Margaret- Deliberate Acts of Teaching - Writing

Writing in Room 4

Link to Standards

Design for Learning 

Design learning based on curriculum and pedagogical knowledge,
assessment information and an understanding of each learner’s strengths,
interests, needs, identities, languages and cultures.

Elaboration

• Select teaching approaches, resources, and learning and assessment activities based on a thorough knowledge of curriculum content, pedagogy, progressions in learning and the learners. 

Harness the rich capital that learners bring by providing culturally responsive and engaging contexts for learners.

One of our targets is to lift the achievement in Year 8 Writing.  As part of our strategy to do this, we are again running the ALL program with a small number of students in Room 4.  Alongside this, we also aim for daily journal writing where students choose to write about whatever they are interested in without worrying about spelling, punctuations, etc.  The aim is to have students choose at least 2 pieces of writing from their journal each term to edit and publish with support from the teacher.

The context for learning: Learning how to summarise using newspaper articles in preparation for writing our own articles related to our Japan topic.

Wednesday 12 February 2020
Mel/ALL group:  Mel took a group of 4 out including our Year 8 student to discuss the activity of reading the news article/highlighting main words in each paragraph and then summarising orally.
Back as a whole class we then read through the article altogether.  We highlighted the main words in the first two paragraphs together as a class.  The class was then asked to read through the next paragraphs in their groups and record the words. Mel worked with the ALL group for 10 minutes while I worked with others needing support.  When Mel left we moved that needed support together and read through paragraphs one at a time.  Students had to come up with 20 words to summarise the article. We finished by going around the groups sharing what we thought the article was about.

What worked well?  The ALL students showed a good understanding of what was expected with some needing support to stay on task. 2 manages to do this independently 3 still needing support.

Next Steps:  We will do another article next time again scaffolded before letting students complete independently.  More time to discuss unknown words to develop comprehension.  Review who needs to be in the group as 2  seemed very capable but will try them out on a few different activities first.

Wednesday 26 February 2020
After looking at who actually needs to go out with Mel we chose our 4 who need that extra support.  Today we began our Get NZ writing topic which was writing a poem of our naughtiest moment.  The discussion time with Mel beforehand meant that the group came in ready to start immediately after our introduction.  They had their idea.  I did get them to write out the questions to answer which took a lot longer than I had hoped so perhaps for this group have the questions printed up to simply answer.  Some had lots to say verbally but did not get much written down.  Could we record their ideas for some of them and they write out the final copy just to get ideas started.

Links to Standards

• How am I planning my learning programmes and selecting appropriate teaching strategies to best meet the needs of my ākonga?  I think about what skills are needed for the end product eg a newspaper report advertisiing Japan and structure each lesson around this skill unitl they can do this independently
• How can I improve my pedagogical content knowledge in areas where my ākonga struggle to master new skills or knowledge?
• How can my knowledge of human development, especially cognitive and social development, inform my planning and teaching?
• Do I effectively analyse and use assessment data to inform my teaching and planning?
• Do my own and the school’s systems generate the formal and informal assessment information that I need to plan for and effectively support my ākonga? 
• How can I use the schoolwide assessment data effectively to inform my practice?
• What other formal and informal sources of data could I be using?
• How do I know that my ākonga are progressing?

TBCS - Deliberate Acts of Teaching - Writing - Margaret

Inquiry - Does allowing students to choose according to their interests what they wish to write about improve motivation to write and overall writing levels?

6 students have been identified as achieving below their expected level in writing.  This has been determined from asttle writing tests, observations of students in class, daily writing samples.  Their overall motivation to write is low and writing that is done uses improper sentence structure, lack of detail and ideas expected at a year 6/7/8 level.

Strategies used:

Splitting class into groups of boys/girls to brainstorm together possible persuasive writing topics in practice for assessment based on interest.

Brainstorming together a list of possible interests to write to our focus on persuasive writing.  Teacher chooses 1 to write together as shared writing.

