Chelsea Silva

9/17/18
Literacy Across the Curriculum

Strategy Toolkit

 Provide the name of the strategy (or create one).

 Describe how the strategy is implemented.
 Explain how this strategy supports literacy skills for all learners in your content
area.
 Address the possibilities for differentiation in order to support all learners.
 When applicable, explain how 21 st century skills are, or can be, implemented
with this strategy.
 Explain possible variations or adaptations of this strategy for your content area.

Do Now
-This strategy is done at the beginning of the period. It is a question, quick write, etc that
is up on the board to be completed right away when the students are coming into class. It
can be used to review learning from the previous day, as a hooks for that day's lesson
plan, bringing in a connection from their lives into what they are learning, from their
reading assigned for homework, etc. Once students have had some time to answer the
question or write their thought out, they can share out their ideas.
-This strategy helps support literacy because it gives students the opportunity to practice
their writing skills everyday in a relaxed and fun way. Students are also given the
opportunity to practice their reading and speaking skills if they decide to share their
thoughts that they wrote.
-This is a great strategy to support all learners because it allows the students to put their
thoughts down on paper about a specific topic or question in anyway they choose and in a
method that is very low stress and low stakes, since it's not something that they need to
share if they don't feel comfortable and it's not something being turned in for a grade.
-This strategy can be a very good spark for the beginning of a discussion and allow
students to utilize both their collaboration and communication skills. This strategy is also
a great way for the teacher to be creative to get the students minds working and to
sharpen many of their literacy skills.
Exit Ticket
-This is a great strategy to use at the end of the class period to give an explicit assessment
of the material you just covered. It is a quick 1-3 question assessment for the students to
make sure they truly understand the material.
-This strategy allows the students to work on their writing and critical thinking skills. It
also shows you, as a teacher, who understands the content just covered and where and
why some students may have missed the grasp on the content you were hoping for them
to get.
-Like I mentioned above, this strategy helps you to see that you are actually reaching all
of your students in your classroom. You can look at it as an assessment of understanding
for your students and an assessment of you as a teacher to make sure that your lesson and
instruction was differentiated enough to reach and impart knowledge and understanding
on all of your students.
-This strategy absolutely utilizes critical thinking. It is one of the most efficient ways to
get a feel for not only where your students are at with understanding the content, but it
also give them the opportunity to think deeply, apply, and translate that knowledge into
another scenario to show understanding.

Vocabulary Check
-This is a great strategy to use when introducing new vocabulary words or reading a
document that has a lot of new academic vocabulary words. You have a list of words and
you go through each word and ask students to either give a thumbs up if they are familiar
with the word and could define it, a sideways thumb if maybe they are familiar with the
word but couldn't really define it, and a thumbs down if they aren't familiar with the
word.
-This is a great way for the teacher to better understand where students are with their
understanding of academic vocabulary. If you have several students who are giving you
thumbs down on many of these words, it is going to be very hard for those students to full
understand and comprehend what they are reading. This strategy allows the teacher help
strengthen students reading and comprehension skills by knowing what words they need
to focus on. This strategy is especially useful within social studies, where often times, the
material students are reading can be loaded with unfamiliar academic vocabulary and
rhetoric.
-This strategy is also great to use for all types of learners and allows them to show their
understanding in a non-stressful and low-stakes manner.
-This strategy does involve communication, even if it is not verbal. The students and
teacher are able to communicate knowledge and understanding their gestures. This
strategy is also a more creative, interactive, and fun way to check for understanding than
a written form would be.

Think, Pair, Share

-For this strategy, you pose a question or prompt for students to think about for a period
of time, and maybe write down a few notes. Then, you have the students’ pair up and
discuss their thoughts together. Lastly, you ask the pairs to shore their thoughts and ideas
from their discussion.
-This strategy gives students the opportunity to think critically about a prompt or
question, possibly write down some important notes, and sharpen their speaking skills in
a low stakes and low stress way.
-This strategy is great for all learners, but especially those who are on the quieter side and
those who are English Language Learners. It gives students the chance to talk with a peer
to formulate ideas before having the share out with the class. It also gives those students
who struggle with speaking the chance to think about and rehearse their answer a few
times before saying it in front of the entire class.
-This strategy is great for sharpening students' communication and collaboration skills. It
really allows students the opportunity to process new learning and hear different opinions
or ideas about a topic.

