Notes from Michele Whaley’s lecture “Three-Level Statement Guides”.
Teaching students to read closely.
What is a three-level statement guide?
A reading strategy.
A way to recycle reading. (Students are asked to go back to read three times and discuss.)
Three levels of statements.
Close reading.
Comprehension skills.
Level 1: Literal statements: Questions are about facts. Students can find answers easily in the text and don’t need to think about it.
Level 2: Interpretive/Inference statements: Students have to look for more than one piece of information and put them together to answer questions.
Level 3: Applied statements: Students bring together what they learn from the text and what they know from life, and apply to a larger world.
QAR study is also related to 3-level guides.
QAR: Question-Answer Relationships.
Training to help students answer comprehension questions properly.
Students identify and write four levels of questions.
Students learn what questions require what kind of evidence.
What kinds of questions does QAR identify?
Right there (The answer is right there. Similar to level 1)
Think and search (Think and search several places. Similar to level 2)
Author and me (Think whether the author and I have the same idea)
On my own (Unrelated with the text but the same thing)
An admission…and maybe a challenge.
Writing three-level statement guides challenges my brain.
Maybe that’s part of why I don’t use QAR!
When do you use a three-level statementguides?
When text is comprehensible but tense.
When students might miss big ideas.
When a topic is important to students.
When students are ready for output.
This strategy is for intermediates!
Three-level statement guide: how to use them?
All statements, no questions.
Usually only statements that the teacher believes are true.
Most at literal level.
Fewest at applied level.
How do these guides help students?
Direct student attention to important concepts and to their relationships to real-world issues by helping them see relationships between levels.
Level 1: Literal Level
Paraphrases or very close quotes.
Students search for information in text.
Students simply recognize information.
Content is “right there” in text.
Students decide…true or false…
No opinion about the facts is involved.
Level 2: Interpretive / Inference Level
Combine at least two sources of information.
From text or text plus experience.
Looking for relationships.
Read “between the lines”.
“Think and search”.
Deeper meaning of author’s text.
May not require opinion.
*One level at which teacher can start creating guide.
Level 3: Applied Level
“Beyond the lines”.
Support extends beyond the text.
Connect text to real-world issues.
Requires analysis, synthesis, creativity, critical thinking.
*Consider creating guides by starting at this level: content and curriculum objectives direct outcomes.
What happens when the applied level changes?
Different outlook makes for different focus.
Look at text from different sides.
Applied level affects the other levels.
I can create a three-level statement guide!
1. Choose to use a guide because of a text’s ideas.
2. Create the applied level first, based on your curriculum and goals. Think of the main ideas, concepts, and generalizations you hope students will gain.
3. Create the next two levels. You may throw in distractors (meaning incorrect statements) once students expect all “correct” answers.
4. Set expectations for students to attempt agreement on statements, and to collect evidence from the text.
5. Use three-level guides sparingly.