Making a Megacognitive Salad

So at the end of the last academic school year I was selected to write the Reading, Writing, and Word Work curriculum for my district with a teammate. We used lots of items for curriculum enrichment but one example really stood out to me. Perhaps it was the demonstration that wooed me instantly. The person leading our curriculum development had purchased the book: Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor and was demonstrating one of the chapters that detailed mega cognitive thinking or "thinking about your thinking".

The link above connects to this book on Amazon and you can even flip through it to see the different chapters. 

Pay careful attention to the upcoming steps because I followed the demonstration I had seen and my mind was blown. I thought WOW my students are really going to get this!

You pick a book any book and start reading a little fast and with semi- inflection in your voice. You then ask the students if they think you're a good reader. They will probably say no, let them share why. Try again... a little slower and more inflection and ask if you're a good reader yet again. After the share why they thought you were or were not, tell them that you really were only reading the text and that you can't even remember exactly what you read.

So even though it appeared you were a good reader, you were missing something very very important- your thinking! This is where the concept gets harder because even as an adult I don't always stop where I am at in the book and think to myself "What have I read?" It comes so naturally to feel sad or happy when we read without even stopping. Your students are still building the basic blocks of this foundation. I tell them my thinking is just as important as the text, or the words I say when I read.

This is me "thinking about my thinking".

I tell them successful reading has two things: text AND thinking. And that today we are going to make a salad to prove my point. Not a Caesar or a Cobb Salad but rather a Mega Cognitive Salad! In the book they used red and green slips of paper with a glass bowl but I just created some simple lettuce and tomatoes in Word and then printed and laminated them.

The salad pieces I made for the activity. Comment if you'd like these emailed to you free of charge!

Now I reread the same passage as before but I point my finger to the text as I read the words and I point my finger to my head when I am thinking. I have three student helpers- two to hold the "salad pieces" and one to hold the bowl while they watch my fingers and put the pieces in that correspond to each time I point. We check through the bowl when I am done and count the number of text tomato pieces vs. thinking lettuce pieces. I stress that my salad pieces should have more thinking because I am constantly coming up with thoughts and questions. My thinking ranges from making connections, predictions, inferences, questions, etc. anything about what I am currently reading in the text. After I've read the same passage from before when I told them I wasn't a good reader, I ask for them to share differences they noticed. Did it seem like I make the information more relevant to me? I tell them YES and without going back to the passage I go through everything I read and the thoughts that I had shared. I emphasize by slowing down and making the text more personal, I have a MUCH stronger understanding of the text at hand. 

The anchor chart we have hanging in our classroom that we made together. 

After a thorough modeling and discussion, I ask if there are any volunteers to try to  make a "Mega Cognitive Salad". There always are! :) I let them sit on my teacher stool with three of their peers who are making the salad nearby. They are instructed to point to their head for thinking, and point to the text when they are reading. The first go around I help and guide them when they get lost by asking after a long time if they have not stopped, "Do you have a connection with what you just read?" or "Have you been making a prediction about what is happening next?". I teach 5th grade and so I think by 10/11 years old, they are pretty good with being creative and having these thoughts but they just need to slow down and apply them to what the text. I could see with a younger grade level where they could do this easily just need more guidance.

After a few student trials I tell them we don't need to point in daily reading but that was an example to show how text + thinking = the best kind of reader! I tell them that when they read from now on I want them to remember my Mega Cognitive Salad and if they were putting lettuce and tomatoes in the bowl, what would the bowl be made up of? If the answer is tomatoes = text, I am not doing a good job of making the text relevant to me. However, an equal amount of each is good and even more lettuce= thinking is GREAT! We reference the salad throughout the year and I always ask, "Are you thinking about your thinking?" when I see them reading.

This is a fun concrete way to teach them to stop and think. I have had light bulbs go off in my students every time I have taught it! Please leave a comment with your email if you'd be interested in modeling this with your class and want me to send the salad pieces your way free of charge! I know that this activity can help your class no matter how young or old, "think about their thinking". Also there is a link in the top of the post to the book on Amazon where they have it for only $17 dollars. This book is jam packed full of reading lessons where you take abstract concepts and turn them into hands on learning. I also love that it's not written in a textbook style with lots of jargon but rather full of pictures and is easily explained. My district purchased this for every K-5th grade teacher at my school and I can't wait to see the great lessons we all teach from it and the positive effect we see on our student's reading. :) :)