The Global Read Aloud is an online book club, and this year our entire school, from Kindergarten to Grade six are taking part.  Our Grade four class has connected with a school in Texas, US to share their thoughts and connections to the book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.    

We have continued to build on our work pertaining to THIN and THICK questions.  We discovered that thin questions are easy to answer and can only be answered in one way. Thick questions require much thought and require one to really make important connections to ourselves, what we have experienced and what we have read.  We have used these questions to share our understandings of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. In the Ontario Language Curriculum…

Students are expected to demonstrate a variety of skills related to:

• Knowledge and Understanding
• Thinking
• Communication
• Application

The strategy of answering thick and thin questions, moves students beyond simply answering content questions, and takes them to a level of thinking about what they read using what is often called, “21st Century Thinking”.

21st Century Thinking pushes students to think critically about their reading, by sharing Knowledge and Understanding of ideas, opinions and relationships between characters in the stories and themselves.  Metacognitive thinking, which calls on students to think critically about their own thinking and learning is called upon.  Students communicate their understanding with clarity and confidence, particularly when they present to an authentic audience.  They apply their understandings by connecting them to other texts, they have read, as well as to their own personal experiences.

One Grade four parent shared that their child wanted to complete their Literacy Thick Question independently stating, “I have been working on it at school with Ms. Ciocio and have edited it many times.”  The result was a Work of Excellence and 21st Century Thinking.

Below is a link to one Work of Excellence.

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