Venn diagrams, common in many middle-school English classes, are a simple and effective cognitive strategy. With this diagram, which features two circles overlapping in the middle, students can effectively compare two different things. To use these diagrams, students label one circle with one of the objects being compared and the other with the second. The students then write things specific to one object or the other in the labeled circles and characteristics that the two share in the overlapping section. Not only is this an effective way to get students thinking about their cognitive processes, it is also an appropriate and useful pre-writing assignment.
Making connections for students is part of the cognitive teaching system. To ensure that, as students learn new words, they make these desirable connections, teachers can create synonym-antonym charts that their students must fill in. To create charts of this type, the teacher needs only to craft a three-column chart that the students can fill, placing the the vocabulary word in question in the first column, a synonym in the second and an antonym in the third. Not only does this activity promote student thinking, it also multiplies vocabulary learning by turning each new word into three.
Middle-school English teachers can encourage their students to not just read a passage but also process it cognitively, engaging students in pairs reading journals. To use this strategy, teachers need only to pair up students and give each duo a sheet of paper. The pairs can then write notes back and forth to each other about the passage they just read and, in doing so, process the content. By reviewing this pairs journal, the teachers can more effectively determine how much or little the students in question understood.
When completing RAFT activities, students are given freedom to contemplate their thinking processes and make choices as to what products they will produce. RAFT is an acronym that stands for role, audience, format and topic. When arranging a RAFT activity, middle-school teachers list an assortment of roles, audience, formats and topics, allowing students to make selections in each category. For example, one student could choose to take on the role of newspaper reporter and write to an audience of inner-city residents in the format of a newspaper article using school improvements as the topic. Because students are given freedom to choose in this assignment, many find it empowering and enjoyable as well as conducive to thinking.