Insight Out...A challenge to Communicate by Dr Lou Lloyd-Zannini

With detailed instructional strategies this important new book offers twenty-five lessons to restore voice to the gifted student, the student who has been silent, possibly feeling as an outsider and who has still to understand   that he or she has much to share with others.

For teachers of high-ability learners, this book “is a call to excellence in communication."  Skill development opportunities abound in daily journaling, focused observation and recording, study of supplied dialog, creation of original dialog, recording of events, development of fictitious interpersonal interactions, scrutiny of students of opinions and planning and execution of responses to those opinions, vocabulary development and refinement exercises, and honest criticism…. The emphasis is placed on clear and effective presentation. 

There are six major goals for the students:
*  To record with increasing accuracy and precision one’s sensory, cognitive and emotional observations and impressions.
*  To express convincingly and passionately in written form one’s thoughts, opinions, feelings and aspirations.
*  To utilize writing as a means of enabling reflection upon one’s thoughts and feelings about self and others, especially in areas of self-concept/self-talk, perceptions and role expectations, and future aspirations/plans.
*  To utilize writing as a means both of promoting reflection upon, and effecting positive changes in one’s own interpersonal interactions.
*  To write responsively to the thoughts, feelings, opinions, aspirations, and prejudices of others.
*  To represent accurately one’s identity and purpose through writing.

Infused into the Unit are a variety of highly individualized learning models: The Diagnostic Prescriptive Approach; The Writing Process Model; Graphic Organizers; the Project Understanding Web; the Vocabulary Refinement Web; The Reasoning Model; the Taba Model of Concept Development.

Chapter divisions: I. Introductory Framework;  II. Instructional Goals and Learner Outcomes;  III. Instructional Models;  IV. Sources and Resources;  V. Lesson Plans;  VI. Appendix of Assessments  and Reproducibles.   

Each of the lessons follows the same format, which first presents its Curriculum Alignment Goal, states the Instructional Purpose and Materials Needed, then moves into narrating the Student Activities with “Notes to the Instructor.”   It then provides Lesson Stretchers, and ends with an area provided for Instructor/Log Notes.

Dr Lou Lloyd-Zannini is Associate Professor, Regent University, VA and Chair, National Association for Gifted Children, Arts Network.