Developing Authorship in a Co-teaching Partnership - Part 2

 WHAT?

When planning for the start of Term 2, My colleague and I decided to start off with a ‘Mother’s Day’ poem. I had used the structure and format with her child a couple of years previously and she still really loved it. 

The poem is one that uses metaphors to describe their mum. The structure is very precise and has a format that the children can easily adhere to. The first stanza starts with ‘My Mum is..’ followed by the next 3 lines using ‘She is..’

The lesson started with the children gluing in and reading the exemplar. The children had used metaphors before so we only needed to prompt them. My colleague read her son’s poem out to the class as a way to show them how much the poem meant to her. As part of the lesson, we also used ‘knee to knee’ talking so the children could share their ideas.

Before the children wrote, we co-constructed some metaphoric sentences together - My mum is a teddy bear, squeezing my fears away. She is a blanket warming us all to the core. By this time the children were eager to write, some had started. The children were given the task of writing the first stanza - using the correct structure.

After the lesson the books were collected and the children who needed more help were highlighted in our planning to work with the next day. Over the next couple of lessons the children were required to write a stanza each lesson using the same structure. The whole class lesson to start, worked on class prompting and modelling what a good metaphor was, asking some children to share what they had written so others would have some ideas.

By the last session, the children had published their poem using Google docs and decorated them with a border and then they had been laminated.

SO WHAT?

This poem is very achievable at this level and the children feel very successful when it is completed. By the end of the week, all the children had completed their poem as a gift for Mother’s Day. One child even wrote two, as she is part of a two-mum family. It also helped that my colleague shared her feelings about how special her son’s poem is to her. 

As part of the next week’s planning, we decided to use the same planning to write a poem about another special person in their lives. The format was the same and my colleague and I wrote our own metaphor poems as exemplars for the children.

Austin

My grandson is a firecracker waiting to be lit,

He is a bundle of energy, running in every direction,

He is the Joker playing tricks on his Dad,

He is a performer showing off his dancing skills.

My grandson is a loudspeaker across the paddocks,

He is the co-pilot giving directions,

He is the sous-chef helping his Mum in the kitchen,

He is a farmer who cares for his animals.

My grandson is a fish who jumps in and out of the water,

He is a miniature of his father,

He is the sweetest lolly that melts in our hearts.

My Grandma

My Grandma was a floral garden, always adorned in bright colours.

She was ocean blue eyes, twinkling at me when we spoke.

She was crisp snow, dressed in her tennis whites.

She was a giant pohutukawa - beautiful, knobbly, wrinkled and strong. 

My Grandma was an Encyclopedia, a Dictionary and an Atlas.

She was a master Gardener, always sharing the fresh veggies she’d grown.

She was a Baker making our favourite cheese scones every time we’d visit.

She was the Teacher helping us to learn more about our world.

My Grandma was bubble wrap, protecting us when we needed it.

She was an Explorer, teaching us how to find joy in the little things.  

She was a rally car driver of the sand cars we made at the beach.

She was the Rainbow in my sun shower. 

My Grandma is a taonga, and is always in my heart.

These poems were just as successful as their Mother’s Day poems although not all the children complete these, but not the same pressure as for Mother’s Day. 

NOW WHAT?

I have come to realise that the benefits for ideas comes with sharing with my co-teaching colleague. We build on the strengths of each other, this enables us to get the best from the students in our class. She is such a great wordsmith, often she writes the class story with some much more than I can. I have been teaching using the authorship platform for longer.

 

We need to continue to make these connections for authentic writing from the children. By finding these, the children feel empowered to write and their writing has purpose. But I know that we can use these skills across the curriculum as well.

“You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning in your own.”

Ben Sweetland