In May 2004, the NCTE published a Position/Action statement outlining what teachers of adolescents need to know about adolescent literacy. I found myself reading, as I always do, with a pencil in my hand – asking questions, summarizing ideas, and making connections.

I made a connection to both our work in senior English and to Hyde’s AICR learning process as I read the section titled “What Adolescent Readers Need.” They need “sustained experiences with diverse texts in a variety of genres…Texts should be broadly viewed to include print, electronic, and visual media.” This spring, we engaged the students in the editorial genre and we looked at both print and image versions of the genre.

As the seniors sought to develop their own topics and opinions to share in a written editorial form, I wanted them to practice identifying topic and opinion in the works of others. Therefore, I spent more than a week of class warm-up time viewing editorial cartoons online.

To deeply comprehend the visual editorials, the students needed to engage Hyde’s AICR learning cycle.

1^st – they had to Attend to the details. They had to use their eyes to see the editorial artist’s rendering in each corner of the frame. The students discerned the largest detail from the smallest; spoken dialogue from thought bubbles; skin color and body type. At this point students would ask questions to recognize the details they saw.

2^nd – Without discussion, each student used his/her own Insight and understanding of the details to establish the broader global topic. They matched what they saw to their own prior knowledge or wrestled with their lack of knowledge.

3^rd – Again without discussion, each student applied Critical thinking to form a sentence articulating the artist’s opinion on the topic. The sentence needed to be debatable rather that the safe and generic overview of the topic.

4^th – Students took the Responsibility to ‘publish’ their versions of the topic and opinion within the class discussion. At this point, their ideas were open to examination and disagreement. Students and teacher could extend each other’s prior knowledge. The students could then work toward the most fitting interpretation of the artist’s topic and opinion.

In this fourth step, students tend to cycle back to step one and defend their ideas based on the details or revise their opinions based on new levels of attention or insight. Learning process is recursive and cyclical.

So there you have it, a 5-minute model of Hyde School’s AICR learning process.