In this session I introduced the idea of Tovani’s “So What” table of understanding a text. I think my focus was going to be not testing her on her ability to regurgitate the information in the article but try and understand some parts of what the carbon tax is bringing to the current environment. Personally I am okay with mnemonics when used to remember facts however this alone should not used if you wish the child to remember the concept. Lizzy only wanted to do a few paragraphs hence we drew up a table to try and see the facts and the connection to perhaps climate change. I also asked her to come up with some questions of her own to ask about the tax. I asked her what she thought about the paragraph highlighting who will be provided with tax cuts according to their income brackets. She came up with the question as to why Juila Gillard seemed to be putting the country into more debt(which is what it seemed like to her). She wanted to find out why it seemed the money that she was giving away was going to have to be paid back to the government anyway. I guess this was her biggest question. She also indicated how this carbon tax was going to help climate change?
Her idea about only smaller income families being the most affected seemed to change when she re-read and questioned the paragraph about workers with less than 80 000 not being charged tax(tax cut). I think she had this idea as she is coming from a low income single parent family. She started questioning her viewpoint that Julia Gillard was being stupid(Was Julia Gillard being stupid?, What was her strategic decision?, Why is she doing this?). To aid her I asked her whether this was her own opinion or whether it was something that that was coming from talking to her father and reading the article which focused on Tony Abbott’s stand point. I guess the most important question I wanted her to ask was “Whether she was agreeing with this article and if she did why” When I posed this question to her she did seem a little uncomfortable and possibly had the expression of why do I have to do this. I tried to get her to focus on only some paragraphs. Although she did not go far as to question why the Carbon tax was only focusing on higher income families when the whole purpose was to reduce the carbon footprint as a whole. She also asked the question as to the compensation that Julia Gillard was providing would just cover the higher electricity and gas prices that is being charged by companies that are mostly owned by the government. I asked her to perhaps investigate this and whether the government actually owned these companies. It was also interesting how in the paragraph before this the author was talking about Tony Abbott’s point on the tax cuts not effectively helping greenhouse gas emissions which is what the opinion that Lizzy had after watching Tony Abbott’s interview however she mentioned that he was talking about the canceling effect where the government would give money but eventually ask for it back. I found it hilarious when she indicated that her father had told her no prime minister sits in their seat if they are stupid which made her question once again why Julia Gillard was doing such a thing. I dont know whether I completed this session properly but I was working on a whim.
I also tried to get her to compare the differences between the Carbon tax and mining tax. I may have overestimated my knowledge on both these taxes as I did confuse both these taxes at one point in a conversation with lizzy. I think this was my moment of I am not sure if I have enough content knowledge however lizzy did not seemed to be fussed as she seemed to be trying to work out the connection. In all honesty I think I may have confused her. At this point I spoke to her about the idea of collaboration to clarify the thoughts. I used myself as an example. She did mention that there will be no way that she will be speaking to her friends about the carbon tax as they simply would not be interested. I asked her to perhaps discuss a topic with her parents so as to tell them a important fact and how it might relate to them. However she also indicated humorously that her mother could not speak proper English. I wanted her to question what she was saying at this point. I did once again go back to our talk on assumptions and perhaps the idea that although someone may not be able to voice an opinion in a language they might be able to provide you with their own perspective and perhaps how they fit in to it. For example: The carbon tax cuts may not affect people who do not work.
I also wanted her to perhaps compare the different articles from different newspapers. I also wanted her to make sure that she recognized the accompanying information that the newspaper includes such as a table of income to assist in her understanding. I noticed that she did not have a look at these additional page cues in the article in the first session. The headings of facts. We had a discussion about the differences in the structure of the newspaper and how some newspapers quote people directly to justify their arguments. The financial review newspaper was a little bit more critical of Julia Gillard but was written in a much easier way. It did not go into the carbon permits in the first article. Hence I asked her to read an article from the financial review and make a comparison and question the similarities and differences between them. We spent some time discussing the different texts that she could use to assist her of this and the idea of collobration or talking. This involved listening to podcasts, the debate on climate change and perhaps even different ideas of the carbon tax in America or reading the book on climate change for a better connection as to why Julia Gillard was introducing this tax.
After reading Tovani’s chapter on building a purpose when reading an article I realised that perhaps I had given lizzy a focus question to work on: How does the carbon tax influence my idea on climate change and what are the implications for my family perhaps? I am not sure if that is a good focus question but it seemed to be a good start. I was thinking perhaps in my SOSE classes I will introduce a focus question that can be built into several focus questions for a topic.
Teaching Chronicles 