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Strategies for teaching metacognition in classrooms

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Potential Tool for Students

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The best tool for reading comprehension

As a right-brained English teacher, I did not jump for joy when it came to grading and analyzing data. Although I knew that data-driven instruction was really valuable, spending hours grading and analyzing student performance trends was not my ideal use of a Sunday. Effective feedback experts know that "when feedback isn't timely, students are disengaged and demotivated."

This is exactly why the assignment report feature on CommonLit is invaluable. It makes it really easy to analyze student performance with a quick turnaround, especially because all of our multiple-choice questions are graded instantly. Instead of spending hours poring over student data just to find the trends yourself, our assignment reports allow you to view trends immediately so that you can spend time where you really need it: identifying informed next steps and planning for differentiated instruction.

For a good introduction to Assignment Reports, watch this quick "Show Me How" video:

Now that you know more about navigating Assignment Reports, let's take a closer look at how you can leverage Guided Reading Mode data to inform your instruction. There is so much you can do with Guided Reading Mode data that we'll save the assessment questions for a later post.

We'll start by looking at the data for a class of students who just read Ralph Fletcher's " Funeral." I'm going to explain the short story below to help frame some of the data analysis you'll see later in the post, but you may choose to check out "Funeral" before reading on.

Ralph, our protagonist, is moving away from home, so his friends have a "funeral" for him to say their goodbyes. The "funeral" is quite touching, and the boys reflect upon the great times that they have spent together. As the story ends, Ralph realizes how much he appreciates his friends, but simultaneously, he learns that he is ready to move on with his life.

Students who struggle with this text typically misinterpret the story as a literal funeral instead of a symbolic gesture. They may also think that Ralph's friends are having a "funeral" because they're mad at him or dislike him because he's moving.

Below, we're going to take a look at the Guided Reading Mode data for "Funeral." Throughout the rest of this post, I'll show you some ways that I would break down this data, as well as some strategies for revisiting this text with students who struggled.

Looking at this data, there are three different areas I would address. The majority of my students made two or more attempts at answering question number 3. I'd review the question to determine what part of the text is confusing students. I would also think about why that part of the text is so tricky for kids. Have they experienced this vocabulary? Is the text structure confusing? Is there something ambiguous that students made inferences around without looking for evidence?

I also notice that a handful of students made two or more attempts at answering question number 2, so I'm going to review this question in a small group. Finally, I notice that two of my students - Jennifer and Sebastian - struggled with the whole text, so I'm going to have individual conferences with each of them. Let's take a closer look at how to handle each of these situations:

One-on-One Reading Conferences

First, I want to start by thinking about the two students who really struggled with the whole text. They are struggling with the guided questions or the text complexity, so they need a swift intervention.

If I'm lucky, I can leverage a resource like a co-teacher or after-school time to meet with these students. Otherwise, I would run reading conferences with Jennifer and Sebastian while the rest of the class does an activity, like independent reading.

I would likely hypothesize, after rereading the guiding questions, which skill I could teach them at the beginning of the reteach. This way, they could hold onto and practice the skill throughout the lesson, so that there's some kind of foundation to add onto. I would also come to this conference prepared with scaffolding questions for each Guiding Question by asking myself: If they don't get THIS, then what could I ask them?

Once Jennifer and Sebastian grasp the figurative nature of the "funeral" in the story, they will be able to read the text with an increased understanding. Depending on their ability level, they may need additional support with vocabulary, identifying main ideas, and finding key details.

Small Group Reteach

The next data point I notice is the four students who had a breakdown in understanding on guiding question #2: Brian, Eric, Gabriela, and Keesha. (Since Jennifer and Sebastian had more severe misunderstandings I chose to provide a more individualized level of support for them).

Working with a small group can easily be accomplished during the beginning or end of class while the remainder of the students completes a warm-up or reflection activity. I would take this section of the text and run a close-reading.

