Saturday, January 24, 2009
Language Arts Vignettes group b 650pm
View the NCTE/IRA vignettes at your level in the pdf standards handbook and then post entries on Class Blog for your group:1)propose “meaty” fat questions to discuss,2) make connections to your teaching and work with students, and 3) Pease respond to two of your classmates’s entries in your study group.4) Consider how what you have learned from this book might support the work of your integrated language arts unit
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Discussion Questions-
1) The last vignette described a classroom in which the teacher and the students were all engaging in silent reading. This practice was popular when I was student teaching amongst some teachers, however I don't see it happening too much anymore. Is this a practice you engage in, or think is a good idea, or do you prefer to converse/read with students during this time?
2) Vignette 4 describes a child using pidgin and connecting stories to stories and items familiar to him. Is there a lot of diversity in your classroom? Do you feel it is important for students to be able to connect to their culture? How are you able to do this in your classroom?
3) Vignette 3 describes an integrated literacy curriculum derived from student interest. How frequently are you able to allow students to engage in this type of learning? Does your district curriculum get in the way of this?
Connections-
The last vignette about visualizations reminded me of a presentation at the Connecticut Reading Conference last fall. One of the presenters mentioned that not all students would be able to visualize what is happening in the text. She said that she was never able to do this even though she was a good reader. As a reader, this is one of my strongest strategies. Visualizing text is what makes me want to keep reading. I am wondering how many people this is true for. Students often say that they are picturing parts of the text, especially during read aloud, but I wonder to what extent this happens with the children. Does it differ depending on reading abilities and/or interests (fiction vs. non)?
Another thing that this vignette made me think of was students who rely too heavily on one reading strategy. I know that when students come to me from second grade and I have them writing thoughts in their reading notebooks, they are most frequently writing questions. Is this because they are short and easy, they like them, or it is what they feel successful doing? I think it depends on the students, but I have a hard time getting some students to move off of questions in the beginning of the year and onto other strategies when they are given this freedom. If I am teaching a strategy specifically (ie: connections, determining importance) they are fine. I am happy to say that the students have progressed off of this by now because of their increased exposure to different strategies.
Discussion Questions:
1. In the second Vignette two girls are working on writing a fable together. As they share their draft with the class they discover that there is a problem with what their characters are doing. As a revision strategy, they role play to try and determine how their characters should move. I was wondering if anyone has used role playing as a revision strategy. I myself have not and I am really curious to hear more about it. I was thinking that you could have students using this strategy even if they hadn't written the story together.
2. After reading the fifth vignette I wondered if the teacher did any follow up work with this student and her style of writing. As one of her classmates commented, this letter could have been turned into a poem. If this occurred in your classroom would you have handled it the same way? I think that allowing the students to keep it in letter form was a good idea for that moment, but I think I would have revisited the letter used it as a jumping off point to encourage the student to try different styles of reading.
Tracey,
I have not used the role play technique in my classroom before as a revision strategy. It is an interesting strategy that could work well for students, although management wise I would make sure to limit the time the role play takes and make sure to frequently check in with student revision progress throughout the process.
It does seem like a good way to help students to stretch out their stories and add details. It would be interesting logistically to see how this process might work. It would be really neat to have a video camera so that the students could then go back watch a section, pause the tape, revise and add details and then go on.
When I read the fifth Vignette about Kaitlyn the third grader who has a hard time understanding revising, it made me think of my own second grade students who see revising as checking for capitals, punctuation, and spelling. Other than that, they don't like to change what they have written, and have a hard time elaborating to expand their ideas. Even when working one on one with me and conferencing, students are reluctant to improve or expand their writing. I think that it is natural, as humans we take pride in our work and perhaps that pride serves as a resistance to improvement or change. This vignette just made me think of something that I also struggle with in my classroom.
Last year, my school was part of the HOTS program and I had the opportunity to have a children's book author join in on my writing instruction once a week, for four months. It was nice to hear the perspective of revising from a real author. I think students always see the finished product, so it's hard to understand the many drafts that came before.
Tracy, how do you get your students to move beyond into real revising of their writing pieces? I have tried taking one part of each students writing and having them expand that one area to add more details and feelings which has helped them to see the difference and how it can be rewarding to make a piece even better.
I am thinking of perhaps doing a unit on connections. I think revising will be extremely important to my unit as it provides students with an opportunity to make their connection more meaningful and improve on what they have already done.
Connections:
Allison, I see a lot of the same things with my students in reference to their use of strategies. I find that students do tend to rely on a couple of familiar strategies. I think that providing the students with multiple opportunities to try out new strategies will lead them to implement a wider variety of strategies.
