Weekly Reflection: Thinking Beyond the Literal

This week’s learning focused heavily on how to stretch our students past basic, surface-level reading and get them thinking beyond the literal. At the core of this is the 4Cs—Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity, and Collaboration.

One of my biggest takeaways was how powerful multimedia can be for keeping learners active and engaged. However, it isn't just about showing any clip; it’s about making sure our local environment and culture are reflected in the images, videos, and media we choose. I also realized the importance of structure here—pairing media with a clear "After watching, do this task" instruction turns passive viewing into active learning.

We spent time looking at higher-order thinking frameworks like De Bono’s Hats, SOLO Taxonomy, and especially Bloom’s Taxonomy, which we unpacked in detail. The "Hawk’s Eye" activity was a real lightbulb moment for me. It showed me how to zoom in on learning, helping me guide students toward a much deeper, more focused understanding rather than just skimming the surface.

I also really enjoyed exploring how to teach figurative language—moving students into interpreting similes, metaphors, euphemisms, and idioms. The lesson series on the Cave Story was a great example of how to activate prior knowledge. Watching how students created mental pictures, drew them, and then compared their literal drawings to real photos highlighted just how essential figurative language is for engaging their imagination. Plus, build-in time for peer discussions showed how essential small-group talk is for building student independence before main tasks.

My Reflection & Action Plan (Moving Forward)

Exploring how to intentionally plan for critical thinking using metalanguage across multiple texts was invaluable. Dissecting texts, identifying specific language features, and crafting provocative prompts showed me that teaching metalanguage isn't just about labeling devices—it gives students the vocabulary to challenge how texts manipulate, persuade, and position the reader.

Over the next three weeks, our focus will center on figurative language (explicitly building in similes, metaphors, euphemisms, and idioms). To put these insights into practice, I will:

• Pair Contrasting Texts & Vignettes: Use contrasting text pairs alongside provocative prompts and text vignettes to to encourage students to actively question, compare, and access deeper meanings.

• Link Responses to Argument Writing: Integrate these prompts into text-based responses where learners form, defend, and write their own reasoned opinions and judgments.

• Launch the Digital "Google Highlight" Activity (Week 4): Replace manual tasks with a digital highlighting activity as an engaging, hands-on way for students to analyze text features.

• Localize & Structure Media: Continue using local images and video clips to anchor reading tasks, ensuring every piece of media is tied to a clear, actionable follow-up task.

Very interesting session. Thank you!!