Seminar: predict together, then read together
The class predicts from a shared complex text, then reads it closely and holds the predictions to account as a group.
- Close Reading Seminar move: Whole-class prediction against a shared text
- Evidence it produces: A class record of which predictions the text supported
Route status: the learning intentions and mini-lesson scaffold are shared with the workshop route; the Do Now, activities, adjudication, evidence and exit below are this route’s own. The difference is how ākonga work — one shared text, competing claims settled on the words, and a collective record — not which strategies are taught.
Lesson 1: Active Reading Strategies: Predicting & Activating Prior Knowledge
Building confident, active readers through Te Ao Māori perspectives, comprehension strategies, and rich Aotearoa texts.
🎯 Ngā Whāinga Akoranga | Learning Intentions
Active reading strategies (activating prior knowledge / Whakawhanaungatanga, previewing text features, making evidence-based predictions), and difference between passive and active reading.
Preview non-fiction/pūrākau text elements (titles, headings, images, glossary), complete a KWL chart (Know, Want to know, Learned), and state predictions supported by text clues.
🎥 Media Anchor & Pedagogical Scaffold
Active Reading Strategies: Predicting & Schema
Video: kaiako to select — guidance below.
🎬 Kaiako: Select and embed a video here
Suggested search: "Active Reading Strategies: Predicting & Schema"
Search YouTube for a short clip (5–10 min) on this topic. Verify it is age-appropriate and plays correctly before embedding.
🧠 1. Before Viewing (Activate & Predict)
What happens in your mind when you look at a book cover or article headline before reading the first sentence?
👁️ 2. During Viewing (Watch With a Job)
- Early in the clip: Examine text features: bold titles, subheadings, diagrams, and te reo Māori glossaries.
- Midway: Activate background knowledge (schema) relating personal/cultural experiences to the topic.
- Later in the clip: Formulate explicit predictions using sentence frame: 'I predict... because the text clue shows...'
🗣️ 3. After Viewing & Kaiako Move (Process & Apply)
Kaiako Move: Model 'Think-Aloud' strategy while previewing an Aotearoa legend or School Journal article on the projector.
Immediate Task: Complete Section 1 of your Reading Journal: Text Preview & KWL Prediction Chart.
⚡ Whakaoho | Do Now: First paragraph only (8 mins)
The kaiako displays only the title and first paragraph of the shared text — the one text the whole class works this lesson (see the unit page for how it is chosen and named). Silently write one prediction about where this text is going. No discussion yet: the seminar needs your unshaped first read.
🗣️ Activity 1: Post and sort the predictions (20 mins)
Predictions go up on the board, unnamed. As a class, sort them into two columns: licensed — someone can point to words in the displayed paragraph that make it reasonable — and hope — plausible, but nothing on the page supports it yet. Every move between columns must be argued from the paragraph, not from what usually happens in stories.
Then read the next section of the shared text together, with the surviving predictions visible.
⚖️ Adjudication: which predictions survived? (12 mins)
- Return to the licensed column. For each prediction, the class rules: confirmed, overturned, or still open.
- A ruling needs words — whoever proposes it must read the line from the shared text that decides it.
- Where the class cannot agree, record the prediction as still open with both readings noted. Refusing to force a verdict is a legitimate seminar outcome.
The kaiako chairs but does not vote. The text decides; the class’s job is to find where it says so.
📋 Activity 2: The class prediction board (10 mins)
Record the session on the class prediction board (this becomes the first page of the unit’s collective record): prediction → deciding words → verdict. Then each learner writes a one-minute entry in their own journal: the strongest surviving prediction and the words holding it up.
🚪 Exit (5 mins)
One line: a prediction the class rejected today, and the words from the shared text that killed it. If you disagreed with a ruling, say so and quote your evidence — recorded dissent is part of the seminar record.
🏫 Kaiako Planning & Pedagogy Notes
Years 7–8 Curriculum Alignment: Te Mātaiaho English Phase 3 — Reading and Viewing for meaning. Builds core comprehension, critical literacy, and cultural connectedness through Aotearoa literature and pūrākau.