How can I improve my practice to improve the writing of those children who are struggling to record their ideas? Part 4

WHAT?

 

My next step is to celebrate the work of those children who are at a lower level but have some “gold”, this means that they have worked hard and have used the success criteria at their level. I did this in the following set of lessons when the children were beginning to publish their work in Book creator.

 

During the weekend, I was going through my planning and the chidren’s posts in Seesaw, one of the children I know that doesn’t always follow the directions had worked particually hard on getting his ideas into Book creator. His work lacked full stops and sentences that made sense. He had a clear idea of what he was trying to teach his readers and the photographs worked well with the text. He had a great eye for layout and there was a good flow from page to page. I asked the child if I could use his work as an example for the class to share what he had done.

 

Being on Book creator, which is a App on the iPads I was able to screencast his work so that the class could see what he had done so far. I asked the children what they noticed and what they thought worked well in his All about book. The children were full of positivies, his pictures matched the text and he had used a contents page and that his pages worked from the contents page. Some of my more scholastic children picked up that he had used little if any punctuation. When I read his work aloud the rest of the class worked out what was missing. I told that the class the power of reading your work to someone else and then getting them to read it back to you, will show you what you need to revise and fix up.

 

Part of this lesson was learning the art of elaboration, where the author adds to their work to make it more meaningful. I used a sentence like from the lesson plan. I asked one of the girls if she was happy for the class to help her revise and make her writing better. She had written – “You can dribble a ball.” I purposefully asked her what that meant, she said that was what you do when play hockey. I asked the class if we could elaborate this idea. We worked and created a sentence that explained what dribbling a hockey ball actually looks like.

 

Once the class was writing and working well, I made time for the boy whose work I had used to demonstrate and help him revise his work. I also explained that he had some great ideas but they needed tweaking. Once we were working I asked questions on what didn’t make sense and he explained more and I praised his elaboration. from this we worked together on his learning goal.

 

SO WHAT?

 

By using some of the children’s work, it made it more relatible for the other learners, it gave the child who sometimes struggles a bit of a boost to his ego and was more responsive to the needs of my learners. I was able to put some pressure on my more able children who aren’t producing work that they are capable of, or are not extending themselves as much as they could.

 

What I have also noticed when I am reading through their work on book creator there are similar errors such as setting out, use of the space bar and punctuation. I also feel that the children are ready for something new and that we are ready to move on. Just a few more to get theirs finished.

 

NOW WHAT?

 

I need to record my findings into an assessment type of sheet to see if there are any trends and needs across the class. I have realised that I have such a spread of where the children are at that, there are a couple of children who haven’t even got their work onto book creator and I need to work with them to give them a hurry along.

 

After watching a video about the learning ecosystem I need to encourage the children to share their learning with their family and whanau throughout the whole writing process not just at the end when it is finished.

 

“Happiness depends on your mindset and attitude.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

How can I improve my practice to improve the writing of those children who are struggling to record their ideas? Part 3

 

WHAT?

 

The next part to working on improving my practice is to work with Verity on a reflection of the lesson I taught and to get some feedback and feed forward to where to next. As always Verity is very happy and gives me massive compliments on how my class behaves and the routines I have in place for writing.

 

I referred back to my blog post on my observation and what worked and where to next. Verity said that I was on the button but sometimes I am letting the children dictate the pace of the lesson with their random questions. This means when a child asks a random question that isn’t what I am looking for, such as something about purple rhinos when we are working on a piece on playtime, I need to move on with the lesson, to ensure that the class doesn’t lose focus of the task at hand.

 

Verity said that I needed to understand how the structure of the lesson has been developed by Lucy Calkins and then by her to get the maximum value for the writers. She showed me a simple diagram where you start with a spark, or provocation, this is only a small snippet/ not too much time but the teacher does all the talking. From there, there is a shared part of the writing, where you are working with the children to record their ideas, co-construct the success critera (that you have already worked out), support the children with new ideas and use ideas from the helping circle. Once the children know what skills to use and what they are writing about, they need to write, preferably with little and no intervention from you as the teacher.

 

As the teacher, you need to offer support to those children who are struggled by keeping them on track but not rescuing them. Once the independent writing time is up (this is the largest time slot of the lesson), the children come down to the Helping Circle to gauge their success with the success criteria and where to next, also this is a time when they each offer ways to help each other and grow their collective knowledge.

 

Part of my up-skilling, Verity said that the children’s books also guide you on what you need to refocus on or to give more direction in the planning of your next lesson. I had brought a couple of books with me to this session and showed them to Verity. One child had written bullet points and drawn boxes around his work, Verity told me to work with him, actually type up his writing as he read it aloud so he could actually see where he had gone wrong. She also said, ask the child if you could share what you had done to build up the skills in the Helping Circle, not only will he feel that he has something to share but it is powerful for your more capable writers to see a struggling writer’s work as a good example of revising and editing. 

