Consolidate and Apply New Information
There are several different strategies that you may use to help students consolidate and apply new information. One unique way is to have students express their new knowledge through the arts. Possible activities include drawing, painting, creating sculptures or writing and performing a skit that integrate and apply their knowledge in a new way. If some of your students are musically inclined, encourage them to write a song, either to a familiar tune or compose a new one that communicates the key information learned from the text.
Another strategy that you can use for Before and After Reading is list-group-label. This strategy promotes background information recall and organization of that information before reading. It also encourages connecting known information with new information after students read the text. It also promotes long-term memory retention because, as an active learning strategy, students are required to discuss, write and manipulate vocabulary and key information until the group (either as a class or in small groups) is satisfied with the end product.
Although research papers are a common task for students, many do not have the skills or strategies required to complete such an activity - witness all the plagiarism. An excellent strategy for data collection and organization (which may also help prevent plagiarism) is an inquiry chart.
During each phase of the reading process, students answer questions and summarize information. Then that information is used to write a synthesis paper which is organized around the major questions asked, other interesting facts, and new questions that the summarization raised.