‘Apprentice’ comes from the Old French, aprendre, to learn. In the past, fledgling artists would learn the techniques of drawing, painting, and sculpture through hands-on experience in the workshops of master artists and emerge as an expert.
Just as in the Renaissance art world, the students in our classrooms are apprentices, learning from our subject knowledge and expert thinking.
A crucial part of our role as “masters” of literacy is illuminating the thought processes and specialised ways of reading, writing and thinking in different subject areas. But how we can best support students and set the conditions for a successful ‘apprenticeship’ over time?
Making the implicit, explicit with “think alouds”
Supporting teachers to define effective reading, writing, and talk in their subjects is key to disciplinary literacy, as outlined in Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools. For example, history teachers might discuss what reading strategies are deployed by historians to appraise historical sources.
As subject experts, we can develop “expert blindness” which limits our understanding of how a novice may respond to the reading and writing demands in our subjects. An effective way of challenging this is to set up a “think aloud” activity as part of a department meeting or curriculum discussion.
Choose a scheme of learning and select a text from it. Read the text and verbalise your thoughts (which are no doubt automatic and internal) as you read – commenting on, for example:
- the conventions of the text,
- how you prepare to read or write,
- what you notice as you read or write.
Create a set of guidelines
From the ““think aloud”” process, create a set of guidelines that exemplify the shared language of reading and writing in your subject area, what Shanahan and Shanahan call “reading facilitators”, explicit instructions for how to approach reading and understanding a text in specific subject areas.
The guidelines can then be shared with students for them to use as they encounter subject-specific texts.
An extension of this might be to ask students to collaborate or reflect on the guidelines – what do they notice? Can they spot patterns or connections across different subjects? Which modes of reading and writing do they feel more or less confident with?
When collaborating on a set of guidelines, be mindful that this can be used as a tool to build understanding of disciplinary literacy amongst staff and students, and as a resource for the classroom, rather than a ‘tick-box’ activity that becomes onerous or tokenistic.
How to maximise the impact of “think alouds” in the classroom
1. Use framing language that pre-empts what students should look out for. For example, “in this geography case study, we need to look out for Tier 2 vocabulary that might have a different meaning in geography.”
2. Set the conditions for focused and attentive demonstration and help to manage cognitive load by chunking the ‘“think aloud”’ into small steps.
3. Practise before you “go live”. Anyone who has had the privilege of observing this in practice will no doubt comment on the seamless nature of the “think aloud” and the well-timed narrative of expert thought processes. But there is a degree of vulnerability in articulating your thought process live to a room full of apprentices (even if you are a grand master!). So, practising with colleagues, or writing a mini script prior to the lesson, can help.
Fostering independence: plan, monitor, evaluate
To fully exercise the potential power of the “think aloud”, we can teach pupils specific strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning.
This is a promising approach in the EEF’s Teaching and Learning toolkit, in which the expert models a process or approach, which students are then given the opportunity to practice independently, with the teacher providing necessary support. The guidelines may be useful scaffolds for the gradual release of responsibility whilst students are practising the skill.
When the fledgling painter completed an apprenticeship, they were considered a professional, eligible to join the painters’ guild which opened the door to future opportunities. Equally, an apprenticeship in the literacy demands of our subjects ensures we give students the best possible chance of success and equal access to future study.
Further reading
EEF’s Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools guidance report – pp. 7 – 8.