I notice that with this particular question the group needs to really read carefully because the question asks students which answer does "NOT" apply:

Now I can help students who either misread the question or did not understand the nature of the "funeral" his friends hosted for him. They need to find evidence from the text that the funeral was funny, heart-felt, and honest (all positive) to understand that it was NOT mean (a negative). Students who did not fully understand that the funeral was a nice gesture may have misinterpreted it as something negative because funerals are usually "bad" on a more literal level.

Running a Whole Group Reteach

Question #3 was clearly a difficult one for most of my students. By hovering over the question I can take a closer look at where my students got confused.

This is a tough question because the text does not explicitly tell the reader how Ralph feels, and students will have to look very closely at the text to draw this inference. In the text, the character was able to move on because his friends got to say a proper good-bye.

I would run a close-reading of the most relevant paragraphs:

By the end of this reteach activity, students need to understand that option A is the correct answer because Ralph accepts his move. When Ralph states at the end of the story that he "stood up and stepped into [his] new life, whatever that might be," he is clearly not bored (option B) or angry (option C). Students may infer that he optimistically moves into his future, though he makes no comment about "seeing his friends again soon" (option D).

As we read through this section, students will identify key terms and look closely for evidence of Ralph's emotions. It may help to use the process of elimination. For example, I would help students break down the sentence "Usually I hated it... but this time it felt different" to drive home the idea that he does not feel angry about his move (eliminating option C from the question).

Using the Guided Reading Mode data gives me the opportunity to delve deeper into the text with the whole class since I see how many students got tripped up. Even though a few students got the answer correct, they will still benefit from participating in the close-reading activity. These students can even serve as tutors during turn-and-talks.

Final Thoughts

Use the three examples above to guide you through addressing data from Guided Reading Mode with your students.

Get into the habit of giving immediate feedback from the guided reading data and your students will quickly start rereading and close-reading texts on their own. Close-reading is a really good strategy to help students break down specific portions of a text and delve deeper into the nuances of complex language. It's a useful strategy for teaching all genres, not just fiction.

Teach and revisit a text after using the Guided Reading Mode data to figure out your next steps.

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Leveraging Guided Reading Mode - CommonLit

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As a right-brained English teacher, I did not jump for joy when it came to grading and analyzing data. Although I knew that data-driven instruction was really valuable, spending hours grading and analyzing student performance trends was not my ideal use of a Sunday.

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The best lesson is one that challenges students without overwhelming them. It gets students excited to learn and conquer the challenge in front of them and results in students feeling proud that they tackled something difficult. We throw around buzzwords all the time (i.e. "rigor" and "engagement") in an effort to build lessons that strike this perfect balance. But actually planning a lesson that meets students exactly at the nexus of challenge and ability is really hard.

At CommonLit, we believe teachers CAN have it all - challenging classes that are also extremely joyful.

Students do not want to be lectured at - they want to discover with their teachers and peers.

When executed correctly, rigor means centering classes around student intellectual output as opposed to teacher lecture. It's the idea that kids, not adults, should be the ones doing the "heavy lifting." When this happens, students don't get bored.

This is true for both high-skilled and low-skilled readers; everyone deserves to be challenged in school.

Here are 5 strategies you can use to increase both rigor and engagement in your classroom. To highlight how I would do this in my classroom, I'm going to give some examples using Langston Hughes' poem, " Mother to Son."

A great way to engage students before reading is to ask a thought-provoking, open-ended question. For example, before reading "Mother to Son," ask students whether or not everyone has equal access to the American Dream. Give students the space to explore deep questions like this and share their original ideas with their peers, and you will notice and uptick in intense critical thought. Bonus points for asking students to support their claims with relevant evidence.

After students read and annotate the text, foster a discussion. To ground this in the text, have student answer the questions by starting their sentences with phrases like:

"I noticed that..."

"The author argues..."

"The dialogue proves that..."

To help students move beyond the text, push them to begin their answers with phrases like:

"This reminds me of..."

"I wonder..."

"This relates to..."

For this lesson specifically, I would ask students how the speaker in "Mother to Son" overcomes adversity. I would give students a chance to brainstorm their claims and find supporting evidence in the poem before sharing. Then, I'd then ask them to identify characters in other texts that exhibited similar behavior and people in their own lives that have overcome adversity.