Shared writing

Read together an article related to chosen topic - use this to help brainstorm.

Brain storm as a  class ideas that we can use to persuade.  Benefits, experiences.  Questioning to draw out ideas.  What are the benefits of havng a pet?  How would this benefit the teacher?  How can pets help us?

Model how to write an introduction with student suggestions
Model how to write our first paragraph using one of our ideas, using persuasive language - write a list of persuasive language that students can select from.
Independent - students to write their second and third paragraph independently.
Model how to write a conclusion.
Independent - students write their own conclusion.

During next session students choose which topic they would like to write about using the model as a guide.


Reading together a variety of persuasive writing from Mainsails then having students select which topic they want to write about

Class is given a selection of persuasive texts from Mainsails.  In pairs they choose which ones they would like to read.  Students read together and note down 3 main ideas from their favourites.

Select one that has had the most interest to break down together

Questioning
Look at the intro, body and conclusion
What persuasive language was used?  What are the main ideas for each paragraph?  Has the author used examples to back up their ideas?  Who are they trying to convince?
Model a plan on the board.

Students choose which persuasive topic either from the book or their own to write.

Journals/Free writing/competitions

Students given free writing journals - not to be marked
Brainstorm as a class ideas we may like to write about in our jounals - students to write all this up in their books to prompt ideas.  Use questioning to draw out ideas - What are your interests, what styles of writing do we like to use?  What do we like to read/do?

20 mins of free writing daily with 5 mins to check over what they have written

Feedback

Students share their daily writing with the class if they choose.  Use our feedback guide that was taught at the start of the year - a compliment, a suggestion, editing.

Students to select 1 piece of writing each week/fortnight to publish.  Use the writing process/ peer editing process taught at the start of the year to improve it.  Conference with me or feedback using google docs before final copy is published.

TBCS -All Strategy - Margaret-Steve - 5 June 2019

Using the ALL strategy in the classroom to improve writing outcomes for struggling writers

 https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Inclusive-education/SuccessForAllEnglish.pdf


Myself and Steve have begun using this process in class with the support of Mel.  We send the group out for 'pre loading' so when they come back to class they are pre prepared or primed to begin the task.  So far it has been a positive response from the students as they seem very keen to go out with Mel and are excited when they know the 'answers' or can contribute to the discussion.  This is especially important for those who dont listen so well as they get that repetition so they are clear on what the task is.

Reflection
Though positive experience it is very hard to keep this time consistent and we need to make sure we know exactly what Mel is prepping them with before hand.  It is too soon to tell how it is making a difference to their writing - we will know this when we test but the overall attitude and quantity of their writing is definately obvious.

Next Steps:  Get research from Steve and Mel on this as they attended the course.  Continue conferencing with all students one on one to check and help edit.  This has been working well as I can give them immediate feedback from them either sharing their work with me or have them sitting beside me and going through it together.  Brainstorming together - writing those ideas down for some of the students just to get them started.  Finding when they have free choice what to write they are more engaged also like in Room 1 though they still need help structuring and making sense.

Links to Standards

• Strategies used
• Structuring learning tasks so that all ākonga experience a degree of success, but also ensuring that they are required to stretch themselves to fully succeed.
• Providing constructive feedback and useful feedforward information.
• Helping ākonga to effectively set goals and self-assess

TBCS - Craig - PLD - The 4 Language Arts

The 4 Language Arts

Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing

Listening.

There is a difference between Hearing and Listening.

Listening is a Focus.

Ways to develop listening skills:

Listen to great music - It is the bridge between vibration and Language

• Take daily time - find a great piece of music and just listen to it.
• Don't be afraid to listen to the same piece of music over and over.
• e.g. Benjamin Britain's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
• e.g. Peter and the Wolf
• e.g. The Classical kids - Mr. Bach Comes to Call

Read out loud above child's decoding level.

• Decoding is very dependant on hearing.
• You say words to yourself - if you can't hear, you don't know what the word is.
• Language must be in your head first before you can decode when you are young.

