Gain metacognitive strategies to use in your literacy lessons, with Vicky Waghorn.
Goldwyn School’s continued drive to understand and evaluate how our students learn has culminated this year in a focus on metacognitive approaches in the classroom. Metacognitive ideas also link well with our plan to improve literacy and foster a growth mindset in our students.
Before outlining some of the areas of metacognitive progress, it is worth noting that Goldwyn School’s core value of “no significant learning happens without significant relationships,” (quoted from Dr James Comer) will always be at the forefront of our practices. Jennifer Webb reiterates this in her book, How to Teach English Literature – “students who are experiencing less stability (such as anxiety, uncertainty, distress or anger) struggle to encode information for learning. Happy, stable students learn much more effectively.” 1
3 examples of metacognitive strategies in my literacy lessons
What? How? Why?
As an English teacher working with neurodiverse cohorts, I have looked at what metacognitive techniques are already embedded within my own practice and what new ideas I think will support our students to achieve success, improve literacy and develop a growth mindset in all subject areas. Jennifer Webb’s insightful book, The Metacognition Handbook, has further developed my understanding of what strategies look like in the classroom and how they can be linked with the improvement of literacy. One useful comment from Webb states, “metacognition is not something that is done to students” but, “something which students do themselves”. 2
One of the techniques used by my KS4 students for literature analysis is the ‘What? How? Why?’ (WHW) method. In its early forms, students use their cognitive abilities to develop reading confidence and inference skills. After this, they begin thinking hard to formulate their own questions and ideas, thus leading to a fully developed response. The What, How, Why blog highlights that, unlike the more rigid structure of PEE (point, evidence, explain), “WHW is organic to the way in which we already write and think about literature”. 3 Metacognitive success comes when students use WHW to question the text independently with confidence and accuracy.
The examples below show two Year 10 students who, after reading an extract from the The Bees by Laline Paull, were given the question, ‘How does the writer use language to describe a dystopian society?’. Their own responses came after using the Frayer model for single word analysis, shared verbal construction of an answer along with a model written on the board. Interestingly, student A focusses more on sentence-level analysis, while student B does more single-word analysis. The other example below is a Year 11 student who is confidently using the WHW method to answer an exam-style question that could be in an English language paper.
Student A, Year 10
Transcription of writing: ‘In addition, the description of the setting further highlights a distopian society. This is evident in the phrase, “The air was hot and fetid”. This may suggest that even the conditions are uncomfortable and unpleasant even from the start of the bee’s life. Furthermore, the sounds and smells of the bees world reflect the dystopian society. When Flora awakes she hears, “static roared through her brain” and “a thousand scents dazed her”. Thus creating a sense of an oppressive environment on her body.’
Student B, Year 10
Transcription of writing: ‘“she dragged her body through and fell into an alien world”. The writer uses the word “dragged” to show the exhaustion of getting out into the “alien world”. The word “alien” is used to show the world is weird and she’s not in control. As also shown in the phrase, “this was the arrivals hall and she was a worker”. “Her worker number was 717”. The word “worker” is used to show that she’s not in control. This is also shown by the fact she has a worker number. In normal society people are not called by their worker number.’
Year 11 student
Transcription of writing: ‘Both Howard and Purgavie offer a personal perspective of the prisons that they visit. In source A, Howard states “I with a barrack bedstead, and a small aperture over the door.” to emphasize the condition of the cell. He also adds “I, with difficulty, entered to see a pale inhabitant” which allows us to further see through his perspective and how severe the conditions of the prisons were. Similarly, Purgavie demonstrates his personal perspective of prison by saying “As my footsteps echoed along the corridors” , which shows us his experience of the prison and atmosphere. The use of the word “echoed” further highlights how desolate and confined the prison is. This unequivocally demonstrates that both writers have a negative view on prison. The way that the writers describe both of the prisons leaves the reader with a sense that prison aren’t as good as they seem and there is no way of reform or rehabilitation.’
Connecting subjects
My English literature cohort has just moved on from studying Romeo and Juliet to looking in depth at the poems in the Power and Conflict anthology. We spent some time understanding Shakespeare’s use of structure and language, including the sonnet form and iambic pentameter. Initially, we used a drum to understand the rhythm – questioning why Shakespeare had used this particular meter in the play. Most of the students also study music, so this was the perfect link. When we started to look at poetry, the students very quickly activated prior knowledge to identify iambic pentameter in Ozymandias, extracts from The Prelude and My Last Duchess. The only prompt from me was an ‘I wonder’ phrase. They worked it out by very quietly drumming on the desk with their fingers. This was another great example of metacognitive strategies improving literacy while reinforcing a growth mindset. Of course, I hope that by the time they take their exams, their inner drum will have taken over!
Reciprocal reading
Another approach which I’d seen used by a trainee teacher several years ago and was revived by a visit to The Charles Dickens School in Broadstairs, was reciprocal reading. Used well, this allows students to fully understand the text in front of them and build further cognitive connections for future work. Students work in groups or independently to predict, clarify, question and summarise the information in a text. More recently, we used this technique with the story of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
My students used reciprocal reading to identify the technique of foreshadowing – making secure connections to use effectively in their own work.
Summary
Across the school, metacognitive techniques to improve literacy and build a growth mindset take many forms. From the, ‘thinking out loud’ used in maths and science, to the very clear ‘evaluate and monitor’ model in vocational subjects, where students are able to use purposeful dialogue to build on prior knowledge.
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think”, Margaret Mead
References
- How to Teach English Literature: Overcoming Cultural Poverty, by Jennifer Webb
- The Metacognition Handbook – A Practical Guide for Teachers and School Leaders, by Jennifer Webb
- The What How Why of WHW: Introducing and Using ‘What, How, Why’: https://codexterous.home.blog/2021/04/11/the-what-how-why-of-whw-introducing-and-using-what-how-why/
- Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Report – EEF: https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/eef-guidance-reports/metacognition/EEF_Metacognition_and_self-regulated_learning.pdf?v=1713183813
Author
Vicky is an English teacher and Teaching and Learning Lead at an outstanding SEMH school in Kent. She is passionate about literacy in all its forms, inclusion and restorative practice. Previously, Vicky enjoyed producing content for the BBC with its mission to 'inform, educate and entertain'.