 

SO WHAT?

 

My instincts at first were somewhat cringing at the thought of not acknowledging the child who was asking questions even when they are random. Sometimes I don’t really know how to move on, my knowledge is still forming on how to capture those moments in writing so that they can be teachable moments.

 

The structure makes more sense now when it was explained using a funnel shaped diagram, start small, join the children in the skill development and judge their ‘buy-in’, sent them away to use the just taught skill and use a quiet focussed environment and then spend time crafting and re-crafting their writing in the Helping Circle.

 

By looking through their books after each time of writing, not necessarily marking, but looking for trends and skills that I feel that needs revising, I can make the next lesson more powerful for all the class. I did type up the child’s writing and then use his work as an example to share. It made such a difference for the understanding for the class, they could see the purpose for reading aloud to a buddy and then a buddy reading and helping them re-craft their work.

 

NOW WHAT?

 

My next step is to be more mindful of what they do each day in their books and tell the children that I will make every effort to help them with what they are struggling with the next day. Be looking for similar problems that can be addressed within the Helping Circle or can be the focus for the following days lesson.

 

I need to use the work of those children I know are trying so hard and put them on a pedistal to show what great ideas they have and what they have to offer to build up their sense of self worth.

 

 

“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.”  Maxwell Maltz

How can I improve my practice to improve the writing of those children who are struggling to record their ideas? Part 2

 

WHAT?

I started the lesson with the children sitting in a circle and asked them about what they do with information. The first answer was about explaining how to do something. I clarified that and asked as the receiver of information, the child told me that you learn about what they trying to tell us about. I then went on the explain to the children that is what our All about books were going to teach someone about your topic. As per the plan, I asked what classes adults go to. I prompted them to realise that the adult goes to learn about the topics such as Indian cooking.

 

I began saying that if I was going to a class about flowers, I would like to know about flowers. So when the teacher comes in and says,  “Flowers are nice. Flowers are pretty. I love flowers. Flowers are great, great, great. Some flowers are read, some flowers are yellow. All flowers are pretty.’ Then he said, ‘Class is over. You can go home.’” One of the children, said that you need more information and details. I prompted and asked the children to give me as much information as they could about flowers.

 

I keep referring to the words about information. My next step was to ask the children to sit in pairs and tell their buddy all about their own topic. “Tell your buddy as many facts as you can about your topic.” Th children were very animated and they were engaged in the task. I worked with my struggling writer who didn’t have his writing book in front of him. Using a count down, the children were listening, there was a transferring the information to their buddy.

 

I unpacked the information, that they are promising them something. I asked them how I would feel if the lesson I went to hadn’t given me enough information. One of the children explained that I had been let down and that there wasn’t enough information and that I had been given information that I already knew.

 

I acknowledged his ideas were on the spot. I used information with one child who I know was writing about planets. I referred to the plan and shared a trick that Mrs Short had given me about writing information. We wrote a shared piece together about playtime and used the anchor chart I had written up earlier on using numbers, names, examples and advice or a weird fact.

The children contributed and were pleased with their ideas. I asked them if they thought that they would be able to go away and write some information about their topic. The children were very excited to write.

 

I told the children to get ready to write and then after a couple of minutes I asked them to get on with writing without any talking. The class was quiet, a few children came up to me, I told them it was time write. After some time the children were brought back to the mat for a time to work in the Helping Circle.

I worked through the anchor chart, highlighting names, numbers, examples and weird facts. During this time I congratulated the children on their successes. Mrs Short was observing and at this time, she asked who hadn’t had success with numbers. A number of children put their hands up. She asked one child to share her topic, insects. She then asked the other children how we could help this student with numbers. Hands shot up and offers of ideas came thick and fast.

 

The lesson finished with the children adding more if they could to their writing and then I collected their books.

 

SO WHAT?

Overall I was pleased with how the lesson went and I thought that it was timely with where the students were at. They had been writing using the planners for a number of days and some had started to write more information on their topics and they were ready to have some structure. They had recalled great facts and I was really surprised by how much they actually knew about their topics.

Verity jumping in during the helping circle time was an eye opener as she used the other children as experts to help out the others. It does make sense as it is called a helping circle. I can see the benefits of this and how it develops a great culture around writing. This could be something that I need to be aware of when I do my next writing survey, do they like receiving and giving help.

 

NOW WHAT?

 

I need to include the others in the helping circle as part of the sharing and encourage the children to ask for help as well during this time.

 

My next step for this writing is to persevere with this so the children are able to get down the information they need in their All about books so we can publish using book creator. I also bneed to make time for my strugglers so they can their ideas down and at their ability level.

 

 

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” John Holmes