Known as “concept attainment”, this week’s offering is also a social-emotional opportunity to reflect on the behavior that is now a media focus…civility.
In the words of Barrie Bennett and Carol Rolheiser in their book Beyond Monet: The Artful Science of Instructional Integration, everything one sees, touches, feels, and tastes is a concept. Concepts are the building blocks for communication…concept attainment is one approach that brings clarity to concepts – and clarity often enriches life. Concept Attainment is an inductive strategy developed by Jerome Bruner.
I’m going to make this look easy, but I highly recommend you read further. Beyond Monet is an excellent resource.
Here are the phases, followed by two examples – one for SEL, one for academic content:
1 – provide a focus statement and present the data set
2 – students share their thinking and hypotheses
3 – application and extension of the concept
Example #1 – Words of Appreciation (focus statement)
(data set)YES: NO: TESTERS:
thank nasty compliment helpful stupid don’t value hate stop like hurt enjoy
(Students share their thinking…and maybe add another word to each column, or write examples for each column [application and extension])
Example #2 – Good sentences for a ‘response to literature’
(data set)
YES
- The reader is given some clues, like the name “Mr. Graves”, that there is something sinister about the lottery.
- One point the author makes in this story is the danger of peer pressure.
- I wondered why the author spent so much detail on people picking up rocks for a lottery, because the two don’t seem to go together.
- I didn’t like the ending because it led me to believe that Tessie was killed, but it was never confirmed.
- This story makes you sad cause someone dies.
- If you win, you get killed – that’s messed up.
- I didn’t like how unfair it was.
- The point is you don’t want to win the lottery.
- I like how you don’t know what is going to happen.
- The ending was stupid.
- The author makes you feel sad at the end because Tessie is killed for no reason.
- It was a weird story, because it was so believable, until the end.
- The author used foreshadowing and symbolism throughout the story.
- The black box gives you the feeling that something bad is going to happen.
- I thought the story was confusing.
- I thought the story was confusing because I had a hard time understanding the way people were talking
