The Cognitive Apprentice



 In Creating cultures of thinking, Ron Ritchhart includes the idea of the 'dispositional apprentice' - whereby teachers model and nurture 'the very attitudes, values and behaviours we want to see in our students' (p.127). Taking this idea to the central area of concern - creating a culture of thinkin - Ritchhart advocates the teacher as leading the student as the 'cognitive apprentice'. This requires an overt modelling of thinking by the teacher: 'One needs to deliberately bring the thinking to the surface, to make it visible, whether it's in reading, writing or problem solving. The teacher's thinking must be made visible to the students and the student's thinking must be made visible to the teacher' (Collins, Brown and Holum 1991, p.3; cited in Ritchhart, p.130).

How might this work in practice?

In our English Extension class, we have been studying the novel Eucalyptus (1998) - a rather complex text which is a form of 'cultural hybrid': a novel and an anti-novel; an appropriation of a fairy tale structure, organised under an apparent taxonomy of trees. Our guided discussions in class have been about the nature of Bail's commentary on Australian culture through various literary techniques, including appropriation, anecodate, motif, embedded storyteller etc. As we approached an essay that the students have been asked to write, I felt it was time for me to model some of my own thinking about the text. Prior to the two lessons this took, we had read and discussed (through a thinking routine - Claim-Support-Challenge) two complex academic articles which examined the novel in relation to other contemporary Australian fiction, and cultural matters. My own presentation took the form of notes I had written, spoken aloud, with me highlighting certain 'thinking moves' such as 'connection making'. For example, in looking at an idea from the text, I was able to draw the students attention to ideas from the previous readings. 'I am making a connection here to the Fiander article in terms of the idea of 'an anxiety' about white writers' 'own connections to the land ...'. The 'Undertanding Map' provides some good language teachers can use to make their thinking explicit (for example, 'I'm uncovering complexity when I point to ...' or, 'I'm looking for the 'heart of the matter' in saying that ...). See:  http://www.ronritchhart.com/ronritchhart.com/COT_Resources_files/Understanding%20Map.pdf

On other matters, I had another of my student meetings, with Christina, who brought two pieces - a past essay, and a past short story (micro fiction). From the essay, we were able to identify her strengths in terms of structure and clarity. Christina, in re-reading her work, could see that there was more complexity to the topic than she had allowed for, and this helped us to set a goal for her discursive writing. In her own fiction, it was pleasing to see how she had shaped her language so sharply, with obvious skill and editing. And we could see where one metaphor fell flat, requiring an immediate reversal of logic to make sense. I felt really positive that a short time with the student allowed me to build a more personal connection and understand her as a writer and a thinker without it being at 'arm's length' in the tradition of marker first, helper second. The one-to-one time obviously has a strong connection to the cognitive apprenticeship, which implies the mentoring and guidance of the more experienced 'master' of the knowledge.

Student Interactions - Varying the Conversations

My meeting today made me reflect on how the conversation changes each week as I look at student work and set some individual goals. The format I am using is as follows:


- Title of piece of work:
- Context of work:
- Feedback and mark received:
- student observations on own work:
- GG Goals, Moving Forward (in summary):


The format allows me to ask the student questions about their own piece of writing, and this gives me some insight into each students' thinking about their own writing and development in this subject. This has been particularly good in terms of the 'student observations on own work'. Before I indicate where I think they have done well and could improve, the student has a chance to self-reflect; often their own thinking guides the conversations from here.


Today, Tristan showed me an essay he had written last year on a comparison of tragedy, looking at Macbeth and Oedipus Rex. He felt, looking back, that he had rather over-relied on context and that this was something which in some ways typified his approach. We then talked about the idea of the question he was responding to, and what the 'heart of the matter' might be in this case. As a goal, I have asked him to consider writing essay questions in his own words, in several ways, to identify this 'heart' and then to consider whether it is possible to 'collapse' some of the contextual points in his essays to develop this central focus further.


Today's conversation, in other words, was quite different from last week's one. This would seem to indicate how just twenty minutes with a student can help me to see their thinking and working in a way that could help guide their work for the coming term.

Connections and Interactions - Progress Report

Reflecting on my goal to focus on Interactions as a cultural force (after Ron Ritchhart, Creating cultures of thinking) ...


"Great teachers often explain their success in terms of relationships" (Ritchhart, p.201). Without in any way laying claim to being a "great teacher" I'm working on building the relationships in my small senior class by having individual student meetings  a) to review a past essay or story in English Extension, and b) to build a sense of engagement with each student by valuing their past work and setting some learning goals for the year for this subject.


Today's meeting was with Zoe. One of the questions I am asking my students is to reflect on their own writing. What are you proud of? What would you do differently the next time around? Zoe proved to be very self-reflective, quite clearly able to see how she had made connections at a conceptual level between the two novels in her essay. She was also able to articulate the next steps in her own writing, particularly in relation to structure. As we talked through her essay, we were also able to see how considering the intentions of an author might open up the discussion, particularly when we are talking about potentially controversial characters (such as Holden Caufield, and her current reading of Humbert Humbert).


In class, there has been some progress on the metaphor of utilsing 'passing moves' to improve student interactions in thinking about classroom patterns of discourse. In the last two lessons, there have been a number of instances where the students have made use of the connecting phrases (see previous blog entry) and done so in a self-conscience manner. I would take this as being an important step - even when it is done with a smile - later we might hope that the passing moves become routine and we no longer even need to notice them. The lesson ended with us laughing together over a student's reaction to my offer to extend their lesson into their recess break each week. I take this as a good sign of the building of relationships for mutual respect and conversations as "unrehearsed intellectual adventure" (Oakeshott 1959).

Intellectual Basketball

In continuing my current goal of building connections with my students, I had my second student meeting today at lunch time. Xavier brought along a piece of creative writing he had completed in Year Ten; he had received full marks on the task but limited feedback (his words). He was never the less able to articulate clearly what he had enjoyed about writing the piece - in terms of the content, structure and language choices he had made. We looked together at things he could improve further in the next piece of creative writing he attempts - particularly in the area of research and further refinement to promote authenticity, avoid anachronisms, and specificity. The meeting helped me to get to know Xavier a little more and understand something of his ability to reflect on his writing, and to take advice (not an easy thing for anyone to master).

The other aspect of my current goal is to building interactions in the classroom, particularly by using some strategies to enrich classroom discussion. Picking up on ideas from Ron Ritchhart's Creating cultures of thinking (2015), I have made a wall poster and intend to use this quite explicitly at first to shift the conversation from 'ping-pong' (teacher-student interactions) to 'basketball' (teacher-student-student ... interactions). The image is from an online search and I am not sure of the copyright in terms of any reproduction (best avoid). The specific 'passing moves' I am going to try are sentence-starters for students:
* Connecting with what _______ said ...
* I want to agree/disagree with ___________ because ...
* _________'s comment makes me think ....
* If we follow that idea out, then ...