I felt like the example in vignette 1 was a very important statement. This vignette was an example of how important it is to establish a risk free environment in the classroom. The students in this vignette were able to take risks and offer suggestions about what they thought the title of the book was. I think the way a teacher responds to a student can send a message to other students about how their responses will be received. If a child feels comfortable and not worried or scared about saying the “wrong” answer, that student is going to be able to focus more on their work and grow as a learner. This vignette was a nice reminder of just how important this type of environment is.
Diane,
It sounds as though I run into some of the same struggles with my students when they are revising. Their first instinct is to always looks for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization issues. One thing that I have found that helps my students is we make checklists as we move through writing units. For example, after we worked on a descriptive writing/elaboration unit we added things to our checklist such as show don't tell, similes, and using sensory words. This way when students were revising they had to make sure they had examples of these writing techniques and if not, they added them in. I do find that zooming in on one section of their writing at a time as you mentioned works really well.
Allison,
I myself am also not in a school that has a large variety of diversity. My class this year has more diversity than year past. I think that it is important for students to be given an opportunity to connect to any part of their life, including their culture. In the classroom my students are given a time to share their stories along with just anything going on in their life. I find this to be a time when they can express different elements of their culture. This year especially I have learned more myself about the different cultures and incorporated special days into the classroom for all of the students to learn about.
I loved reading about the learning in Vignette 3. To be honest I do not see this happening in the classroom as much as I would like to. I think that the biggest road block for this is the district curriculum and concerns about covering materials that are on the CMT's. When situations have come up with students being interested in a topic, I have let them pursue it. Last year I had 2 students that became very interested in reporting and delivering information. We worked on this and they ended up developing a class newsletter where they interviewed students on different topic and even explored current events at our school. It was something they were able to work on in class and at home.
Diane,
I can relate to your student's ideas about revision. Not only do I have challenges having my kids get to the revision process instead of just editing, I have the same challenge myself. I often tell my kids that I don't always like to re-read and revise my work. I need to walk away and come back after another activity. We discuss what we like and dislike about the revision process and work towards developing an appreciation for what the revision process can do for our writing.
Lately, I have been sitting with students during their conferences, typing up their stories. They love to see their stories in typing. We then look for 3-5 places where details can be added so that the reader can better picture what is happening. I put in space and print the story so that the students can go back and revise their work.
Support in NCTE/IRA Standards-
This book with help to support my integrated language arts unit because it not only lists the standards that we are supposed to be teaching, but also the aspects of helping our students to reach those standards. I think that chapter 2, Perspectives Informing the English Language Arts Standards is particularly rich and worthwhile. There is a lot of information in this chapter that helps to inform teachers about how the standards can be addressed with students at various levels.
Hi everyone! It's Rhiannon. I've had a crazy weekend. I was out of town for a few days for my grandma's funeral so I apologize that I didn't get to respond to all of you earlier but I read the vignettes and your responses. I had some similar questions to what many of you had and some ideas. Here it goes..
1) Meaty question/connections to teaching: As I was reading the vignettes, the one that really stood out to me was the first one because the teacher in that vignette mentioned that when her children discuss new reading strategies, she adds them to a class chart entitled, " strategies we use to understand what we read". This sounded like an ongoing anchor chart, which is something that I've been trying to use more and more, instead of making pre-made posters or posters that I buy. I find that the kids don't really pay as much attention to them and when they are built upon their own ideas or class discussions(which you can plan to head in a specific direction), the anchor charts are much more meaningful. The kids refer to them more too when they've helped to make them. I actually use them in literacy and math. During this vignette, the teacher mentions that she makes a note that the class could use instruction on compound words. I have these little aha moments during my instruction too and I often rack my brain at the end of they day, wondering what it was that I made a mental note of earlier in the day. I've tried to use sticky notes but they end up getting lost at the end of the day. As teachers our brains are going a mile a minute and we're constantly assessing as we instruct and thinking of future planning. How do all of you keep track of those little moments in the day when you make mental notes that Johnny could use more help in this or the whole class needs more instruction on punctuation, for example? I would love to hear if you all have any ideas or suggestions. What do you use in your classroom to keep all those important thoughts and plans organized?
In response to you Alison about the importance of students to connect to your culture, I find that it's really important. I have never personally had an ESOL student in my classroom but this year I actually have two students who speak Polish at home. I find that their vocabulary is not as elaborate as some of my other students who have English speaking parents at home but I try to make them feel special and adjust my instruction to them to make it interesting. For example, at morning meeting each morning, we say "good morning" to eachother in a different language every day. My polish students have shared many polish words with the class and my other students love it. Around the holidays too, when all the children were sharing in their excitement of Christmas, I made a point to show how I excited we all were to learn how their traditions might be different. We learned that they have a different name for santa and learned that their customs are different. I think if the teacher takes the time to show interest and excitement, the rest of the students will too! I think it's so important for my kids who go to school with mainly all Caucasians because in the real world, they will have to be sensitive to the differences of many different people from around the world. When I read non-fiction books, I also try to choose books that teach about other countries to familiarize themselves with the world around them and make them realize that there's a lot more to life in this world than the one they live and know personally.
