Cycle 2 Action 2 Teaching Points

• Blog writers choose topics that will get a reader to think and feel. Sometimes it is helpful to look back at our research and think about something we feel strongly about and brainstorm possible research details we can use to persuade our readers to our point of view.
• Blog writers learn to navigate a blog site such as www.blogger.com. To do this we read appropriate blogs on the site itself to get a feel for format, and click on the various links to grasp the layout and content of the site. It might be helpful to take notes along the way.
• Writers understand the blogging is a process that needs to be followed. It helps to follow directions provided by the teacher until we become familiar with the process.
• Blog writers create and post blogs as multimodal text. We do this by finding pictures, videos and/or sound clips that support our topic.
• Blog writers persuade readers to see and often times take on our points of view. One way to do that is to predict what the reader's counter view might be and validate the view before exposing them to our own.

Teaching Points Cycle 2 Action 1

• Readers/researchers differentiate between informational and persuasive types of blogs. It helps to ask ourselves, "Am I just learning about a topic, or am I starting to feel or think about my own idea?"
• Readers of blogs identify the perspective or point of view of the author. We do this by asking ourselves, "What is the author trying to get me to think or feel about this topic?"
• When we read blogs we need to make sure that we are not reading them in a neutral way. Sometimes it is helpful to put on a critical reading lens searching for specific examples in the text that helps us think and feel a certain way.
• Digital literacies, such as blogs, help us to partake in a global education and communication process by noticing the various perspectives of blog writers all over the world, and in turn using those perspectives to reflect on our own points of view about the topics.

Cycle 1 Action 3 Teaching Points

· Researchers of digital literacy report our findings in a variety of ways. One way we can do this is to compile a report of our findings in an information book.

· Researchers notice that authors, especially of digital media, have specific points of view on the topic they are presenting. Sometimes it is helpful to ask ourselves, What does the author want me to think and feel about this topic? What is he or she doing to get me to think/feel?, as we navigate through the websites, podcasts, blogs, etc…

· Researchers develop our own perspectives about the topics in which we research, by looking closely at the points of view of different authors and identifying with a certain perspective, forming our own judgments and opinions based on the evidence.

Cycle 1 Action 2 Teaching Points

· Researchers use social settings to process the information we acquire from digital media sources about our research topics. Most of us find it helpful to meet with others researching about the same topic and use accountable literature talk strategies.

· Researchers utilize our team talks to develop new ideas about our topics. Sometimes it is helpful to record notes during our talks, using boxes and bullets, to develop main ideas and the details that support them.

· Researchers evaluate ourselves, and our teams to make sure we are getting the best out of our inquiry. One way we can do this is to listen to transcripts of our talks to make sure we are staying focused, or to come up with ways to make our inquiries and talks more effective.

· Researchers learn to engage in strong inquiries by standing on the shoulders of others. Listening to podcasts of other research teams conversations can help us to uncover the correct and sometimes incorrect ways of focusing our research.

Cycle 1 Action 1 Teaching Points

. Researchers use various digital media to locate information for our inquiries. Sometimes it’s helpful to choose a big idea we have about our topic and then look for details to support that idea.

· Researchers expand upon the information we find about our topic. One way we do this is by taking an interesting idea from information on a website, blog, etc… and using prompts such as, The weird thing about this is…, This makes me think that…, I can sort of picture how this goes…, I wonder if…, So, what I am really saying is…

· Researchers organize the information we find in the digital media. Just like we navigate through our printed texts it is important to develop or infer a main idea from the information and then identify the supporting details.

· Researchers often times make a plan before we begin to navigate through websites, podcasts and other forms of digital literacies. In order to do that it is helpful to come up with a thoughtful and focused research question and then research the information with that question in mind.

· Researchers critically evaluate the content we encounter in documentaries, on websites and other digital media outlets, by cross checking information from one ‘website’ with the same information on another website, blog, podcast, etc., and checking for commonalities and accuracy.