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