In response to you Diane with editing, I hear where you're coming from. Editing and revising has never really been a strong suit for me, but I have to say that one of the best things that I've done is peer-sharing which is just sharing their writing with another student. As they read the story aloud, I find that my students become more critical of their writing and begin to realize on their own, what it is they need to beef up their writing. They become more cognizant of their punctuation, neatness, and even length of their pieces. It takes awhile before it becomes really productive but with a lot of modeling, I find it to be really worthwhile. I model how to give compliments and ideas. The children are often more receptive to ideas when it comes from a peer than me I think sometimes. I find that the ideas the kids come up with to add on to their stories are so much more imaginative than I would ever think of too! Of course there's always a few kids who I struggle with every year who just can't stand the idea of writing in the first place, let alone changing and adding but for the most part, I think kids helping kids can be a great tool. In the end, after the kids share, I always confer with each child, just to make sure that it's done properly. More often than not, they impress me with what they come up with on their own.
As far as how I can use all of this to help me with my unit, I think that I will take the ideas of children helping children, anchor charts, and building off student interests to jump start my unit. I'm still not exactly sure what I want to do for my unit, but I think those ideas will be in the forefront of my planning. I want to activate their interest and make it an area that they will want to learn more about. I've still got some more thinking to do but I think that reading these vignettes and reading what all of you had to say has been really valuable. Thanks!
Meaty Question:
I was reading the second vignette and was interested in how to incorporate drama in the writing process. I tried to dabble in using drama in writing last year and found it very hard to do. Students can get very silly with it and I found it was hard to keep them focused and on task. They did enjoy it, but it was very hard to do. It requires a lot of teacher support, especially at a young age. How do you incorporate drama into the classroom and if you do, how do your administrators view drama in the classroom? I often feel what I teach is based on what is coming from above. I haven't been encouraged to use drama in the classroom and I am wondering if it would be frowned upon by administrators and seen as playing instead of using that time for more "meaningful" tasks in their eyes. I struggle with the balance of making learning fun for my students and pleasing my administrators who are keeping watchful eyes in the CMT era.
In response to mental notes, Rhiannon I also struggle with keeping it all in one place or even having a second to write them down. I tried a clip board that had a flip note card with everyone's name but found even that didn't work out. What I do now is use a post-it note or a piece of paper and just tape it to my desk with the quick "Johnny needs re-teaching on this or I need to teach this..." Then as I pass by my desk I remember and can reflect more on it during planning.
Diane,
I can completely connect to your thoughts about what you can use in your classroom during this CMT era. I often think I am a much better teacher after March because the constant thought of preparing my third graders for the CMT isn't looming over my head. I don't usually use drama in my classroom for writing as described in the vignettes, but I do tend to use it in other areas.
We use reader's theater in my classroom to help students with fluency as well as multicultural literature (Aaron Shepard). My students always ask to act these plays out and while I don't always as the focus is on reading fluency, I do sometimes allow them to act out certain parts so that they can comprehend what the author is saying. This is especially important in some of the multicultural texts because there are many unfamiliar terms and vocabulary words that third graders are not familiar with.
I also tend to use drama in science. Many of the third grade science topics have abstract concepts within them. In order to have students better understand these concepts, acting out seems to help with their understanding.
The students like to use drama in social studies by creating plays about the regions concepts they research. It is a favorite way for them to communicate their learning to the rest of the class.
I think that drama can be a powerful way to learn if used in the proper context. At times it is hard to evaluate whether or not it is a valuable use of time for both the teacher and the student. It is important for the teacher to be very "on top of" what is going on so that it is a useful way to spend time.
In response to mental notes:
Finding a way to organize all those mental things we want to work with students on is always going to be a challenging task. I think I have had 20 ways of doing this in my four years of teaching. Each time I think it is going to work, and for some reason it isn't the perfect situation I thought it would be. Often times what works for other teachers doesn't work well for you because of teaching styles, planning styles, etc.
I use a very similar method of notes on my desk. I print out a weeks worth of planning pages (a page a day) and keep them on my desk. I frequently write notes on small groups to pull or students to work with in a notes box on the planning pages so that I remember to do it on a specific day. I also found that if I tell a student I want to work with them on a specific thing during a specific block they are pretty good at reminding me. They often write a sticky note on their desk, and help to keep me on track. By this point in the year my students understand that I can't remember everything, and as third graders they can be responsible in helping me. I think I am lucky that they are willing to help out, and that they want the help in order to become better learners.
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