Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 16

WHAT?

I decided that I need to have purpose for the notebooks so with Father’s Day looming, I planned for my next writing lesson, the children to write another poem to describe their own fathers or father figure in their lives. In May, we had written a poem for Mother’s Day, I revisited the exemplar and was amazed at the level of knowledge from the class.

The children identified the similes and metaphors used to describe and could explain why the author has used those particular writing devices to describe. The highlighters were used to highlight their noticing. They shared with a buddy what they found interesting, we created a list of metaphors that portrayed their dad, and we checked out the structure of the poem.

Armed with their notebooks, now called seed notebooks, the children shared their jottings (seeds) from the night before. The children had taken the books home to write with their parents ideas about their dad. With a buddy, they discussed what Dads do that Mums don’t – because we wanted these poems to be a step up from their ‘Mum’ poems. On the whiteboard, I collated their ideas in a list and we co-constructed a metaphoric sentence together.

During the visualisation part of the lesson, the children closed their eyes and I lead them to create that mini movie in their heads. I used question prompts - What can you compare your dad to? What skills/traits does he have that mum does have? How does he make you feel when something good happens? Or when something bad happens? The children knew what they wanted to write. As a class we created the success criteria – using pronouns or My Dad to begin each sentence, using metaphors, using precision with word choice and make interesting comparisons.

Once the children began writing, I roved and worked with my less abled writers. The children had also decided as a class that they would need to write at least 6 sentences for their poem and all of the children were writing and sharing ideas to help each other. I was asked to spell words and prompted some to use metaphors not similes this time as many had for their ‘Mum’ poem. One child said, “I’ve written 9 sentences about my Dad!” Her enthusiasm was infectious and there was a flurry of pens to capture ideas and make as many sentences as she had.

The ‘Dad’ poems are more advanced that their previous bio poems and the children published them onto Google Docs, I proofed and showed 2 experts how to make an origami shirt that became the envelope for their poem. The children had strict instructions not to share these with their Dads until Sunday as that was actually Father’s Day. I also made the children publish their poem to Seesaw which I deliberately approved their post on Sunday too.

SO WHAT?

This lesson was introduced on Thursday before the Father’s Day so I knew that there would be added pressure considering the ‘Mum’ poems had taken a long stretched out week and then I was still pushing some to finish. This time that didn’t happen, all the poems were printed, origami shirts made and a post up to Seesaw all done before morning tea on the Friday. I was pleasantly surprised and gave the children time to choose what they wanted to do in the block after morning tea.

I was really pleased with the efforts the children are now making with their word choice and how their metaphoric sentences really described their Dads. Another thing to mention is that the children are willing to help each other and share their success, which I believe is due to the culture in the class that comes from the ‘Helping Circle’ part of our writing lessons.

NOW WHAT?

My class writes better when writing for a purpose, so I need to capture events, moments and times that connect with them. Looking at my assessment and where to next, I have noticed that I need to encourage my children to write to persuade and with Grandparents/ Whanau day coming up, it might just be a way to manage 2 ideas for the ‘price’ of one.

"Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences."
--Sylvia Plath

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 15

WHAT?

Our next PD session with Verity was called “Finding the Significance and Note booking”, Verity previously had given us a notebook and front loaded us on how to encourage the children to record in notebooks snippets or seeds from their lives that they ‘could’ use later on in their own writing if they could not connect to the exemplar/text.

I hadn’t introduced the idea of using notebooks with my class and had moved this idea to the ‘back burner’ so to speak.  Verity explained the purpose of the notebooks to us and said that she had had to start again and establish the use of notebooks again in her class. She reiterated that when we read there are 2 responses to text – an emotional response/reaction and an intellectual response (understanding the choices made by the author). As educators, we want our children to respond to the text and know what type of response it is.

