Grade by Grade
C. Comprehension: Understanding and Responding to Texts · Reading Like a Critic: Understanding and Responding to Texts

Reflecting on My Reading Strategies and Critical Thinking, and Setting Goals

C2.7 C3.8 A1.2About 60 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can explain and compare how strategies such as visualizing, predicting, summarizing and connecting helped me understand different kinds of texts.
  • I can assess how effectively I used critical thinking skills when analyzing and evaluating texts, using evidence from my work.
  • I can set specific, measurable goals to improve my comprehension and critical thinking, and plan how to check them.
  • I can tell the difference between a vague reflection and an evidence-based one.

Words to know

metacognition
Thinking about your own thinking: noticing how you learn and which strategies work for you.
reflection
Looking back at your learning to understand what worked, what didn't, and why.
evidence-based reflection
A reflection that points to specific texts, moments and results, not just general feelings.
critical thinking skills
Skills such as questioning, analyzing, evaluating evidence, considering perspectives and drawing supported conclusions.
SMART goal
A goal that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
visualizing
Creating pictures, sounds or a performance in your mind as you read.
self-assessment
Judging your own work against clear criteria.

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you reflected on your strategies at the end of the unit. In Grade 9 you'll make reflection a skill of its own: comparing strategies across text types, assessing your critical thinking with evidence, and setting goals you can actually measure. This is the habit that makes Grade 10 English (and every other course) easier.

Hook: the coach's video

Athletes watch video of their own games. They don't just say "I played okay." They say: "In the second period, I lost my check on the left side three times." Then they practise that exact thing. Reading works the same way. Specific reflection leads to specific improvement.

Comparing strategies across text types

In this unit you used many strategies. They don't work equally well for every text:

  • Visualizing: strong for poetry (images) and drama (imagining the performance, the pauses, the tone).
  • Predicting: strong for short stories with suspense (the cookie tin), less useful for a recipe.
  • Summarizing: strong for informational texts (the community garden article), where you need the main idea.
  • Connecting: works everywhere, but deep connections (specific and explained) matter most for themes.
  • Rereading and finding the core: essential for dense sentences in science and history texts.

The question isn't Which strategy is best? It's Which strategy is best for this text and this problem?

PoemShort storyPlayArticleMediaVisualizingPredictingSummarizingConnectingRereadinghelped a littlehelpedhelped most
One student's strategy log after this unit (an invented example). Bigger circles mean the strategy helped more. This student's pattern: visualizing and rereading helped most with poems, predicting with stories, summarizing and rereading with articles.

Assessing your critical thinking

Comprehension strategies help you understand. Critical thinking skills help you analyze and evaluate. In this unit, you practised:

  • Analyzing devices and style (allusion, juxtaposition, voice, line breaks)
  • Making supported inferences (local and global)
  • Evaluating credibility, reliability and significance
  • Detecting bias and noticing missing voices
  • Investigating cultural elements and historical context
  • Drawing qualified conclusions

To assess yourself, find evidence in your own work: an answer where you did it well, and one where you missed something. Ask: What did I do differently in the strong one?

Reflection A (invented student example): I think I did good in this unit. Reading was hard sometimes but I got better. My goal is to read more.

Reflection B (invented student example): When I read "Small Shells, Big Changes," I got lost in sentence 2 until I bracketed the middle clause and found the core. That strategy turned a 38-word sentence into an 11-word core I understood. But with the play Cut, I read it silently the first time and missed the subtext; reading it aloud with my brother made the pauses and the line "Forty-one" make sense. So visualizing and hearing a performance works better for drama than rereading silently. For critical thinking, I'm strong at spotting loaded words (I found all six in the arena column) but weak at noticing missing voices: I didn't notice nobody who used a wheelchair was quoted until Text B. Goal: For the next three articles I read in Geography, I will list every voice quoted and write one sentence about who is missing. I'll check my lists with my teacher by the end of the month.

Worked example

Let's compare two reflections

Compare Reflection A and Reflection B. Which is more useful, and why?

  1. Reflection A: I did good ... got better ... read more. No text named, no strategy named, no evidence. The goal read more can't be measured.
  2. Reflection B, strategies: names specific texts ("Small Shells, Big Changes," Cut), specific strategies (bracketing, finding the core, reading aloud) and results (38 words to an 11-word core; the pauses made sense).
  3. Reflection B, comparison: explains why reading aloud works better for drama than silent rereading. That's comparing strategies across text types.
  4. Reflection B, critical thinking: names a strength with evidence (all six loaded words) and a weakness with evidence (missed the missing voices).
  5. Reflection B, goal: For the next three articles ... list every voice quoted ... by the end of the month. It's Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant (fixes the weakness) and Time-bound.

