DETECTIVES Teacher's Guide - Book - Page 15
THE DETECTIVES - TEACHER’S GUIDE
ii. WebQuests
A WebQuest is like a treasure hunt or a mini-research project, where the students have to follow a
list of clues to find the information. Each WebQuest is especially designed for the book and for the
specific unit it belongs to.
While WebQuests are best done in small groups they can be done individually or in pairs.
The students are given a list of instructions that they are to follow, surfing to the links given and
doing what is asked of them.
Each group will have to produce a final project that is specified by the WebQuest. It may be a
computerized product or it may be hardcopy of some sort.
The students have instructions, a checklist, and information on how they are going to be assessed.
The teacher has a Teacher’s Guide for each WebQuest, so nothing is left to chance.
The webquests can be found on our website at: www.eadventure.co.il/detectives/webquest
iii. Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
The Detectives is designed to encourage and teach thinking skills: LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills)
and HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills). Keeping in mind the value of learning first and then
practicing frequently, the book is designed in such a way that the skills are re-entered and recycled
throughout the book.
The HOTS worked on in the book were chosen with the age group and the ability of the students in
mind. Each of these skills needs to be taught and practiced at the level of the students in class.
Therefore, it is vital to ensure that the students understand what the skill entails and offer them an
opportunity to succeed, even at the expense of accurate language production. Often the use of L1 is
acceptable, as long as the teacher reinforces it with the English equivalent.
Predicting - As in real life, we make predictions about what we are going to read, what the
book will be about, what the headline means, what the title means, what the song is really
saying, etc. Thus in order to connect real life skills such as predicting, the students are asked
to predict the upcoming events of the unit based on the information given at the start of
each unit: the students are asked to listen to a Rap and then discuss what they think the rap
is discussing and what it’s hinting at. Likewise for the reading passages; after learning the
new vocabulary or working on a "before reading" activity, the students are asked to predict
what will happen. This enables them to guess and become involved, as well as to arouse
their curiosity.
Inferencing - The ability to make inferences is, in simple terms, the ability to use two or
more
pieces of information from a text in order to arrive at a third piece of information that
is implicit. Inference can be as simple as associating the pronoun ‘he’ with a
previously mentioned male person. Alternatively, it can be as complex as understanding a
subtle implicit message, conveyed through the choice of particular vocabulary by the
writer and drawing on the reader’s own background knowledge. Inferencing skills are
important for reading comprehension, and also more widely in the area of literary
criticism and other approaches to studying texts.
Sequencing - It is important to be able to understand the sequence of events that occur in
any text we read or listen to. When students are asked to observe a process and develop a
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