As the PD progressed, I knew that there were a number of phrases I wanted to establish in my class. One was ‘seeds’ – Verity spoke with passion about how the notebook was a place to store ‘seeds’ of inspiration so that later the children could grow them through their writing to create sincerity. The other was making connections – encourage the children to find connections within the text but if they can’t help them find connections in their own lives and their own sparks of inspiration stored in their notebooks.

I madly scribbled on the notes that accompanied the PD, as I had been inspired to try to get my children writing and using their notebooks. So over the weekend, I bought enough notebooks for the whole class and readied myself for my next writing lesson. I made a real fuss and ‘sold’ the idea of the notebooks to the class – we spent our writing lesson on choosing stickers, coverseal and labels to decorate and personalise our notebooks. I also made and effort to record anything that sparked inspiration in my own notebook.

The next day, I used a powerpoint presentation to show the significance in a range of poems and text that Verity had given us as well as poems from Literacy online that were at Level 2 NZC. I played with the text and use pictures and photographs that I thought would connect to my class. The children were quick to write their own seeds and I was very encouraging.

SO WHAT?

In Chapter Three of Gail Loane’s “I’ve got something to say”, she discusses that the students need to be taught how to make meaningful entries and it is important that we need to consciously demonstrate ‘authorly behaviour’ and that we should be reaching for our notebooks when any possible occasion arises. She also mentions that we need to plan to teach strategies for meaningful jottings and keep encouraging these so that in time, habits will form.

NOW WHAT?

I need to familiarise myself again with this chapter as it make more sense as I am now trying to establish this skill for my children. I have used the notebooks to get the children to record information/ seeds about their Dads to help them write about their dad for Father’s Day.

“We want our young people to grow up knowing that writing is an important and deeply satisfying life skill, one that helps them make more sense of themselves and their world, one that helps them to communicate effectively. Much more than a skill, writing is the creativity of each child making itself known through the role of author.” – Gail Loane

References

Loane, G., & Muir, S. A. (2010). I've got something to say: leading young writers to authorship. Aries Publishing Company.

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 14

WHAT?

As part of our teaching this year, we have been asked to make science a priority in our learning programme and ensure that the children are experiencing change this term, in a range of contexts. I had been sharing egg experiments with the class and my next experiment using an egg, was to demonstrate density and help explain the preceding density experiment. So as part of that learning, I decided that I would challenge the children and myself to write up our experiments.

Again I used the planning template provided from Verity. I used the egg experiment as my exemplar and showed how the experiment was set out and what the structure was. I lead the children to notice the setting out, sub headings and headings, diagram with labels and we highlighted the important information.

When given the exemplar, the children were quick to notice that the piece was informative and was giving instructions. As a class, we again watched the egg experiment on youtube to confirm the information and explanation within the exemplar. At this time I used our own photographs from our experiment to help engage the children in what we were going to write about.

I told the children that were writing up the second experiment we did on liquid density, I again used youtube to demonstrate the liquid density experiment. The children as a class, created a word bank of the scientific words, labels and any other words that they deemed important.

I then encouraged the children to close their eyes and play the movie as I read from my science experiment notes about what we did. I had recorded the explanation on liquid density on my writing plan for reference purposes. The success criteria was about using headings, technical language, using a diagram and making sure that ‘good’ sentence construction was present. The children wanted to work through writing up the experiment bit by bit and they were all contributing to the structure of the writing.

I used the whiteboard and a writing workshop, stopping the others with reminders on what to remember such as starting with action verbs for each step, using labels on our diagrams and the actually setting out of their writing.

  

SO WHAT?

The children were successful in writing up the experiment and some were very proud of their diagrams and their use of numbered steps. Most of the class was able to do this within the hour lesson, those who struggled generally hadn’t joined in the writing workshop, and had been distracted by each other. The technical language caused a few difficulties.

What I noticed was a reluctance to take a risk from my more capable writers, as they were crowding the writing workshop.  Those who needed help, needed encouragement to be working as part of the class. My less able writers are always first in the writing workshop, so I know where they are at, all the time.

NOW WHAT?