For more great discussion questions, check out the lesson on CommonLit.

If your students respond well to discussion, check out this other post about strategies for running a Socratic Seminar.

Before reading a challenging text, spark students' interest with an engaging video. I'd probably show students this video about the history of the Harlem Renaissance before reading "Mother to Son." This would help to build the essential background knowledge needed to fully understand the references in the poem. To hold students accountable for understanding the video, I would ask them to answer a few short comprehension questions as post-reading. Check out this blog post on using Related Media for more ideas.

Students love making connections because they can ground new information with something they have already learned. If the texts are from different genres (like poetry and nonfiction), the variety will compel students to access different parts of their brain. At CommonLit, we offer multiple pairing suggestions for each text and created this video to help you plan your next cross-textual lesson.

If students enjoyed reading two texts about the same topic, why not read more? One idea is to allow students to research a broader topic - like the Harlem Renaissance - and offer an array of texts to choose from. One great tool is CommonLit's Text Sets, which include several texts on a single topic. You'll quickly notice that this strategy lends itself to rigorous projects, writing assignments, and rich class discussions.

Check out this post for a few easy strategies on using text sets in engaging ways.

Next time you use the CommonLit platform to teach a text, try incorporating these strategies to engage and challenge your students.

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5 Strategies to Increase Rigor and Engagement

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The best lesson is one that challenges students without overwhelming them. It gets students excited to learn and conquer the challenge in front of them and results in students feeling proud that they tackled something difficult. We throw around buzzwords all the time (i.e.

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Help students chunk complex texts as they read

No More One and Done

On our first official day of class, I assigned my 8th grade Humanities students a cold reading of the myth " The Star and the Lily" by Hamilton Wright Mabie. The text is relatively short, but the reading level challenged my students, especially since they'd just returned from summer break. Unfortunately, as I feared, many of my new students seemed to suffer from Summer Slide, caused by a lack of dedicated reading time during their eight weeks off from school. As they tackled the text, I saw foreheads crinkle and lips frown. The floor echoed a rhythm of frustration from tapping feet and bouncing knees.

I was okay with this.

I knew my students needed to experience a certain amount of frustration with the text in order to break out of the "one and done" cycle. One and done describes the way many students traditionally approach literacy by only reading it once without ever rereading. But a growth mindset does not come from approaching tasks only once and in only one way. Before I could help my students grow their literacy skills, I needed them to see the value in reviewing and redoing work.

I needed my students to understand their own thinking in order to move forward.

Thinking About Thinking

Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is an important self-regulation skill successful students master in order to achieve academic success. When students practice metacognitive skills, they take time to stop and reflect before, during, and after a task. Reflecting on process as well as outcomes help students know what to change and improve. In essence, successful students think beyond themselves to see their learning in an objective way.

Students who successfully practice metacognitive skills organize workspaces, complete tasks on a schedule, create plans for learning, monitor learning tasks, identify necessary changes, and understand how to apply "fix it" strategies to reach a goal. Successful students do not need to rely on teachers or parents to monitor their progress because they understand how to manage and monitor their own learning. Because successful students master metacognitive skills, they experience fewer setbacks, become less discouraged, and remain more engaged with their work.

While it can seem like successful students instinctively "have it together," the truth is metacognition is a learned skill. One way teachers can help students become metacognitively strong is by breaking the "one and done" mentality and replacing it with "review and redo" as a classroom expectation.

A tool teachers can use to help students slow down and apply metacognitive skills is enabling Guided Reading Mode on CommonLit. Guided Reading Mode chunks texts into smaller sections. Students cannot read the next part of the text until they get a comprehension question correct about the part they just read. This helps focus students on the text and prevents them from scanning ahead.

Review and Redo

After my students completed a CommonLit assignment independently, I led them through an analysis of our class scores using our data from CommonLit. Students could only see whole class averages for the assessment questions.

Teachers can display student performance data anonymously by selecting "Hide Names."

As a whole class, we discussed trends in the data and analyzed each question and answer, generating hypotheses about why students answered questions correctly or incorrectly. Students then worked in pairs to revisit the text to find evidence and justify why a particular answer was correct.