Take notes.

• Create opportunities to take notes while listening e.g. Church

Speaking skills

• Speaking is intentional.
• Recite poems or scripture.
• Memorize excerpts from famous speeches e.g. Fredric Douglas (U.S slave) - memorize and commit to heart.
• Write your own speech (speech and debate league)
• limited planning speech (say 2 mins to prepare)
• expository speeches on current events.
• dramatic speeches - it combines all language arts together.
• Tell back what has just happened - it increases powers of observation.

Reading Skills

• It's more a brain function than something that can be taught and learned on demand.
• Scandinavian countries don't push reading till about 9 yr.
• Audiobooks are great - what's the difference? you can read with your eyes or ears.
• A bigger font can help.
• When reading to your children, read above their level - it sets an example to move up.

Writing Skills

• To write, you need an idea from within or without you.
• Own experiences often aren't in words but in pictures and feelings, so can be harder to write from.
• To have an original idea would be very unusual - everything is already out there.
• The idea has to get into words - It's tough!
• You have to hear what you just said to yourself and remember it long enough to get it down on paper - from your spelling database.
• Copy work is valuable - That's how you learn to write.

Where to next...

2019, We are changing the bell times to increase the length of the first period. Within the extra time, I plan to add time to listen to great works of music. I  plan to teach the recorder, get my students to memorize their memory verses, establish a system for my students to practice and test spelling words each week, and memorize some poems over the year. I will also keep up the reading of a class book aimed at a decoding level above my students. 

• Professional Learning

Undertaking PLD and further professional reading.

Attending and contributing to PLD opportunities within and beyond my school.

Sharing PLD knowledge, relevant readings and research with colleagues.

• School Goal (Writing)

Teaching writing genres that dont exist in real life

 

https://www.tes.com/news/writing-genres-dont-exist-real-life-so-why-teach-them?fbclid=IwAR1vMI4uBr4OhnKMd1ESynxnG70KK3J4HwEmE45L13yH6XjNUN8rlyQzlJs

Since returning to teaching one of the noticeable differences is the move away from teaching specific writing genres and being more focused on how to write well over a whole range of styles.  I have seen this in action in Steve's class as we taught first how to write proper sentences (simple and complex) and used whatever was happening at the time - camp experience to recount, Pobble 365, Armistice Day reports, Seesaw posts etc for practicing these base skills for writing.  I much prefer this way as it is more relevant to students as it is being done daily which increases their motivation to write instead of spending a term just doing newspaper reports for example and having all our writing having to fit into that style.

Writing for purpose and audience is now the main focus as when students write to a structured format it looses any sense of personality and enjoyment while reading.  Most of what we read online follows no set structure though striking a balance in there somewhere where writing is correct(spellchecked/edited) without loosing that creativity.

Next steps:  It came out in the asstle writing test that students next steps are expanding on their ideas including complex ideas related to the wider world beyond themselves and writing for an audience.  Many seem to assume the reader knows what they are talking about already so miss half the details.  Next year we are signed up for the Get NZ Writing where students will write postcards to another school which will be ideal to work on explaining things to others from scratch.


Link to Standard - Teaching
Provide opportunities and support for learners to engage with, practice and apply learning to different contexts and make connections with prior learning.
Strategies

• Monitoring of ākonga learning during the implementation of a programme of learning, so that the programme can be adapted where needed to better achieve desired outcomes for ākonga.
• Using feedback from classroom observations to improve learning programmes.
• Observing other teachers’ use of resources and teaching strategies

TBCS - Craig - PLD - 4 Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing

4 Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing 

These notes are taken from the PLD conference I attended with Andrew Pudewa entitled Spicing up Your Kids' Learning.

1.  Over Correcting

Correcting is not a good word to use because it indicates wrongness.
  -  It has a negative connotation.
  -  Writing is not as black and white as Maths.
  -  It is not objective or clear.