I need to build up the resiliency of those children I know can write successfully so that they will take more risks with their writing. I also need to be more aware of those children who are on the edge – I can do this by being on top of my own marking, conferencing with them and set writing goals. Some goals may need to be behaviour goals as well because I do some boys who struggle to complete the task in the allotted time.

How can I encourage the children to connect with the exemplar when it is not something they are interested in?

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” - Sydney J. Harris

Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 13

 WHAT?

The piece that I decided to use from the PD pack from Verity was called ‘Hide and Seek by Vernon Scannell,’ I wrote up the lesson plan again using the editable planner. I also referred to the lesson plan from Gail Loane’s –“I’ve got something to say’ and wrote my own plan. I had use this text with a previous class and had experienced success.

The children were given the text, we read it together, cleared any roadblocks but it was also a day for a fire drill so we didn’t get to analysing the piece as deeply as I would have liked. So I amended the plan to include a piece of text from a child who wrote with success last year. I also labelled this copy with her name and her year level.

So our next try, the children really engaged with the text and enjoyed sharing what they noticed – activated nouns, verbs to create a picture in the reader’s mind, the use of personification and the deliberate choice of vocabulary.

I used a powerpoint presentation to help the children to understand how to write personification and the children were encouraged to write a sentence to practice using this writing device. The children enjoyed writing to describe the picture of the sailing ship in a storm. They then shared with the class their success and how this could be used in their writing. I chose to finish the lesson here and start again the next day.

Continuing on from the previous lesson, the children reread the text written by a Year 4 child. I encouraged the children to share a time when they had played hide and seek. Again they used the THINK-PAIR-SHARE technique, turn in and knees touching, the timer ran for 2 minutes for each person. The next part was to use the visualisation to help the children capture that experience like a mini movie in their heads.

Before the children wrote their memoir poem about Hide and Seek, as a class, we co-constructed the success criteria – using dialogue, using senses to describe, try personification and use precision in their word choice. The children were then encouraged to write. I worked with my struggling writers and wandered the class to check in to see how the others were going. To finish the lesson, the children gathered in the “Helping Circle”, I used the sticks again to randomise the 5 children who would share with the others.

The writing was done over a couple of days and all in all the writing shows how far they have come. I gave the children time during reading to publish their writing and I added it to their Seesaw portfolio. Below is one of my successes, a Year 4 boy who is a reluctant writer, what I am most pleased about is his sincerity and personal voice.

SO WHAT?

Having a fire drill at the beginning of the lesson did not help to motivate the children to engage with the text from Vernon Scannell. It was lucky I remembered the success from the previous year and asked the child in question to share it with me once more. I know that it if the piece is written by a child of similar age, the children in my class are more than likely to connect with the text.

The personification practice using the powerpoint presentation was a great way to break up the lesson and gave the class an opportunity to write quickly and share their ideas. For my visual learners, I have also added this powerpoint presentation to a Google classroom where they were able to access the information over and over again.

By using a timer on my screen, the children were able to share their experience for the same amount of time and add detail that they may not have though about earlier. The children have become better at visualising – I think it has helped them by using the prompts, “run the mini movie in your head so you know what to write about.”

The children’s ability to record their ideas has developed so much this year and I believe this is down to the deliberate acts I am making to help them connect with the text and their own bank of knowledge to do with writing. Now creating success criteria with them often comes from what they notice during our helping circle time and as well as what I see when marking their writing.

NOW WHAT?

My next challenge is to get the children to be able to write across the curriculum and not just using memoirs and descriptions. Also I need to roam more around the class as I feel that some  children are using the exemplar text to imitate too much and not to innovate on it.

How can I build on what they children know about writing to help them realise that we write all the time to record our ideas and that when master these skills we have the ability to transfer them into any writing genre.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

- William Butler Yeats

References

Loane, G., & Muir, S. A. (2010). I've got something to say: leading young writers to authorship. Aries Publishing Company.