[Institution Title]
Background of the Study
A useful lesson to illustrate a major pedagogical theory in education involves a close reading lesson given in the ninth grade English class. Many high schools English teachers report that their students lack the skill of reading a passage, whether fiction or non-fiction, and successfully draw inferences and figurative meanings or even critically analyze the readings. These figurative meanings are crucial to understanding the rhetorical argument of the piece, making this a vital skill. Furthermore, writing is also as complex a learning activity as reading that fosters the act of critically arranging the words to make perfect sense.
Theoretical Framework
The proposed activity emanates Jean Piaget’s (1896-1980) Cognitive Theory on Operative Intelligence. According to the theory on operative intelligence, learning is facilitated using two distinct processes of assimilation and accommodation (Block, 1982). The proposed educational plan allows learners to first process information through assimilation. This process happens when the learner tries to assess, evaluate and interpret new information based on their existing knowledge or from their experience. The process of assimilation is blending in of the new information into pre-existing cognitive schema. On the other hand, accommodation is the process that involved the student’s consideration and their response to the information presented to them that makes them alter their pre-existing schema to accommodate the new information. Piaget suggests that these processes are integral to growth as far as cognitive abilities are concerned. In particular, Piaget suggests that this creates equilibrium that he refers to as the equilibration that allows to the transition from one stage to another.
Piaget furthered that at every particular stage of development an individual based on a set of logical structures . However, towards the end of each stage realizations that the previous logical structures are no longer appropriate and must necessarily me modified or adjust. This is where accommodation takes in. Piaget later on insists that assimilation and accommodation cannot exist independent of the other. Piaget’s logic can be explained through processing of the concept of “hotness’ and “coldness.” To recognize that a bowl of soup is boiling, a process that involves assimilation, one has to concentrate on the appearance and the sensation that the bowl of soup possesses. This process is referred to as accommodation. The result of these processes fosters development. Balance or Equilibrium is increased by development. The state of balance or equilibrium allows for mental schema of operative intelligence to be generated (Driscoll, 2005, p.199).
Analysis of the proposed Intervention
The audience of this curriculum is ninth grade English students. The topic is the process of close reading. The teacher distributes an excerpt from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The excerpt was in reference to the trial where the character of Hester Prynne was obligated to wear an embroidered “A” to symbolize her infidelity and her commission of adultery (Hawthorne, 2009). The teacher then assigns the students to write a paper based on the excerpt particularly relating to what the embroidered “A” means to the wearer and to society and justify whether the punishment is appropriate for the crime committed. The following session, the teacher, will divide the class into two groups. However, none of the students can choose their group. It will be appointed to them. The teacher will introduce a debate where Group A agrees with the punishment apportioned in the story of the Scarlet Letter. Group B will take the position who believes that the punishment is not appropriate.
The teacher will begin the argument by offering a general statement. The statement will read as, “Punishments are given to rectify a misconduct. In the case of the Scarlet Letter the punishment for adultery is public humiliation that does not leave the offender because it is a stigma that is affixed to her through the embroidered “A” that she has to wear anywhere she goes.” Group A will begin the argument by defining the terms in the debate and setting the scope and limitation and offering their first point. There will be an alternate response from the two groups to foster the exchange of thoughts.
This particular activity facilitates for Piaget’s Cognitive Theory on Operative Intelligence, which in return applies the process of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation in this activity happens when the students try to assess the punishment as whether it is appropriate or not by drawing on conclusions or arguments based on their personal experience of the experience of someone they know. The student will be responding based on their pre-existing schema. Since the students will be using their personal experience or the experience of someone they know, it would stand for the process of assimilation. The student would have to use something from their existing understanding, thus the student blends the information they drew from the reading to relate to their own to facilitate the process of assimilation.
Perhaps one student would say that the “A” represents social indignation because it isolates Hester Prynne from the rest of the crowd in the community with that symbolism. One could assume that this generalization was achieved because the student is relating to his or her experience in which that the color of an individual’s skin serves as a representation of the embroidered “A.” It could be that the color of a person’s skin is a contemporary representation of the symbol that foster the social stigma of indignation.
On the other hand, accommodation can be represented in the debate since not all members have actually been assigned to the side that they support. Those who were displaced to the group other than their choice will be exhibiting accommodation. This is because the students will be taking in the new insights and making adjustments to their pre-existing schemata to accommodate the new information. This is necessary to be able to effectively defend their group’s case or argument.
References
Block, J. (1982). Assimilation, accommodation, and the dynamics of personality development. Child Development , 281-295.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston, MA: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.
Hawthorne, N. (2009). The Scarlet Letter. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.
