While-Reading

(Content and Process Differentiation)

Group Interaction 4 (Skimming and scanning) (3 min): Read the first paragraph of a text quickly and answer the following questions.

Last year's Galaxy Note 7 was a big step forward for the Note line, pairing an impeccably built body with an updated S Pen and excellent performance. Then they started blowing up. The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus did well to rehabilitate Samsung's image as a top-notch phone maker, and now the company is trying to make up for past mistakes with the brand-new Galaxy Note 8.

1. How many phone models are mentioned in the paragraph?

2. Which one do you think is the focus of the text? Why?

3. What do you think is in common between the text and the video we just saw? Do they share the same text type/purpose etc.?

Forming pre-reading/watching expectations on texts (both print and non-print) being a useful skill to understand or even evaluate them critically ³¹

Stage 2: While-Reading

Detailed Reading (5 min): Let’s read the second paragraph of the text together and answer some questions together as we read it aloud.

Samsung had a lot to prove, and it mostly succeeded.

There's no doubting that the Note 8 ($929) is a great smartphone — it packs all the usual flagship amenities, not to mention a dual camera that works very, very well.

The problem is, the Note 8 feels a little... by-the-book.

Samsung, frankly, got so much right with its other huge phone, the Galaxy S8 Plus, that the Note 8 doesn't feel as triumphant an improvement as the Note 7 did in

comparison with the S7 line. Don't get me wrong: The Note 8 is still Samsung's best smartphone, and one could even argue it's the best big phone out there. Just know that it's a pretty conservative update, and that it's going to cost you.

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Stage 2: While-Reading

Sample detailed reading questions for advanced learners 1. What did Samsung have to prove? Why did the writer

use the past tense in the first sentence?

2. Which expression means ‘certainly’?

3. A ‘flagship’ in a fleet is the one the commander of that fleet is quartered. What does flagship mean in this

context?

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Stage 2: While-Reading

Sample detailed reading questions for advanced learners 4. The phrase ‘not to mention’ can be replaced by…?

5. ‘A dual camera’ is an example of …?

6. What information do we expect to get from a book? What does it tell us about the meaning of the expression

‘by-the-book’? Is it a positive or negative comment about Note 8? What tells us so?

7. Which adjective in the paragraph means the opposite as

‘by-the-book’?

8. What disadvantage(s) of Note 8 is/are mentioned in the paragraph?

9. What does ‘could’ in ‘one could even argue…’ mean?

10. Draw a graphic organiser to visualise the writer’s comparison of the four phones: S7, Note 7, S8, Note 8.

… ₃₄

Stage 2: While-Reading

Why detailed reading?

- Fostering simultaneous global (for abstract ideas) and local (for specific concrete details) reading

- Space for open inquiry (vs closed questions in traditional reading comprehension exercises)

- Higher order reading (i.e. reading between the lines, identifying semantic and syntactic clues for

inferencing/interpreting etc.)

- Problem solving through identifying syntactic and

semantic clues for determining implicit meanings (e.g.

the writer’s attitude)

- Developing awareness of various writing styles (for their own writings)

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Stage 2: While-Reading

Individual Reading (5 min): Skim and scan the following

paragraphs of the first half of the text on your own and share your answers to the following questions with a partner.

1. Why does the ‘summary’ section come at a rather front position?

2. Among the different aspects of the smartphone reviewed, which do you think is the one that appeals to the writer most? Why?

3. There are some other sections following the first part of the text. What do you think they are?

Guiding students to analyse the language features and the

rhetorical structure of the text in relation to its purpose along the genre egg model for content differentiation ³⁶

Stage 2: While-Reading

Individual Reading:

Hands-on Task: Do you think these questions are challenging enough? Any suggestions on even more challenging questions for the most advanced students?

1. Can you identify any examples of metaphor and simile used by the writer? How does that help convey meaning?

2. Why does ‘two’ in ‘(or two)’ refer to?

3. Can you identify any features/components of Note 8 where there’s no negative comments from the writer?

4. What does the writer mean when he says ‘if only the

company spent just a little more time on the Note 8's single speaker’?

5. How does the writer compare the Android system in Note 8 and Galaxy S8? Which phrase suggests that to us? ³⁷

Stage 2: While-Reading

Why individual reading after collaborative reading?

- Developing self-understanding through connecting their understanding of the text to their everyday experience and/or existing knowledge about the topic of the reading text

- Raising individual students’ awareness of the typical language features and rhetorical structure of the

target genre (i.e. understanding the ‘texture’ of the text/genre) and thereby understanding a text at

different levels of language (c.f. the genre egg model for content differentiation), which are

higher-order and transferrable reading skills

Stage 2: While-Reading

Venn Diagram Task (30-40 min)

Comparing texts of the same genre: Google ‘Samsung Note 8 reviews’. Read/watch either the print or non-print version of at least one more review on the phone and complete a Venn Diagram comparing the reviews on an A3 paper:

Which template is more challenging, in what sense(s)? ³⁹

Some Suggestions on Review Texts

Good idea to provide suggestions? Why/why not? The students’ choices being respected? Potential to develop research skills of the advanced students? ⁴⁰

Stage 2: While-Reading

Alternatives in setting the review reading task for achieving differentiated instruction (varying the product):

Asking students to:

- rate the credibility of the three product reviews - compare the rhetorical structure of the three texts - judge any bias of their delivery

- identify the respective writers’ use of figurative language/imagery/any other linguistic devices for expressing their opinions (e.g. metaphors, similes, personification, exaggeration)

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Stage 2: While-Reading

The “Equaliser” Model for planning differentiated lessons (content, product, process)

differentiating students’ readiness in terms of rate, depth, pace, structure of learning etc.

Reference:

How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-ability Classrooms 2nd Edition The How To’s of Planning Lessons Differentiated by Readiness p.47) by Carol Ann Tomlinson

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