The Blue Walloo
Over the next few days, we will explore the controversy
regarding allocating additional funding to The Blue Walloo. Stakeholders
supporting the move have expressed concerns that failure to do so will provide
incentive to further defund similar programs. Those opposed state that such
funding sets precedents that are difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.
Please state and defend your position regarding the
funding of The Blue Walloo. You must include supporting evidence and a concise
conclusion.
What is wrong with this exercise?
Do you know what The Blue Walloo is? Did you make a
guess--and if so, what did you guess?
It could be a night club, an oceanographic exploration,
an endangered bird, a novel, a painting, a secret service operation, a cultural
event…
What if I gave you the following words to define--would
this make the exercise accessible?
blue
controversy
funding
precedents
stakeholders
opponents
concerns
walloo
allocating
programs
Now, try substituting the phrase “The Blue Walloo” with
one of the following:
Brexit
Polar bears
The Children’s Festival
The Food Bank
The Museum
The Norther Gateway Pipeline
OK2BME
Foreign Aid to Nigeria
The Humane Society
Municipal snow removal
The Heritage Front
House of Friendship Shelter
ION LRT
International Space Exploration
Arms trade with Columbia
Reception House
The Public Library
Employment Insurance
Medical research
Local hockey team
Local Symphony Orchestra
Safe Injection Site
Automotive Industry
Cyber surveillance
Now try a different one of those. How does the meaning
change?
How can we use this exercise to inform our approach to
teaching students what they need to know
when learning and improving their reading comprehension?
If you are from outside of southwestern Ontario, you may
have found some of the last examples equally mystifying as “The Blue Walloo”.
Students come to us with a wide variety of prior
experiences. We have students who have lived in different countries, and
different cultures within our own country. Some students are learning English
as an additional language. The diversity in cultural and socio-economic
backgrounds means that the prior knowledge and vocabulary they understand
cannot be assumed. We need to actively build those into our teaching so that
there is an accessible context from which students can reflect, build
connections, make predictions and evaluate the validity of statements.
Cross-Curricular Considerations
This applies not only to language as a distinct subject
area, but all academic areas. Relevant vocabulary needs to be introduced and prior
knowledge developed in order to ensure that students are able to access the
subject matter.
For example, word problems in math need to use examples
that students can understand and relate with. One way of ensuring this is to
enlist students to create and share their own word problems.
For content areas such as social studies and science,
sharing introductory materials in a variety of reading levels for students to
access, keeping an active glossary that is built upon as a class, and
reviewing, summarizing and sharing in small and large groups collaboratively
can help to provide the necessary prerequisites for content fluency. There are
many great sites that can be used to this end, just a few of which include:
National Geographic Kids
Brittanica School Online
PebbleGo
Capstone Interactive Library
Newsela
CNN10
Culturegrams
Kids Info Bits (Gale)
Epic Books
BookFlix
Can Points of View
This is not by any stretch an exhaustive list, but should
help provide a starting point. If you teach or attend school in Ontario, the
Library Learning Commons site will have links to most of the above resources.
