Making Inferences-The Bag

This strategy was probably used to help us better understand making inferences in reading by giving us a visual example. When one is reading, it is important to think about what is being read, and to connect it with knowledge that one already knows. Making predictions is also an important part of reading and was what the exercise was trying to get us to do. We were trying to come up with an overall guess about who the bag belonged to based on many pieces to the puzzle.

We were looking at all the items that were in this person's purse, in order to make a guess about who it might belong to. If I found that type of bag in the school parking lot, I would guess that it belonged to a science/geology teacher possibly because of the geode, shell, and the journal full of nature-type entries. I would assume it belonged to a woman, unless I could think of a male teacher who would carry a man purse! :) She also likes to drink coffee and is a pretty stylish gal with her bright colored glasses. That would lead me to begin my search for the owner of the bag in the school's science pod.

This strategy would work well for me in art class, by having students examine works of art and try to guess who the artist was that created it, what they were feeling when they created it, and what might have made them choose that subject matter. This would also work well when discussing different time periods and art movements. Students could try to guess which movement the piece of artwork came from based on what they already knew about that era and it's artists. If students were reading about art, I would encourage them to try make connections about what they already know with what they were reading to try to make a better connection with the material.