Teachers can "unsubmit" assignments to give students a second chance.

After the discussion and pair work, I told the students I was erasing the first scores. We would reread the text and retake the assessment, but the scores wouldn't count toward their grade. Instead, students would complete a metacognitive reflection document to show the thinking they did with the text. The Metacognitive Reflection Record was the only part of the process I entered in the gradebook.

Students responded positively to the process of "review and redo" when they understood how and why struggling with a text or assignment could help them improve. Below, I've shared responses from a few students.

"I kind of felt happy about the review and redo because even though I had a good score the first time, I learned a lot more and tried harder on the redo."

"I felt the myth was complicated when we first read it, but after looking at the notes, I understood it a lot better. If I had another assignment, I might feel stressed out about it at first, but if I knew I could redo it, I would feel good about it because we would be able to look over our notes and see what we did wrong the first time."

"I felt confused at first because there were so many new words compiled together. I had to go over it again and again and again to get unconfused before I finally got it together. I'm glad I had multiple opportunities so I could get a better grade on the first test and know for next time what to do better."

The Struggle IS Real

Students often think "struggle" is a negative word: something to avoid. However, teachers can reframe "struggle" to become an important part of the learning process. This only works if students understand how to objectively break down their thinking process and how to make adjustments that affect change. Metacognitive skills can be integrated into a "review and redo" classroom culture where students know the work they do adds up to much more than a "one and done" score.

Next Steps

Moving students from the fixed mindset of "one and done" to the growth mindset of "review and redo" takes time as students work to adapt with new skills. A key element in the transition is scaffolding assignments to incorporate direct teaching of metacognitive skills.

Encourage your students to use metacognition in your classroom to get them grappling with the deeper issues of a text.

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Teach Young Readers Metacognition Skills

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Help students chunk complex texts as they read On our first official day of class, I assigned my 8th grade Humanities students a cold reading of the myth " The Star and the Lily" by Hamilton Wright Mabie. The text is relatively short, but the reading level challenged my students, especially since they'd just returned from summer break.

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Close Reading Document Analysis Worksheet in PDF

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Close Reading Document Analysis Worksheet in PDF

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Potential Tool for Students

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Potential Tool for Students

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Constructed response questions can be scary at first. Scary to teach and scary to write! Using the RACE Strategy will help ensure students get this skill right, every time!

I mean, when you compare writing a constructed response to answering a multiple-choice question, well, there really is no contest.

Constructed Response makes multiple-choice questions seem so simple to complete.

Since we know that students need to be able to write constructed responses, I was so happy when I was introduced to the RACE strategy.

It took the fright out of teaching constructed responses for text evidence.
The RACE Strategy gave me a step-by-step template to teach my students precisely what to do.
Even though writing constructed responses are still challenging, when you teach your students the RACE strategy and give them lots of opportunities for practice, your students will master it!
What is the RACE Strategy?
So, just what is the RACE strategy? RACE is an acronym that helps students remember which steps and in which order to write a constructed response.
R = Restate the Question

The first step is to change the question into a statement.

This is also known as restating the question.

Students need to remove the question word like who, what, when, where, or why and then restate the keywords.

For example, if the question was, "Why did Jill decide to give her mother a jewelry box?" the answer would start this way, "Jill decided to give her mother a jewelry box because."

A = Answer the Question
After restating the question, the second step is to finish the sentence and answer the question.
Here are a few tips for this.
Students may use their knowledge and inferences from the text to identify the answer.

1) Students must answer the specific question being asked.

2) Students also need to answer every part of the question. Sometimes questions have more than one part.
hey need to list the character's name before using a pronoun like he/she/they.

C = Cite Text Evidence Citing evidence is the tricky part.

First, kids need to find relevant evidence to support their answer.

Then, they must write it correctly using a sentence stem

According to the text...

The author stated...

In the second paragraph...

The author mentioned...

On the third page...

The text stated...

Based on the text...

To teach this skill, I make an anchor chart with the question stems and put them up when we start to work on citing evidence.

