----- Original Message ----- From: remanuel - remanuel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: More on HOTS This is Rachelle Emanuel speaking. I'm a participant in the Jerusalem HOTS course bravely led by Judy Siegal. "Bravely" because she has to put up with so much "griping". In every session a lot of time has been wasted on arguing/discussing the whole principle of the thing and Judy has to constantly be on the defensive and can't really proceed as she would like to. The reason why I am writing now to the list is because I don't want to waste any more time in the course and I want the Etniers to read what I have to say. Anonymous 1 writes that it seems as though the powers that be have conveniently decided to kill two birds with one stone as they have (rightly so) decided to bring back literature as a serious component of the bagrut and if they have to deal with HOTS, hey presto lets put the two together. Yesterday instead of doing my course homework I decided to do some research on the net to see to what extent HOTS are being used in conjunction with literature in the big wide world out there. My conclusion is - HOTS hardly appear together with literature. I found just one example on a very low level of children's books. Most of the sites I found had to do with maths, science and technology and social sciences. When the students are asked to solve a problem they have to show that they are aware of exactly which HOTS they are applying. This is logical and we have nothing against this. My ten year old son is extremely adept at this. He learns Talmud/Gemara and slowly but surely he is accumulating a whole list of concepts (HOTS) that he will apply in his Talmudical study till the age of 120. High order thinking skills is a divine gift for the human race and our people has been applying them for thousands of years! Our whole contention is that HOTS and literature don't seem to go together. Literature is an art. Art is not and, in my opinion, cannot be created by a conscious use of HOTS. Robots can and should be built using HOTS, so should complicated problems be solved using HOTS. If literature is not created thus then we should not be forced to appreciate it with aconscious use of HOTS. Yes, we do have to learn how to verbalize our appreciation, and for that we teach literary terms, but to have to constantly be aware of what HOTS we are using when answering a question on the literature is stifling and will limit the way we will teach the literature and the way the kids will appreciate it. I can see it happening to me as I think about our homework on "A Summer's Reading". My research on the net seems to support my gut feelings. I say, as others have said before me - if we have to teach HOTS and have the kids tested on them, then lets do it on the unseens but not on works of art!! ----------------------------------------------- Call for Articles The Etni Rag needs you ** Etni homepage - http://www.etni.org or - http://www.etni.org.il ** ** for help - ask@xxxxxxxx ** ** to post to this list - etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** -----------------------------------------------