Close Read, Hierarchical Questioning, and Slow Reveal

After the presentation on the slow reveal, I decided to try and make one of my own! I created an activity for my Cold War unit using different charts / graphs. I'll hopefully create a few more and have a working stations activity ready to go by the time I get to my Cold War unit. 

I will be using slow reveal for the Cold War. I am excited to show the increase in the number of atomic weapons up until present day. I think it will be interesting to hear their guesses.

I'm trying the slow reveal for the Mayan Civilization on Friday.  I had way too much fun taking apart population data and then finding graphs to support the theories of the decline of the Mayans.  I'm really excited to see how students are going to lean into the raw graphs and numbers before they know what they are actually representing--I'm sure they will predict some things that I never even thought of!  I'm hoping I can find a store of maps that are layered so I can design more activities/warmups using slow reveal with maps.

I'm going to be trying the Close Read technique with a graph of tariff rates from 1900 to 2020.  I shortened the worksheet so that the students are answering fewer questions, hopefully with more thought and detail.  We are currently studying the Great Depression and high protective tariffs were one of the factors that caused this event.  I'm looking forward to see how thinking about data at three different levels impacts their ability to think more deeply! I'm also wondering if students will make connections with today's political environment without prompting.   

I am most excited to try the slow reveal because I have never seen this approach before. I think it will be beneficial to students man multiple reasons. It will make them think about each individual piece of the visual so that they do not fixate on one part. They will have to consider all parts and then think of it as a whole. Additionally, I think it will be great for students to reflect on the important pieces of a visual. All parts of a visual are needed and should not be overlooked. 

Hierarchical questioning seems to be the most practical.  I use a lot of charts in class and I don't have a specific activity for reviewing them.  This is pretty simple for me to implement in class so I think it will be a great success.  But slow reveal seems the most exciting to me.  I think this would be a great way to introduce lessons.  I will probably start with the 20th century war deaths chart and then see if I can make some for myself.   

Like many of you, I'm most excited about the slow reveal. I'm hoping it helps prevent the frequency with which I find students quickly skimming/guessing at charts and graphs (incorrectly) or just skipping them entirely. 

I'm starting to prep my Cold War unit and and expect to the OER data about nuclear weapons. I've used that data before, and I think the slow reveal will improve its impact. 

I think the close reading strategy will be especially helpful for AP World students to tackle SAQ (short-answer-question) stimulus questions as well as interpreting pirmary resources, data sets, and images of artifacts for DBQ or multiple choice questions. I find students struggle to understand stimulus questions, whether it is a graph or a primary resource, because they do not read the tite, author and any byline information and date about the author and source, that would give them crucial contextual clues. The 'Three Close Read' charts get students in the routine of reading these 'contextual clues' first to understand the stimulus.

Out of the three techniques I already have been using close read and hierarchical questioning when having students work with resources. I am excited to try the slow reveal technique as that is technique I have not tried out before. I believe that it will be helpful with students trying to figure out information they need slowly rather than throwing all the information at them at the same time.