Thread by @ThatBenRanson

Absolutely no-one: Hey Ben, we know you're super excited about the Year 7 curriculum that you launched this September, can you tell us about it?

Me: Well, since you asked...

*Thread*

Borrowing heavily from the SLOP work happening in #cogscisci it's all in a booklet. Every lesson features extended reading, and it starts with the word Geography. Why the word Geography? If we've understood @Counsell_C right, this is the hinterland that supports the core.

So how are we managing the reading part? Well, just a couple of days ago @adamboxer1's published some great advice on whole-class reading with booklets here: achemicalorthodoxy.wordpress.com/2019/09/12/who… - pretty much like that, I sense we both spent time with @Doug_Lemov's reading reconsidered.

The reading's followed up with a mapping task. Why? I mean, aside from us being Geographers, right? Well, a while ago @olicav pointed me in the direction of the adjunct display effect, and, well, the hope is that this takes full advantage of it.

To help make sure the reading is effortful and purposeful, it's followed by a series of questions that require close reading. They're laid out so that we can use choral responses, students can self-assess in red pen (policy), and I can use them later for retrieval practice.

Did you notice that some of the questions come up twice? That's not an error (though some of the spelling is...), the idea is it mimics the phrasing of the reading first time, but doesn't the second time. I can't remember where this came from, but someone deserves some credit .

After the questions from close reading, we go a little deeper into the word Geography and look at what it means to ask Geographical Questions, using it as a springboard for talking through some of the ideas in class.

Then, to finish, we're on to what might be my favourite thing so far this year. We're learning some Greek! @HuntingEnglish makes a big deal out of prefix's and suffixes in 'The Vocabulary Gap' so I figured, why not make it super explicit, straight up, from day one!

The response to the Greek match-up task was awesome. Hearing 30 students respond with 'The People' when you say 'Demos?' is amazing. Even better was that they were still getting it right, out loud, happily, in lesson three.

So, am I saying that this is perfect? Hell no. I'm saying that this is a journey, and committing to actually putting all those thoughts together in a booklet has me super excited to be teaching Geography to Year 7. As always, constructive feedback is welcome.