Reflection B is far more useful because it's evidence-based: named texts, named strategies, results, a comparison across text types, a strength and weakness in critical thinking, and a SMART goal that targets the weakness.

1. Reflect with evidenceWhat worked? What didn't?2. Set a SMART goal3. Practise the strategyon purpose4. Check: did itmake a difference?SpecificMeasurableAchievableRelevantTime-bound
The goal-setting cycle. Reflection only helps if it leads to a specific goal, deliberate practice, and a check on whether things improved. The middle shows what SMART stands for.
Worked example

Let's turn a vague goal into a SMART goal

Vague goal: I want to get better at poetry. Make it SMART.

  1. Specific: what about poetry? Explaining the effect of line breaks and word patterns (from Lesson 5).
  2. Measurable: for 4 poems, write 2 sentences each explaining one line break's effect.
  3. Achievable: 4 short poems over 2 weeks is realistic alongside other homework.
  4. Relevant: it targets a real weakness (naming devices without explaining effects).
  5. Time-bound: by Friday, November 13.
  6. Check: I'll compare my first and last explanations: is the last one more specific about effect?

By Friday, November 13, I will read 4 poems and, for each, write 2 sentences explaining the effect of one line break or word pattern. I'll compare my first and last explanations to see whether they became more specific.

Just for fun

Metacognition means thinking about your thinking.

Thinking about thinking about your thinking is called... needing a snack.

Hands-on activity

My reading portfolio check-up

You need: your work from this unit (answers, notes, activity sheets), a highlighter, paper, a calendar.

  1. Choose three texts from this unit in different forms (for example, a poem, a play and an article).
  2. For each, write: the strategy that helped most, one moment where it helped (quote or describe it), and one strategy that didn't help much.
  3. Make your own strategy log grid like the one in this lesson, rating 5 strategies for 5 text types.
  4. Find one strength and one weakness in your critical thinking, each with evidence from your answers.
  5. Write one SMART goal that targets your weakness. Put the deadline on a real calendar.
  6. Share your goal with someone at home and ask them to check in with you on the deadline.

What to look for: specific texts and moments, a real comparison across text types, honest strengths and weaknesses with evidence, and a goal with all five SMART parts.

Your turn

1

Why is I did good in this unit a weak reflection?

2

Which strategy works especially well for drama, and why?

3

Which strategy works especially well for an informational article, and why?

4

What does each letter in SMART stand for?

5

In Reflection B, what critical thinking weakness does the student identify, and what's the evidence?

6

Rewrite I'll read more as a SMART goal.

7

What's the difference between a comprehension strategy and a critical thinking skill?

More practice: warm-up

1

What is metacognition?

2

Name two comprehension strategies from this unit.

3

Name two critical thinking skills from this unit.

4

Is I want to be better at English a SMART goal?

5

What should an evidence-based reflection include?

More practice: on your own

1

Explain why predicting might help less with a poem like Snowplough, 4 a.m. than with Do Not Open Until Spring.

2

A student says, Summarizing never helps me. Suggest when it would help and why.

3

Assess this self-assessment: I'm great at critical thinking because I always say texts are biased.

4

Write one evidence-based sentence about a strategy that helped you in this unit.

5

Why is it important to check whether a goal worked?

Challenge

1

Write a full evidence-based reflection (6 to 8 sentences) on this unit that compares two strategies across two text types, assesses one critical thinking strength and one weakness with evidence, and ends with a SMART goal.

2

Explain how one critical thinking skill from this unit could help you in another subject (for example, Science, Geography or History).

3

Design a personal reading toolkit card: for each of four text types (poem, story, play, article), list the two strategies you'll try first and why.

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

Which reflection is evidence-based?

2.

Which goal is SMART?

3.

Which strategy is usually most helpful for understanding subtext in a play?

4.

Metacognition is...

5.

Which is a critical thinking skill rather than a comprehension strategy?

6.

Why compare strategies across text types?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: Grade 9 students explain and compare how strategies such as visualizing, predicting, summarizing and connecting helped them comprehend various texts, and set goals (C2.7). They assess the effectiveness of the critical thinking skills they used when analyzing and evaluating texts, and set goals to improve (C3.8). Evaluating how their skills support learning and planning to improve connects to A1.2.

How to help at home:

  • Ask for specifics: "Which text? What did you do? What happened?"
  • Help your teen put their SMART goal's deadline on the family calendar, and check in on that date.
  • Share your own learning reflections (at work, in a hobby): model being specific and honest.

Common difficulties:

  • Vague reflections (it was good). Push for one named text and one named moment.
  • Goals that can't be measured. Ask: "How will you know you've done it?"
  • Only praising strengths or only criticizing weaknesses. Good reflection includes both, with evidence.

Facts used: Reflections A and B and the strategy log are invented examples; all texts referred to appear earlier in this unit.