Guided Comprehension: Evaluating Using the Meeting of the Minds Technique
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Overview
Who is to blame for the plight of the three little pigs—the wolf or the pigs themselves? Students ask themselves questions like this as they read multiple versions of a familiar fairy tale. In this lesson, students use the Meeting of the Minds technique, a comprehension strategy that teaches them to act out the opposing views of two or more characters in an oral debate or interview format. Students begin with teacher-directed, whole-group instruction for using this strategy. As students read various versions of The Three Little Pigs, they assume the role of the characters and respond to questions in character. Students then work in small groups to complete various activities, including using Meeting of the Minds, writing stories and dramas, and comparing two versions of a fairy tale. As a culminating activity, students reflect on how the reading strategy helps improve their comprehension.
Featured Resources
Meeting of the Minds Chart: This chart allows students to view a story from different characters' points of view.
From Theory to Practice
- Guided Comprehension is a context in which students learn comprehension strategies in a variety of settings using multiple levels and types of text. It is a three-stage process focused on direct instruction, application, and reflection.
- The Guided Comprehension Model progresses from explicit teaching to independent practice and transfer.
- Evaluating is defined as making judgments. The meeting of the minds technique uses the evaluating strategy by means of a debate format between two characters that have differing viewpoints on a topic or situation.
- Current studies demonstrate that when students experience explicit instruction of comprehension strategies, it improves their comprehension of new texts and topics (Hiebert et al., 1998).
Common Core Standards
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
State Standards
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts
- 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
- 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
- 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
- 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
Materials and Technology
- The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall (Puffin, 1996) or another original version
- The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka (Puffin, 1996)
- Computers with Internet access
- Three instructional-level texts
Printouts
Websites
Preparation
| 1. | Read an original version of The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs to become familiar with the stories. Develop some questions that contrast the two points of view in the stories (wolf vs. pigs). |
| 2. | Copy the Meeting of the Minds Chart onto chart paper or an overhead transparency for class demonstration. Make one copy of the chart for each student as well. |
| 3. | Gather three instructional-level texts that match the needs of three levels of reading in your class (see Folk and Fairy Tales, Tongue-in-Cheek Versions). |
NOTE: This lesson is intended as an introduction to the evaluating strategy and the use of the meeting of the minds technique. With continued practice, students should be able to apply the evaluating strategy independently to other texts.
Student Objectives
Students will
- Define and understand the meeting of the minds technique
- Take on the role of characters in a story and debate their perspectives, clearly and convincingly presenting the characters' viewpoints
- Engage in an oral debate in small groups
- Use critical thinking skills to create questions relevant to the text
- Use the strategy of evaluating to make judgments about characters in a text
Session 1
Stage 1: Teacher-directed whole-group instruction (40 minutes)
| 1. | Explain to students what it means to evaluate their reading. Tell students that evaluating means making a judgment about a story or a character. Give an example. Explain that they will be participating in an activity in which they pretend to be a character in a story, and will respond to questions as that character. Explain how they will be "evaluating"--by taking on the role of the character, they are making judgments about that character, other characters, and events in the story.
Do you think you did anything wrong in this situation?
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| 2. | Demonstrate the strategy. Ask two to four students to act as the wolf and pigs. (You may choose to have one or three students represent the three pigs.) Explain to students that there also needs to be a moderator to ask the questions, and a summarizer to summarize the debate.
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| 3. | Guide students to apply the strategy. Gather students into groups of four. Have students answer another question on the meeting of the minds chart. Each student in the group should have a role (moderator, character, or summarizer). When students finish, ask them to switch roles within their groups and pose another question from the chart. |
| 4. | Practice individually or in small groups. After students have had a chance to practice, bring the whole class back together. Tell students that they are going to hear another version of the same story. Read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs aloud.
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| 5. | Reflect. Ask students to reflect on the meeting of the minds technique. How did it help them understand the characters? What did they like and dislike about the debates? Did it help them better understand the stories? |
Stage 2: Teacher-guided small groups and student-facilitated independent practice (40 minutes)
Before beginning Stage 2, students must be divided into three instructional-level groups. Students with similar instructional needs should be grouped together. This does not necessarily mean that students in each group are on the same reading level. Instead, they may have similar needs for comprehension instruction (e.g., students who have trouble making inferences or students who need extra practice making connections between texts).
Students are working in three different areas during this stage:
- Teacher-guided small-group instruction
- Student-facilitated comprehension centers
- Student-facilitated comprehension routines
Classroom management is at the discretion of each individual teacher. You may want to assign students to small groups and set up a rotation schedule, or you may want to allow groups of students to choose their own activities. Regardless, each group of students needs to visit the three areas at least once in the three-session lesson.
| 1. | Teacher-guided small group instruction. Choose one group to begin with you as follows:
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| 2. | Student-facilitated comprehension centers. Students may be assigned to centers or choose activities on their own.
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| 3. | Student-facilitated comprehension routines. Working in small groups, students engage in three different literacy strategies. Students should already be familiar with each of the strategies and have practiced them over time. For more information, review the Summary Sheet or refer to the text Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3-8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen. |
Sessions 2 and 3
For Sessions 2 and 3, pick up where you left off the previous session. The suggested time for each session is 60 minutes, however, since the group only had 20 minutes in small groups during Session 1, you may want to meet with them for another 20 minutes and then switch groups for the last 40 minutes. The rotation should continue until all three groups have visited all three areas. In Session 3, students will spend 40 minutes in small groups, leaving 20 minutes for whole-group reflection and discussion (see Stage 3).
Stage 3: Whole-group reflection (20 minutes)
| 1. | Talk to students about the evaluating comprehension strategy that they have been learning. Ask them to tell why and how meeting of the minds helps them to better understand the characters and the stories they are reading. |
| 2. | Give students time to share the activities they completed in the student-facilitated comprehension centers. |
Extensions
To extend the activities in this lesson, have students explore the following websites:
- KidsReads.com: Jon Scieszka
- I Was Framed! A WebQuest for The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
- Have students write their own "fractured fairy tales" and publish them online at Scholastic's Fairy Tales Library
- Access and use other lessons based on the Guided Comprehension Model to teach additional comprehension strategies:
Guided Comprehension: Knowing How Words Work Using Semantic Feature Analysis
Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal
Guided Comprehension: Monitoring Using the INSERT Technique
Guided Comprehension: Previewing Using an Anticipation Guide
Guided Comprehension: Self-Questioning Using the Question-Answer Relationship
Guided Comprehension: Summarizing Using the QuIP Strategy
Guided Comprehension: Visualizing Using the Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy
Student Assessment / Reflections
Use the Meeting of the Minds Rubric to evaluate students' participation and understanding of the meeting of the minds technique and the evaluating strategy. This rubric can be used during the whole-class debate in Stage 1 or during small-group work in Stage 2.
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