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You Can Grow Your Brain: Guide for Prereading, Annotation and Charting the Text
Pre-reading:
Preview the activity. Tell students you plan this to be a joint activity. They will help
guide you and tell you what to notice and annotate.
First, ask them: Who does this kind of activity? (clearly,- not just students.) Everyone
who seeks to/needs to quickly gather information about a text before reading it. What is
it good for?
Right now, as you are learning the steps, the activity will take a bit of time. With lots of
practice the prereading steps become automatic and will take no more than a minute.
Skim/Preview and annotate as you do your talk-through of the prereading annotations
with students. The purpose of this activity is to gather as much information about the text
as possible BEFORE reading so that reading merely consists of verifying rather than
trying to figure out what it is about as read.
Genre? How can we tell? From the layout, section headers, title/topic, name of
publication (HEALTH & SCIENCE) and references at end, we can predict that it is an
Informational Article detailing scientific research--- Seems to give a lot of information
on growing the brain.
Is this the original article? How do we know?—scroll down to the references—we find
that this article is adapted from one Lisa Blackwell originally wrote.
But who is Lisa Blackwell? We don’t know but we can look it up, that’s what I did and
you can you can do that with the students—ask them what you should do and how.
Here’s what I found:
Dr. Lisa Blackwell is Mindset Works’ Co-Founder and VP of Design, Implementation &
Evaluation. She is a research scientist with ten years of experience in the design,
conduct, and evaluation of field research and intervention in adolescent achievement
motivation. She developed the motivational intervention curriculum on which the
Brainology® program is based, and was the principal designer and producer for a
prototype of the Brainology® program, supervising technical staff through all phases of
development and pilot-testing. Dr. Blackwell has been featured in Time Magazine, New
York Magazine, Good Morning America, National Public Radio programs, as well as in
scholarly publications. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University.
We don’t know who the author of this “similar” article is. In order to ascertain that
nothing substantial was changed that changes the meaning of the article, we would have
to either:
a) know something about Growth Mindset
b) be familiar with the original article by Lisa Blackwell
Day 3, Thursday, Period 3 Hoover High School Common Core Start of School Curriculum 2014
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We do have another version of the article. SEE RITA FOR A PRNTOUT and you can
compare with students. This other version does not mention math. It explains how babies
learn.
Why do you think we chose the version that emphasizes brain growth and growth
mindset in math?
Who do we guess is the audience for this article and what evidence do we base our
guess on?-- seems to be written for students as the primary audience as they are most
likely to learn math and benefit from the information the article. The language is
accessible to middle, even elementary school readers
Function of the title?
Function of the subtitle?
What is the function of the section headers? How do they help readers?
For this article, the title makes a claim
The subtitle provides a reason as support for the title claim, answering the reader’s
question: How do you know this?
Turn title. subtitle, and section headers into questions:
Title: How can you grow your brain?
Subtitle: How is your brain like a muscle?
Section Header #1 is already in question form: How Do We Know That The Brain Can
Grow Stronger?
Section Header #2 is already in question form:
Section Header #3: Why is the Formula for Growing Your Brain Effort + Good
Strategies + Help From Others?
Section Header #4: What is the Truth About “Smart” and “Dumb”?
All these questions should be answered after reading and charting the article.
Pictures/Graphics: How do they fit? Why are they they/included? What is their
function? How are they intended to work?
Key Terms: (Key terms are words or phrases (and their synonyms) that are importantly
related to the central idea and are used repeatedly throughout the text. By identifying key
terms, we can often anticipate/guess at the central claim of a text.
• Grow
• Strength
• Smart
• Grow the brain
• Like a muscle
• Effort
• Correct practice
Day 3, Thursday, Period 3 Hoover High School Common Core Start of School Curriculum 2014
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•
•
•
Smart strategies
Challenge
Math
What do you already know about the text before even having read it?
Topic?
• We can grow our intelligence
Central ideas?
• The brain is like a muscle, it can grow no matter how old.
• Anyone can learn new skills if they apply the correct formula: effort-smart
strategies-critical feedback.
• Old theories about being born smart or dumb are not correct.
First Reading of the text.
Purpose: to find the answers to the questions you posed with the title, subtitle, and
section headers. You can fill in the answers you think are correct after finishing each
section.
