GROUP READING FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSES:

(GRDP) - (Dolan, 1979) - to encourage more critical analysis of content-area reading.

How to Use the Strategy:

Ø After class reads the assignment, divide them into four groups.

Ø Each group is given one card of directions.

Ø As the strategy is repeated, it is useful to ensure that students get different cards to build variety and different critical thinking tasks.

Ø Each task should be modeled first.

Card 1:Go back to reading and find three facts and three opinions. Try to agree as a group which are facts, which are opinions. Be able to defend your decision.

Card 2:Author provides several solutions to problem posed. Try to come up with an alternative solution or be able to defend one of author's solutions as the best one.

Card 3:Decide as a group what the author's main point is. Then find other sources in the classroom or library - newspapers, encyclopedias, magazines, other texts - that can verify author's main point.

Card 4:Develop three to five good questions that you can ask other class members that would stimulate thought about the reading.

After students have sufficient time to complete assignments, one member of each group reports to the class as a whole. Card 4 group can ask their questions and evaluate responses. Instructions on cards can be modified to deal with specific kinds of content or with different ages of students.