Materials: A Man of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda, Task 2.1. (modified)

Task I: You are a wise teacher. Write a short address (5 – 10 sentences) to your students (II year, English Philology) to encourage them to read texts in English

Aim:
Thinking - to create the room for thinking (TTF step 1) and find out whether the students apply the ENV model to performing this task
Meta-cognitive - to find out whether the students resort to the previously (last year) worked out ideas on HOW TO create a good POV text

Subject-specific: to make the students to realise why reading is important and manage to persuade the reader; to make them understand what the concept 'wise' includes

Procedure: 

Lesson 1
Step 1: the students  think of how to create the required text (individually - the form of work  they have chosen);
Step 2: the students create the texts (individually: started in class – finished at home).

Lesson 2

Outcome of Task I: 18 texts from 58 to 500 words each.

Step 3: the teacher collects all the texts and sends to all the students  to read.

Task II to students

Select the three texts which have convinced you (the II year student) best of the importance of reading (to be done at home) and explain the reasons of your choice.

Procedure: all the texts are numbered and have no names; the students read all the texts, select (according to their own way of selection) three texts, indicate their number explain the reasons of choosing them and post for all to see (via Dropbox).

Aim:

through the process of selection best texts to lead the students to subconsciously use the ENV model - TTF step 2 (a) creating the generic (possibly, or just any) description of a task (what makes a good text)

meta-cognitive - to make them see more than one step towards the fulfillment of the task (to create a good text) and thus realise that the qualitative fulfillment of a complex (=multi-step) task (here: to create a good text) is impossible without planning it first

subject specific - to get the students to identify, select and systematise some features of a good text

Outcome of task II: 15 students have sent the numbers of three best texts and their reasons for selecting them.

Lesson 3

Task III to students

Read all the reasons (provided by other students) for their selecting the best texts and choose the ones that you find important for describing what a good text should be like (to be done at home

Aim:

thinking - through the process of reading the other students' reasons to get the students (indirectly) to check and upgrade their model of a good text - could be TTF 2 (generic description) and/or TTF 3 (reflect on the thinking model you have used)

meta-cognitive - to make them see more than one step towards the fulfillment of the task (to create a good text) and thus realise that the qualitative fulfillment of a complex (=multi-step) task (here: to create a good text) is impossible without planning it first

subject specific: to get the students to upgrade their list of features of a good text

(to be continued)

Reflection:

 I cannot identify how I have achieved my aims because we have not discussed the outcomes yet. I realise now that I should have asked them to reflect on HOW they did the task and whatt helped them after each step to make the overall task controlled. I have not done it due to my lack of experience. Now I am going to face all the outcomes one by one starting from the end. My intention is to make them reflect on each of the steps and get them to elaborate the tools.