CLEAR Paragraphs
-CLEAR is a strategy to guide students to create solidly structured paragraphs. Each letter
stands for a point the students are suppose to hit while writing their academic paragraphs.
C-claim (summarize your argument), L-lead in (essential information related to your
evidence), E-evidence (specific information or examples that proves the claim is correct),
A-analysis (explanation of how the evidence proves the claim to be correct), R-recap (tie
your paragraph together, revisiting the claim).
-This strategy is a great way to help support students with their academic writing in social
studies class because it creates a solid outline or framework for the important points that
must be included into a strong academic paragraph. This is great strategy for all learners
because it breaks up the necessary components of a paragraph into smaller and more
manageable pieces, so students do not become overwhelmed and defeated.
-This strategy is a great way for students to work on their critical thinking skills, because
these types of paragraphs ask students to create a claim and find evidence and analysis of
said evidence to support the claim.

Jigsaw
-The jigsaw strategy takes a reading assignment and asks each students to become an
"expert" on one section of the assigned material and then "teaching" it to the other
members of the team.
-Jigsaw is a strategy that emphasizes cooperative learning by providing students an
opportunity to actively help each other build comprehension. This strategy also helps to
improve listening, speaking, and problem-solving skills.
-This strategy is a great way for students with varying literacy levels to be mixed in
groups, helping those who struggle to improve their literacy skills further.
-Jigsaw helps students learn collaboration as group members share responsibility for each
other's learning by using critical thinking and social skills to complete an assignment.

Quick Write
-A quick write is a brief written response to a question or a probe that requires students to
quickly explain or comment on an assigned topic. These quick writes can be used at the
beginning, end, or even in the middle of a lesson. They can be used to review learned
material or as preparation for new content. After students have completed their quick
write, students can share their writing orally and it can serve as a basis for more
collaborative learning, like a students based discussion.
-Quick writes are a great way for students to practice their writing in non-stressful way,
because it's just a strategy for students to get their thoughts down on paper. Quick writes
are also a great way for students to practice their speaking, reading, and listening skills
while they share their written thoughts.
-This strategy is great for all students, because it allows everyone to practice their literacy
skills without the stress of it being graded. If this strategy is coupled with the Think, Pair,
Share strategy, it can be even better for ELL students, because it allows them to practice a
few times before sharing with the class. It's also a great way for teachers to detect gaps in
students understanding.
-This strategy can be used to promote critical thinking by asking students to make
connections, give explanations, and answer questions with supporting evidence. It can
also help strengthen communication and collaboration skills when students share their
ideas and thoughts with their classmates.

KWL
-KWL is a great strategy for students to brainstorm what they know, what they want to
know, and at the end, what they have learned into a chart. This strategy can have many
different purposes for students learning, including beginning a unit or introducing new
content and eliciting prior knowledge, setting a purpose for reading, or helping students
to monitor their comprehension. KWL can also be used as a kick off to a class discussion
on the topic.
-This strategy is a great way to help students focus their learning on a subject. It's also a
good way to show teachers holes in student knowledge to ensure they cover everything
they need to for student's full understanding.
-This strategy can help students strengthen their reading comprehension and allows
students to practice their speaking skills. If students are also writing down what is being
put down on the chart, then it can also help them strengthen their writing skills.
-Not only does this strategy help active prior knowledge and students critical thinking, it
can help students develop their communication and collaboration skills.
Graphic Organizer
-Graphic organizers guide and improve the learners' thinking through the utilization of a
visual map or diagram. Graphic organizers are some of the most effective visual learning
strategies for students. Graphic organizers facilitate students' learning by helping them
identify areas of focus within broad topics by helping students make connections and
structure their thinking and writing processes.
-Graphic organizers can help students strengthen their writing skills by providing
organization and structure. Students can also use graphic organizers to further their
reading comprehension by allowing them to organize their thoughts while reading.
-Graphic organizers are great for students who are visual learners, because it allows them
to actually see the connections relating to a topic. This is especially true for ELL students,
because even if they are struggling with reading or listening, they can see, in a visual
way, how things connect.
-Graphic organizers are great ways to strengthen critical thinking because they can show
cause and effect and help relate and transfer information. Graphic organizers are also a
creative way for students to learn visually, take notes, and utilize their organization skills.

Fill in Notes
-These are guided notes that are teacher-prepared handouts that outline lectures,
audiovisual presentations, or readings, but leave blank spaces for students to fill in key
concepts, facts, or to include activities associated with a lecture.
-Fill in notes are a great way to promote active engagement during lecture or independent
reading, provides full and accurate notes for later use, and helps students to identify the
most important information covered. Fill in notes also help students strengthen their
listening skills, because they allow the students' to focus on what their teacher is saying
versus writing down everything on lecture slides. Fill in notes is also a great strategy to
help students practice their writing and note taking skills.
-Fill in notes are great for all students because they provide framework, accommodate
diverse learning styles, keeps students focused and engaged, and assists ELL's with
support in the structure/outline of the language so they can focus on vocabulary building
and concept understanding.