Recomposing ~ an effective Writing/ Reading/Research Strategy

I spent three amazing days in Tasmania working at Penguin District School – K to Year 10.

I did classroom modelling in Writing, in a Year 1, a Year 6, a Year 7 and a Year 10! After each class I debriefed with the teachers, and told them how sensational their kids were.

When you work across primary and secondary years, it is a reminder of how critical it is that we help kids to meet the literacy requirements of different subject areas if they are to truly learn and make progress.

In Primary, we have our Inquiry Units and Investigations, and in secondary different content areas. Yet the strategies I modelled, Recomposing in Year 7 and Anticipation Guides in Year 10, are the same strategies that I would teach from Prep to Year 6!

 

Recomposing

~ an effective Writing/ Reading/Research Strategy

 

Recomposing is simply reading information in one format and summarising it in another format.

Example

– read a short biography of a migrant and summarise it as a time line.  This is recomposing paragraphs into a diagram.

– read a flowchart of an insect’s life cycle and summarize it as a written recount or explanation.  This is recomposing a diagram into a paragraph.

Recomposing is both an effective writing and research strategy – a powerful way to enhance comprehension.

Vicky.B. Plenty Campus IGS – Year 6 – Reading text on Water Cycle, determining what is important then creating a Visual text and explaining it to a friend!

 

I adapted this from – Craft Lessons Teaching Information Writing K- 8 by Portalupi and Fletcher. It is a ripper strategy because students cannot copy straight from the book!