Rather, use the word editing - to help the writer be the best version of them on paper.

• Mark to make it legal and not good.
• Say implement these changes and finish.
• Use corrections as lesson plans for teaching
• Teach to the point of need.
• A  acceptable
•  I   incomplete

2.  Withholding Help

"I might help too much"

• Students will tell you when they don't need help.
• When you withhold help, you limit learning.

"They need to sink or swim"

• You wouldn't teach swimming this way which is life or death, so why say it...
• Swimming is a skill and it is acceptable to coach.
• It is perfectly acceptable to dictate.
• If they could've they would've.
• Independence in a skill comes from spending time modelling, questioning, and practising.
• Help - Don't meddle.

3.  Unclear Assignments

• It is a form of withholding help...

4.  Over Expectations

• We often have a desire to compare children by age.
• Grade levels used to be by level achieved - it indicated a mastery level.

A book to read is "Understood Betsey" about a country one-room school "But what grade am I in?"

Music Teachers don't care:  

• When you start
• How fast you progress
• what others are doing
• Get on the path
• Are you moving forward?

Any child is expected to do their best, whatever grade.

Are we making progress - That's all that God expects of His people.

8-10 years - Whatever they do is cute.
11-12         - Not good enough.
13 +           - They will never get there.
                  - They need to do far better. 

                  - we need to solve the problem.

                  - Stop writing things that don't make sense!

It's like telling a plant to grow... you can add water and sun, you can sing to it, but you have to wait.

Kids go through phases awkward - then it clicks.

Don't compare kids on age.

Don't over expect.

Where to Next...

I need to focus on encouraging each student to do their best and to work on developing and extending their skills without expecting too much of them.
I need to be prepared to help as much as is needed to give my students confidence to achieve what they need to.
I need to develop the achieved and incomplete marking attitude and celebrate with students who attempt to go beyond the limits of the lesson. 

With students who are struggling, I will set them up beforehand to give them time to think through what is about to happen and help them orgainise their thoughts and know what they need to do to succeed.
With my students who are at level one, I will help spell words and write them on their page so they can use them with confidence, and model correct sentences and get them to copy them to train them.

• Professional Learning

Undertaking PLD and further professional reading.

Attending and contributing to PLD opportunities within and beyond my school.

Sharing PLD knowledge, relevant readings and research with colleagues.

TBCS - Craig - PLD - Nurturing Competent Communicators Andrew Pudwa

Two Things You Can Do To Build Language Patterns And Nurture Competent Communicators

These notes are taken from the PLD conference I attended with Andrew Pudewa entitled Spicing up Your Kids' Learning.

There is a false assumption that good readers make good writers...

Some get it (write and make sense) - some don't.

You can't get out (good English) what isn't in there in the first place.

Four reasons might be...

1.  T.V. / Radio etc. are not a reliable, correct, or sophisticated language to input.

2.  Peers are not a reliable, correct, or sophisticated language to input.

• Children change their vocabulary and complexity of language if with older children
• Children with the same age tend to dumb down and degress.

3.  Busy parents and adults.

4.  The way they read.

• Read lots - Read too fast and don't audibly hear complete sentences etc.                                                      - Skip unknown words                                                                                                   
• Read little - do other stuff and not get language from books.

Solutions

1.  Read to them.     

• Don't skip anything.
• Read nuance

Read to them above their own decoding level.

The number 1 predicator of good writing in Adults is being read to by your parents.

The 2nd is audiobooks.

Reading to others does the same.

As an adult...

• Read what you want to read.
• Read whole books.
• 1850 - 1900 was the golden era of writing and language.
• Read to the whole family

2.  Memorizing and Recitation

Memorization of anything is de facto good for the brain. It makes you smarter.

• Poetry
• Music and Drama
• Choreographed Dance
• Precise Memorization

In the olden days, "I have to go to school to say my lessons."

Memorising grows the brain and database of reliable, accurate, sophisticated language and syntax etc.

