Research Question: To what extent can the teaching of various

cognitive strategies in an untracked classroom help students

construct meaning and personal connections to a text?

Sub- Questions:
•To what extent can student drawing and textual
illustrations be utilized to create meaning?
•In other words, how can student employ a synaesthetic
methodology while attempting to generate textual
meaning?
 Beacon Charter School for the Arts: A Unique Approach to
Secondary School, College Preparatory Education
• The SCHOOL
Beacon Charter School for the Arts is an untracked, arts education institution located in
Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The student body is largely white and working class, with about
eighty percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Students are required to
participate in one of three arts: culinary, visual, and theatre. For many students Beacon
represents a kind of last chance at scholastic success. Many of my pupils have come to
Beacon after being expelled or failing out of other institutions. All academic classes at Beacon
are untracked and students are required to take four years of English, mathematics, and
science. About half of Beacon graduates attend college: the majority first attends CCRI before
moving onto a four-year college or university.
• THE CURRICULUM
At Beacon all eleventh graders musts complete one semester of American literature.
Ordinarily, the curriculum includes A Raisin in the Sun, The Great Gatsby, and various works
by Sandra Cisneros. The essential question for the class is: What is the American Dream?
However, because of the New England Common Assessment Program exam, our semester
curriculum looked slightly different. We had to veer away from curricular instruction and
teach exam strategies for six weeks. Because of this delay, we did not get to Gatsby. Instead
of teaching Fitzgerald, I decided to teach Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a
Part-Time Indian .
 THE BOOK
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian: The Power and Procedure of
Navigating the Other

• Written by poet and filmmaker Sherman Alexie with

illustrations by Ellen Forney, The Absolutely True Diary of a
Part Time Indian is a wonderful text to begin teaching
cognitive strategies. Alexie’s protagonist is a cartoonist
and he draws illustrations when, as he puts it, words are
“not enough.” Though thematically and conceptually
sophisticated, the text is excellent for readers of all skill
levels. The majority of the chapters are short, the language
is simple and accessible, and the illustrations provide an
excellent access point in the construction and
development of textual meaning.
•Alexie’s text was a wonderful textual springboard as I
began the process of teaching and practicing various
cognitive strategies with the students.
Method to the Madness: What Strategies Did I Use and
Why?

STRATEGIES USED DEFINITIONS OF STRATEGIES

1. Student’s own illustrations and
1. Response to Visual illustrations taken from the text
Stimulus 2. Prompted by the sentence starter: “I
can relate to this because…” or “I
2. Personal Connections to cannot relate to this because…”
the Text 3. Determining what may come next in
the text based on prior reader or
3. Predictions (more often) the illustrations from the
text
4. Questioning
4. Asking closed questions for which
5. Wondering there is only one answer
5. Asking open-ended, universal
questions which are inspired by the
text, but not necessarily from the text
PURPOSE: WHY THESE COGNITIVE
STRATEGIES?
My purpose for teaching these strategies
was two-fold:
1. To help students at all reading levels engage
actively and construct meaning through a
common text

2. I believe that discussion-based classrooms

are the most effective and entertaining for
students and teachers. These strategies
seemed most organically connected to the
construction of meaningful discourse.
 What Have Others Said About
Teaching Cognitive Strategies?
• Research has shown that the most effective teachers employ a myriad of
cognitive strategies in their classroom instruction.
• These cognitive strategies are concrete tools that an instructor teaches
the students so that they may return to these strategies time and time
again, deploying them both inside and outside of the classroom.