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integrated computational thinking

LA Practice A3: Conduct a mixed analysis (Activity)

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Step 1 of 11: Introduction

Since our first day of schooling, classrooms focus on the computational thinking practice of abstraction, the process of removing details from a system or object to focus attention on a specific detail of greater importance.

By the end of kindergarten, students understand that a letter is a model representing a specific sound (decomposition). Common Core ELA standards suggest that fourth graders should be able to “refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text” (generalization). And by middle school, students recognize the writing process is composed of individual phases (drafting, revising, editing, publishing, etc.) that come together to create a coherent piece of writing (modularity)

In the prior projects, you have explored how understanding algorithms can help us better understand language conventions and how creating algorithms on Scratch and recognizing patterns in data sets can enhance our studying and interpretation of texts. You have programmed algorithms in Scratch, counted words in a text, and designed graphs but now that you understand those processes.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use a computational tool to help remove unwanted details from a text in order to focus on models that can aid in reading and comprehending a play.