NET Scheme News 2024 Spring issue 45

On 29 November 2023, my colleague Hannah Standring and I facilitated a workshop at SKH Tang Shiu Kin Secondary School for the Joint School Staff Development Day for Secondary School Teachers in the Wan Chai District. We based the workshop on the ‘Thinking Routines for Writing’“Seed” Project that the NET Section is currently running, and we called it ‘Using Roles and Routines to Strengthen Critical Arguments’. Thirty-six teachers from thirteen secondary schools attended the workshop,and although most participants were English teachers, a few were teachers of other subjects like Maths, Spanish and Fine Arts. The two main objectives of the workshop were: 1) to investigate how Thinking Routines could be used to engage students in thinking critically about an issue; and 2) to explore teaching strategies that support students with strengthening their arguments for writing and speaking. What exactly are Thinking Routines? How can they help engage students in critical thinking and strengthen their arguments? Thinking Routines were first developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Business as part of Project Zero’s work on ‘Visible Thinking’. The researchers at Project Zero developed a set of practices designed to help make thinking visible, which they coined ‘Thinking Routines’. In essence, Thinking Routines are “short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students’ thinking” when used routinely in the classroom (Project Zero 2022). We started by introducing the ‘Claim Support Question’ routine, applying it to a commercial featuring a precocious little girl who makes the surprising claim that her dad is a space alien! We then demonstrated how Thinking Routines could be applied to a question from the 2024 HKDSE sample English Language Paper 2 (Writing) to develop students’ critical thinking and argumentative writing skills. We chose Question 5 from this paper, which requires students to argue for one side of an issue: A significant proportion of Hong Kong land is developed for residential or commercial purposes. You strongly believe that more land should be used for open space and recreation. The Town Planning Board is inviting the public to express their views. Write a letter to the board and support your arguments with reasons. After unpacking the question and identifying the four different ways in which land could be developed or used in Hong Kong (i.e. for residential purposes; for commercial purposes; to create more open space; or for recreational purposes), we used the ‘Chalk Talk’ routine to make notes on poster paper at four different stations around the room. Participants walked silently from station to station and wrote down their responses to the Chalk Talk questions: • What are the advantages of using land for ________ purposes? • Who in society would support the use of land in this way? (stakeholders) It did not take long before the posters were filled with ideas to support the use of land for each purpose referenced in the question. 20 NET Scheme News Issue 45 Regional NET Coordinating Team Using Roles and Routines to Strengthen Critical Arguments