Workshop: put two texts together
Ākonga synthesise across two texts of their own choosing and state where the texts disagree.
- Reading Workshop move: Cross-text synthesis from self-selected sources
- Evidence it produces: A synthesis that names one disagreement between the sources
Route status: the learning intentions and mini-lesson scaffold are shared with the seminar route; the Do Now, activities, conferences, evidence and exit below are this route’s own. The difference is how ākonga work — their own chosen texts, individual evidence, and one-to-one conferencing — not which strategies are taught.
Lesson 9: Synthesising Information Across Multiple Texts
Building confident, active readers through Te Ao Māori perspectives, comprehension strategies, and rich Aotearoa texts.
🎯 Ngā Whāinga Akoranga | Learning Intentions
Text synthesis: combining insights from multiple sources (non-fiction article + pūrākau + infographic) to form a deeper understanding of a single theme or topic.
Compare details from two or three distinct texts on a shared theme (e.g. ocean conservation), synthesise overlapping ideas, and write a synthesised response.
⚡ Whakaoho | Do Now: Name your thread (8 mins)
Look back across your reading this unit — your book and your journal. Name one theme or question that has kept surfacing for you. Write it as a question you would like other texts to speak to.
🧩 Activity 1: Build your own text set (22 mins)
Assemble a personal text set: your own book plus two short texts from the class stack that touch your thread. Read the two short texts with your question in hand, then build a synthesis matrix: what each text adds, what it confirms, and where it contradicts the others. The contradictions matter most — a synthesis with no friction usually means the reading was shallow.
🪑 While they work: reading conferences (run through Activity 1 mins)
Confer one-to-one with four or five ākonga — each learner’s set is different, so each conference is a different conversation. Keep each conference under four minutes and record one line per learner on your conference sheet: text, strategy seen, next move. Everyone else keeps working — the conference is a conversation about their book, not a test.
Conference questions for this lesson:
- Where do your texts disagree? Read me the two passages that clash.
- What do you now understand that no single one of your texts told you?
- Which text earned its place in your set, and which would you swap out?
📝 Activity 2: Journal — integrated paragraph (15 mins)
Complete Section 9 of your Reading Journal: your matrix, then one integrated paragraph answering your thread question — required to cite all three texts by name, and to use at least one point of friction between them.
🚪 Exit (5 mins)
One idea that exists only across your texts — something no single text in your set says alone — with the texts named.
🏫 Kaiako Planning & Pedagogy Notes
Curriculum alignment: Te Mātaiaho, English, Phase 3 (Years 7–8). This lesson builds comprehension, critical literacy and cultural connectedness through Aotearoa literature and pūrākau. The unit's one verified Te Mātaiaho anchor is recorded on the curriculum companion; no further statement is claimed for this lesson until one is verified.