Suzuki Method is one example.

When learning another language, you can often hit a wall. One way passed is memorising a book (e.g. Jack and the Bean Stalk) 

At school and even pre-school, it is good to memorise poems every week and keep reciting all of them all the time.

Where to next

2019 will see me begin to teach recorder. It will include teaching the students to read and play music with confidence but also learning songs by memory. 
I will continue to prioritise reading aloud to my students with nuance and at a level above their own decoding level.
Memorising Memory Verses will be a priority for 2019. I will also add memorising some poems to the programme.

• Professional Learning

Undertaking PLD and further professional reading.

Attending and contributing to PLD opportunities within and beyond my school.

Sharing PLD knowledge, relevant readings and research with colleagues.

• Learning-Focused Culture

TBCS - Craig - PLD - Writing Conference

Our School Goal this year is on improving writing.

Earlier in the year, my wife was contacted about a educational conference that was being offered for home-schoolers and teachers by Andrew Pudewa, the author of Writing With Excallence. The conference was entitled Spicing Up Your Kids' Learning.

I applied for leave to attend the conference and my request was granted and my course and travel costs were also covered by the school.

The Conference was held at the Bishopdale Reformed Church in Christchurch, August 10-11 2018

The following topics were covered:

- Nurturing Competent Communicators - The Power of Linguistic Patterns
- The Four Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing
- Fairy Tales and the Moral Imagination
- Paper and Pen: What the Research Says
- Mastery Learning
- The Four Language Arts
- Seven Keys Of Great Teaching
- Teaching Boys & Other Children Who Would Rather Make Forts All Day
- Lessons Learned From Three Decades Of Teaching
- + Question times

The conference helped very much and enthused me lots and gave me a lot of things to think about in regards to the way I teach and the way I could be teaching Writing.

In blogs to follow, I will share What I learned...

My wife and I also bought a couple of resources that I hope to use.


Bible Heroes Writing Lessons With Structure and Style

Teaching Writing, Structure, and Style - Seminar with practical workbook and 12 DVD's

TBCS - Craig - Ideas for Writing from “Lighting the Literacy Fire” Jill E. Eggleton

Notes from “Lighting the Literacy Fire” Jill E. Eggleton, Writing Pg. 85-113

Ideas for writing.

Shared writing – Teacher and students work together to construct a piece of writing. E.g. retelling a story that has been read to the class – class has been on a trip – a visitor has been in the school/class – when an investigation or experiment has been carried out.

Interactive Writing – Similar to shared writing, but each student writes down the text for themselves. Some words may have to be modelled. Best with small groups.

Writing for Students – Teacher takes control of the writing and demonstrates their own writing in front of the students, explaining each step of the process.

-         Have the learning intentions or targets on a chart alongside you and clearly visible.

-         Explain why you are writing (purpose)

-         Explain who you are writing for (audience)

-         What you are going to writing about (topic)

-         What text form you writing is going to shaped in (e.g. description, explanation…)

-         Write in front of the students, talking to them about what you are going to say next and why.

-         Select a feature of deeper features and discuss as you write.

-         Use high frequency words.

-         Reinforce punctuation.

-         Reread, talking to the students about the importance of revisiting your writing to see if anything can be added or deleted to make the message clearer.

Text Form Cards – have text form cards available for students. They have the features and structures for different text forms listed.

Independent Writing

-         Students should write every day.

-         Conferencing is very important to give feedback to the writher on strengths and needs. This could be partner conferences, Group conferences, and student/teacher conferences

Publishing – gives and purpose to the writing and is an important factor in keeping students enthusiastic about their writing.

Different Forms of Writing.

Narrative – Adventure Stories, Mysteries, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Myths and Legends, Fables, Fairy Tales, Poetry, Plays

Personal Narratives – Informational Reports, Newspaper Reports, Factual Descriptions, Journals, Interviews, Diaries, Journals, Biographies, Auto biographies.