Once kids memorize a few question stems, this part of the RACE strategy goes much more smoothly.

I make sure students know to quote the text exactly as it is written and use quotation marks correctly too.

E = Explain What it Means

The last part of the Constructed Response is where kids tell how their text evidence proves their point.
Here are a few examples of sentence starters that help students begin to Explain:
Again, some simple sentence starters help kids stay on track here.

This shows

This proves

This is a good example of

This means that

When I teach the RACE strategy, I give the kids an overview of a completed constructed response example, so they can see where we're going.

Then, I break it down into separate parts and teach each one before putting it all together.

By the time kids reach my fourth or fifth-grade class, most students at my school have had teachers who have required them to answer a question using a restatement.

Students aren't doing constructed responses yet, but most are fairly comfortable with restating a question.

Because of this, I might spend a few days teaching or reviewing the restating and answering part.

I teach the Restating and Answering together since they usually form one sentence.

Then, I move to Citing text evidence, which takes much longer to teach.

The Explaining part goes pretty quickly after that.

Once I've taught all of the components, it's time for students to practice putting it all together.

To do this, we read a short text as a class.

It might be a Scholastic News article, a page from Chicken Soup for the Soul, or a passage I've created.

Finally, I model (with their input) a Constructed Response using a RACE template from The Teacher Next Door's Text Evidence Differentiated Unit

I project it on the smartboard so everyone can see it.

The next day, we repeat this with a different passage in pairs.

When students are finished, we go over it together to compare notes when they're finished. After that, it is time to work on it independently.

A few notes...

Make sure to start teaching the RACE strategy early in the year, so there's plenty of time to practice. If you teach this strategy right before standardized testing, it will not be very effective.

Start with short passages. One page is ideal. Giving students practice with shorter texts will help them gain confidence for the longer texts in the future. Baby steps, right?

You'll want students to write constructed responses repeatedly, but NOT for every passage they read.

Constructed responses are somewhat of a chore, even with an excellent strategy like RACE.

I try not to burn kids out on any one thing so that they dread it. It would be like asking them to write a five-paragraph essay each day. No one wants to do that. So, my advice is to give them a good foundation for how to write them and then sprinkle them in now and then throughout the year. Spiral practice is key!

You can apply the RACE Strategy to any set of materials that you have on hand. However, The Teacher Next Door knows how time consuming it can be to search for standards-aligned and grade level appropriate materials.

To save you time, The Teacher Next Door has created a Text Evidence Differentiated Unit with everything you need for students to master this skill!

The Text Evidence Differentiated Unit contains:

10 color coding passages

8 practice passages

3 sets of text evidence games (with 32 task cards in each set)

Posters for the entire RACE Strategy

If you'd like to read more about how to teach text evidence, we have another post you may want to read : Citing Text Evidence in 6 Steps.
The entire unit is differentiated for you! Each passage comes in three different levels, and the three games are differentiated too!

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Using the RACE Strategy for Text Evidence - The Teacher Next Door

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A simple strategy for upper elementary students to use to successfully cite text evidence using the RACE Strategy for success, every time!

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Potential Tool for Students. There are other versions out there, feel free to add any slightly different version to this padlet!

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An Explanation

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One Possible Structure for Students to Use

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Newsela classifies this reading as "Science/Math"

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Scientists find largerst dead zone in Gulf of Mexico

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This link is to a very short video that contains a wonderful idea on how to initially engage reluctant (MS/HS)/young readers in a Close Reading.
Again, you need to be logged into Clever and Newsela to access.

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Newsela Link to Close Reading Strategies.
You will need to be logged into Clever and Newsela to access!

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The International Literacy Association publishes research based and data-driven articles and journals for teachers.

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“Rooting” On Adolescents An ILA Resource

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Common Lit will help me teach humanities seamlessly with history and ELA content at the same time.

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Common Lit will help me teach humanities seamlessly with history and ELA content at the same time.

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I will be more purposeful in breaking down annotations.

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I will be more purposeful in breaking down annotations.

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I like the idea of doing annotations in rounds. It provides more focus and purpose.