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T Chart

Page history last edited by Caitlin Bailey 16 years, 7 months ago

T Chart

(Joel G)

 

Rationale

     Identifying similarities and differences, and comparing and contrsting appear to pay huge dividends in the area of student knowledge development( Marzano, p.64).  Classroom teachers that choose to include strategies that focus on these areas can count on large percentile gains in knowledge for their students, according to recent research (Genter & Markman, 1994).  T-Charts are a simple and effective strategy to incorperate to assure that students will achieve these gains. 

 

 

Procedure

A. Students are assigned a topic of the day where similarities and differences, or comparing and contrasting are evident.

a. A social studies example would be the Sinhalese and Tamil cultures of Sri Lanka.

 

B. Students are assigned a short reading or shown a short video clip that focuses on the topic of the day.

b. A short video clip on the Sinhalese and Tamil cultures of Sri Lanka would be a viable option. 

 

C. As students read or watch, they are asked to take notes on the important aspects of the reading or video.

c. Take notes on the aspects of the Sinhalese and Tamil cultures as they are explained in the video clip. 

 

D. A T-Chart is drawn on the white board and students will copy the T-Chart into their notes. The T-Chart will be given a title, and each side of the T-Chart will get a heading. 

d. The T-Chart will be titled "The Sinhalese and Tamil Cultures of Sri Lanka"The left side of the

T-Chart will be given the heading "similarities", and the right side of the T-Chart will be given the heading "differences". 

 

 E. Students will be assigned a partner.  The pair will work together to use their notes and what they remember from the reading or video to fill in the T-Chart.

e.  Pairs of students will list the similarities and differences of the Sinhalese and Tamil cultures on the T-Chart.

 

F. Students will come back together as a large group and report their findings to the class.  A full, class

T-Chart is created on the white board and students can add to their personal T-Charts as needed.

 

References

 

Genter, D. & Markman, A. B. (1994). Structural alignment in comparison: no difference without similarity.      Psychological Science, 5(3), 152-158.

 

Marzano, R. J. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and      Curriculum Development.

 

Other Procedures

Contributed by Caitlin B:  T-Charts as Inference builders

     Often students struggle with making inferences as they read, particularly about characters in anrrative text for Language Arts classes.  Below is a procedure using T-charts to help students get at deeper character understanding.

 

--Display on the overhead a t-chart with the headings "what the text says" and "what it tells me about ____________(name of a character in the text)"

 

--Model a read aloud/think aloud with a section of the whole class text.  Your thinking should reflect things you notice about characters actions, words, or descriptions in the text.  Write these things down in the "what the text says" side of the t-chart.  As you write down each note from the text, think aloud your own inference making process.

Example(Jurassic Park): "I know it says that Hammond wanted to limit Dr. Wu when he was creating version 4.4 of the dinosaurs because he wanted his visitors to have a real experience.  Wu says back to him that reality is only what people want it to be.  This tells me that Hammond himself doesn't have a clear view of reality becuase he doesn't see that the dinosaurs are truly dangerous and that no one would really want to see that."

 

--Once you have done your thinking aloud and arrived at an inference about a character, write it down in the "what it tells me about _____(name of character in the text)" section of the t-chart.

 

--Once you have modeled two or three, ask students to help you build a few more from the same section of text.  Using gradual release of responsibility, allow students to take over the inference building process.  Have them try it in groups and on their own.  Soon, they should be able to create these inference on their own in a consistent manner.

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