Explanations – Informational Explanations, News Articles.

Persuasive – Persuasive Arguments, Advertisements, Brochures.

Procedural – Recipes, Directions, Manuals, Rules, Experiments.

Letters – Friendly, Formal, Emails, Faxes.

• Sharing PLD knowledge, relevant readings and research with colleagues.

TBCS - Craig - PLG

Photo taken on the way to PLG

On the 29th May, I attended my second Moutere Hills Cluster PLG.

It was a chance to talk about how things were going for each of us and to encourage each other.

we shared together about what was important for us at the moment.

We discussed various topics together including..

- Developing relationships in large teaching spaces with double classes.
- Getting 'invisible children' involved. (What interests them? Front loading - make the kids experts
Use the sticks - no hands up - after elbow buddies, Sheena Cameron - the oral language book)

- Enabling oral language skills and confidence.

- Keeping balance with all of the expectations of class and school.
- CRT time being used up with assessment.
- Literacy targets.
- Understanding children with autism. 
- Keeping up the concentration of students.
  ( Brain gym )
https://blog.cognifit.com/brain-gym-activities-keep-brain-young/ https://ilslearningcorner.com/blog/2017/01/19/2017-01-brain-gym-simple-brain-gym-exercises-to-awaken-the-brain-for-learning-readiness/)
- Catering to a range of abilities. 
and for me
- Developing better writers and ways that technology might aid that.

I was given these resources.

Brainframes

Episode 52 - Prepped and Polished (Teaching students to overcome writing difficulties.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4-2xBNukUs

/

We were all encouraged to join the Learning Support network.
Hub 1 was free...

Learning Support Network

• 3 Discussing my practice with colleagues and being open to new ideas.
• 2 Being an active member of professional learning communities.
• 3 Appropriate and professional communication with colleagues, ākonga and whānau.
• 3 Establishing collegial relations by participating with colleagues in staff activities, and taking an interest in what others are doing through positive professional interactions.

TBCS - Craig - Reflection of Term 1 2018

This term has gone really well and there have been lots of positives. Most students have progressed really well in Reading and Math, and Bible has progressed well with the students learning Genesis well and being challenged about how the Word of God impacts their every day lives.

One area that has been a challenge has been writing. I have tried lots of different means of getting the students to write and it has had mixed results. The term goal was about sentences. That still remains a challenge.

We have started using ICT to improve writing outcomes, but this is still in the learning, messy stage. The kids are excited, but our school goal has not seen improvement yet using this media.

I have seen improvement in the students that struggle, but most of the problems are ones of attitude and head space, not so much in ability. I have worked tirelessly to point out strengths and abilities and to create empathy for others. Once they can look outside themselves, they will more quickly see the impact their actions and words.

The students wrote some great reflections of their learning which showed the progress each of them had made. It was really encouraging for me.

• 2  Reflection on how aspects of PLD have been enacted and the impact on ākonga learning.
• 3  Participating fully in school/syndicate/faculty/department meetings and be an active member of the team. Share ideas with others.
• 4  Discussing my practice with colleagues and being open to new ideas.
• Promotion of positive and appropriate relationships with and between ākonga.

Writing - TBCS - Rm 4 Target

Writing
In the use of seesaw, Craig shared what he was doing, using another mode of communication than text, he was using audio. I thought about the use of audio in seesaw instead of text for my class. Communication has been differentiated by me in the past, I didn't really use audio as a means of communication with parents. I can see how audio is and should be part of literacy. To that end.

Action
I promoted the use of audio for explaining our last posts in lieu of the normal written explanations.
Responses have been varied, some continue to only 'like' while others have made their responses using audio as well.
A positive is only 3 families are not on seesaw, I am hoping that the children have recognised that their posts aren't being seen at home. I know this was one reason for signing up.

Reflection/next steps
Continue to monitor what Craig is developing and look into extending my posts, maybe even drafting a script? Looking at developing the 'writing' for the audio?