Collaborative critical reading

Students' Learning Experience

• Students learn how to use critical lenses and comment types to critique a text through offline practice

• Students read a multimodal text and post comments using critical lenses and comment types to critique a text

• Students engage in collaborative, online discussion of each others' comments

• Students review and reflect on their participation with system-generated visualisation maps that show the most frequently used critical lenses and talk types, students' level of participation and connectedness to the rest of their classmates

Design Tips for Teachers

• Familiarise students with critical lenses and comment types through activity

• Make explicit what students should do in the online space and set discussion targets to ensure students remain focused

• Help students see how how responses by everyone in the group can lead to richer insights

• Monitor students' learning in real-time and guide them in making sense and modifying their reading and discussion behaviour using the system-generated visualisation maps

I think it is a very good substitute for the reading period. Because, prior to this, we had just reading in the hall, unmonitored. So if we have a programme like WiREAD, students are able to talk about what they read, I think it will be a great benefit. Then there is more meaning to reading because you are also interacting with others about a common reading article. So that is one of the benefits that I see.

- Kevin Ng, Ngee Ann Secondary