Call on individual students to share out answers.
Charting the Text:
What are the 5 parts of the text doing and saying? Because this text has section
headers that we turned into questions, we essentially know already what each section is
saying. But it is VERY important to see/know what each section/part of a text is doing.
Not all texts have section headers, so with some texts you have to figure out what/where
the sections are and determine where one section/part ends and another begins.
You can have students just try the “doing” part. Do a talk-through for the introduction
and Section 1. Then, in pairs or groups, let them try the other sections. Emphasize the
“doing” verbs. I have underlined them.
Introduction
Doing : Introduces the topic –brain growth and previews the central idea.
Saying: New research shows we were wrong to think that people were either born smart
or dumb, either math people, or not, but rather, they found that the brain acts like a
muscle; when people, regardless of age, practice and learn new things, new connections
between nerve cells grow that make the brain smarter and stronger.
Section 1:
Doing: Presents research evidence that answers the question posed by the section header:
How do we know that the brain can grow stronger?
Saying: Scientists studied adult animals finding that adult animals who were actively
engaged in trying to figure out how to use toys formed more neural connections and the
connections were 10% heavier and stronger than the brains of animals who did not use
the toys.
Day 3, Thursday, Period 3 Hoover High School Common Core Start of School Curriculum 2014
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Section 2:
Doing: Answers the question posed by the section header: Can adults grow their brains?
Saying: Scientists used brain scanners to compare groups of adults who learned how to
juggle using lots of practice and good strategies to those who didn’t and found that
learning how to juggle caused brain cells and the connections between them to grow
larger and stronger.
Section 3:
Doing: Explains why effort, good strategies, and help from others id the formula for
growing your brain.
Saying: Only correct practice with corrective feedback from experts (teachers or others
who excel in the skill) promotes learning and brain growth even in math. Incorrect
strategies will not lead to improvement no matter how hard you practice.
Section 4:
Doing: Sums up the central idea, adds additional evidence, and states the central idea’s
value.
Saying: Math is an area/subject about which we hold the belief that people are either
smart or dumb at math, however, this new research shows that regardless of age, people
can grow their brains and learn new skills, including math, an any age with sufficient,
correct practice and critical feedback.
You can also do the “doing and saying” activity by turning the section headers into
questions and use the “saying” part from the charting activity to your answer the
questions
.
Title:
Question: How can you grow your brain?
Answer: By challenging themselves with learning new skills, employing effective
practice strategies, and getting critical feedback from teachers or other experts.
Subtitle:
Question: How is your brain like a muscle?
Answer: Like a muscle, when engaged in challenging problems, brain cells grow larger
and grow new, strong connections between them.
Introduction:
Question: What is this text about?
Answer: Brain Growth and new research that shows we were wrong to believe that
people are born either smart or dumb, either a math person or not,
Section Header #1 is already in question form:
Question: How Do We Know That The Brain Can Grow Stronger?
Answer: Scientists observed animals who tried to figure out how to use toys and
compared them to animals who did not engage in this activity. Their studies showed that
Day 3, Thursday, Period 3 Hoover High School Common Core Start of School Curriculum 2014
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the nerve cells in the group that tried to figure out how to use the toys were about 10%
heavier. Those animals were also “smarter,” better at solving problems.
Section Header #2 is already in question form:
Question: Can Adults Grow Their Brains?
Answer: Yes. Scientists have proven this by teaching adults how to juggle and
comparing them to a control group. The juggling group showed significant brain growth.
Section Header #3:
Question: Why is the Formula for Growing Your Brain Effort + Good Strategies + Help
From Others?
Answer: Because, most of all, you need to put in practice time and effort if you want to
improve. However, if you use ineffective or wrong strategies, you can practice 24/7 and
never get better. Similarly, you need critical feedback from an expert who can point out
where you are making mistakes and show you how to improve.
Section Header #4:
Question: What is the Truth About “Smart” and “Dumb”?
Answer: There’s no such thing as being born smart or dumb. Unless they have some sort
of disease or impairment, everyone can grow their brain, learn new skills, and get better
and stronger performance with the skills they know and the new skills they are learning.
Day 3, Thursday, Period 3 Hoover High School Common Core Start of School Curriculum 2014