our classrooms.

As a refresher, here are the 8 Reading Comprehension Strategies as identified by Lakeshore School Division, with plain language.

Making Connections - text to self, text to text, text to world
Visualizing - creating mental pictures
Determining important ideas - what is important? what does the author want me to know?
Inferring - “based on what I know – previous knowledge – I think that” - making educated guesses
Activating prior knowledge - determining what I already know
Synthesizing and expressing opinions - taking what I already know, integrating what I’ve learned and being able to put it altogether
Asking questions - asking good open-ended questions (questions can be critical or non-critical)
Monitoring comprehension - determining when and where to use a “fix up strategy” – often (but not always) during reading

A few weeks ago, I did something interesting with colouring pages in my grade 10 classroom and genres of books and movies. I'll be posting those findings later this week.