Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 7

WHAT?

To follow up on the previous lesson, the children were brought back to the ‘helping circle’, I started the lesson by writing up the success criteria onto the whiteboard. The children were then encouraged to ‘point to’ where they had activated the nouns and use precise word choice to show what the noun was doing.

I also asked the children to show their partner where they had added more to the sentence to give a sense of what, where and how, to add more detail to the sentence. Looking around I could see the faces of the children and there was a range of disappointment and regret.

Congratulating the children on now being able to activate nouns, use precise word choice and follow their suggestion of 5 sentences, they had had success with their writing. I asked the children to tell their partner what they thought structure meant. The murmers around the class were about buildings and how it is built. I told the children that structure helps us to write with the correct setting out as well.

I used their exemplar and pointed out how the noun was on the line above the verb and that becauseit was a poem, they both began with capital letters. I drew a visual representation to show the children how each verse/stanza was set out. I asked the children if they had any questions, there was a number of clarifying questions.

I lead the children to think about two events that happened the previous day – the unexpected fire drill and the thunderstorm. The children were encouraged to discuss the events with their partner and the discussion was very animated. I could hear them using elaborate word choice. I directed the children to extend themselves by adding more detail to the when, what, and how.

The children were given time to visualise and then time to write. There was a number of children working with myself and another group working in a small group with another teacher at a table. The children were highly engaged and wrote with some ease. One reluctant writer working with me, wanted to write, and was animated to record his ideas.

Once the time for the lesson was coming t an end, I recalled the children back to the helping circle and shared what they had written with each other. I also reminded the children to change their writing when they heard a good idea as this was a helping circle – a way to help them to change and improve their writing.

SO WHAT?

The children realised where they hadn’t followed the structure and how they could add more detail to their writing. I also feel that the visual representation help set up the children for success. Another focus for the children based on the writing rubric is to give and respond to feedback. The helping circle is a correct vehicle to establish this practice.

Having an event that provoked many ideas created engagement and a willingness to take more risks with their writing. I also realise that it is ‘ok’ to rework the same lesson but to work on making the children more aware of the structure and how they can extend their writing to improve from one lesson to the next.

NOW WHAT?

My next step to check in with those few children who still haven’t achieved the correct structure and setting out. There were a couple of children who weren’t activating their nouns using verbs but are using similes. The helping circle is getting there but I still need to be more persistent to make this work.

I will be encouraging the children to publish these poems and I will make an effort to try to get some of the poems published into the school’s newletter as well.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

- Orson Scott

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 6

WHAT?

To get a sense of whether or not the children are getting the idea of activating their nouns and can now apply this in a range of text types I decided to teach them another observational poem but this time the structure was different. Instead of the verb following the noun in the same line, it was written with a capital letter on the next line.

The lesson sequence started the same, with the children gluing in their exemplar, this time it was an excerpt of a poem written in 1914 by Wilfred Owen. We were given this lesson plan by Verity in our last PD session on authorship. I didn’t even know who Wilfred Owen was before then, he is a master of poetry who writes with realism and compassion using imagery to explain the contrast and reality of the first World War.

As part of the analysis I guided the children to ‘notice’ how the author had activated the nouns in the poem and how it was structured differently than before. I spent some time unpacking the meaning of words like ‘fleshes’ so the children could understand the imagery used. There were some gasps when I said that it was the skin of the boys until I remarked that we don’t swim in our clothes.

I encouraged the children to make connections to our wetlands and the piece of writing that they had just completed. The children were able to activate the nouns successfully and made precise language choice, but more importantly could verbalise what they had been learning.

The children were then lead through the visualisation process and then were created the success criteria together on what we had noticed in the analysis. The children were all  forthcoming with number of sentences they needed to write, to activate the nouns and use precise language choice. I deliberately scaffolded the structure and setting out of the poem. Also with the children, I created a word bank of nouns and verbs that they could use in their writing.

The children were then encouraged to write about our wetlands and use the new structure. There were a number of  children working with me in a workshop situation and a few others with my student teacher. There was a busy buzz as they recorded their ideas to create their own poetry.

As the lesson came to an end, the children were once more brought down to the mat into a helping circle and encouraged to share their work. Again I used the ‘ice block’ sticks to randomly select who was sharing. The children activated the nouns and are so much better at choosing words to say exactly what they mean.

SO WHAT?

I felt that the lesson went as expected and the children understand the lesson structure although we do need more practice on being happy to all close our eyes and ‘run the movie in our heads’ before writing.

When marking the children’s work I noticed that the children activated the nouns and used precise language choice to say what they meant. But they hadn’t followed the text structure of having the noun on one line followed by the verb on the next line and those children who were confident writers hadn’t pushed themselves to add more detail to create picture in the reader’s mind. Some had even used the same endings - in the wetlands.

NOW WHAT?

I need to repeat this lesson again but use a better stimulus as this is what I feel is missing. Luckily after lunch the school had an unexpected fire drill in the drizzle and before our allotted PE time and the children were huddled under umbrellas waiting find out why the alarm had gone off. As well after school there was fierce thunder storm above the area where most of the children lived so that may activate better writing.

My aim this term was for the children to give each other feedback and take action on to improve the message in our work. This still a work in progress.

“A fine writer will always make you feel that [you're right on the spot, watching the plot happen]. And don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”

- Matilda written by Roald Dahl

Using Authorship to promote better writers - Part 5.1

WHAT?
Today I needed 5 children who had been away for the 'Changing Landscapes" lesson to catch up on learning they had missed. The children in the group were of mixed abilities and a mix of Year 3 and 4 s, girls and boys.

I began the lesson going through the exemplar, getting the children to analysis the language devices the author had used, activating the nouns and the precise vocabulary chosen to compare and then I asked the group to clarify. "Do willows weep?" There was a loud resounding no, I dug deeper, "Why has the author used these ideas?" The children said that it helped put a picture in your head about how the author wants us to feel about the pukeko leaving his home.

My next idea was to create a list of what people do that was in the poem. The group gave me all the correct ideas - whisper, weep, cry, hide. I gave a name to this technique - personification. One child said, "That word has person in it!" Then we as a group wrote all the names of things found in the wetlands. Because this has been our topic for inquiry, the list grew quickly. I then asked the children to give me a sentence using one of the nouns and make it do some a person does to create a picture of how unhealthy the wetland in Waitawa bush is.

I scribed their idea for the sentence directly onto the table we were working at. The children wrote the sentence into their books. As we wrote I checked off the nouns we used and I wrote less and less of a whole sentence. For the last sentence, the children used the last words and wrote their own sentence activating the nouns and chose words to say exactly what they meant.

SO WHAT?
By creating the list of nouns and checking them off as the children their sentences, it was a simple plan that ensured the children were covering what was needed. The children responded well to the scaffolding of me writing the sentence starter. Although by the end of the lesson, the children had picked up on using different sentence starters and were prompting each other to do so.

The type of sentences were mostly complex as the children used conjunctions to write the sentence they had verbalise together. The sentences, this group used more quality verbs to personify and compare what the wetland was like - even though this group didn't visit our wetland, I used prompts of what would you see in an unhealthy wetland.

NOW WHAT?
I need to be more deliberate in the way I scaffold for the children the word banks. It will help my less abled writers to plan and track where they are up to. When the children are writing I need to rove more to ensure that all the children are getting my help and my enthusiasm for their efforts.

I am looking forward to my next lesson which is another type of poem that builds on activating nouns, choosing precise verbs to say exactly what the nouns is doing, and adds onto where and when.

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” – F. Scott Fitzgeral