Poems for Multiple Voices

CCP Video: Students critiquing essays

In this video, students have just finished critiquing a set of essays in small groups. One anointed member from each group was then brought to the center of the fishbowl to critique the essays in a student-led discussion.

What do you notice about the discussion?  What scaffolding and instruction (both on content and process) would be necessary to prepare the students for this level of student-led discussion on critiquing essays?

Video of students placing events on narrative arc

This is a brief video of students placing events on a narrative arc.  How do you feel about the teacher involvement here?  Too much?  Too little?  Just right?

6+1 Traits

A video that explains the role of the six traits through all stages of the writing process.



A video emphasizing how "Seed books" can be used to help beginning writers develop their ideas.



A video that shows how read-alouds can be used to help students notice and name traits in mentor texts.

A teacher's video of Writing Workshop in her classroom

A short video of interest re: using reading tests for grouping

A theme that emerged in many of your first week reflections is the issue of using testing data to group students.  This is a rich topic that remains controversial even as it exists as a standards practice in our school system.  I thought this link might bring up some fruitful deliberation on the merits of using certain reading assessments to ability-group students.

Check out this short video featuring Dr. O'Flahavan from the University of Maryland discussing the validity and reliability of statewide testing programs.  Feel free to contribute to this discussion by adding a comment to this post. :)

Reflection Exemplar

Reflection Exemplar

Key:

Descriptive

Comparative

Critical

PTL

Example title that would appear for post: Blog Entry #3: The Right Spelling

Today during our weekly spelling test,  I noticed that Mark[1], who is an ELL student, rushed through his work.  When he handed me his test, I noticed that all of the words were spelled incorrectly.  When I asked my mentor teacher about this, she said that he hates spelling and never studies.  When I looked at the rest of the spelling tests, the overall scores were very low.

This classroom moment made me very frustrated since it is apparent to me that Mark, like many of his classmates, is not learning.  Although my mentor teacher may be right that Mark hates spelling and never studies, I feel that it is her job to try and reach him and find a way to try and make him interested.   She, however, having worked with kids longer, may feel that “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”.  In other words, maybe she thinks it’s not her job to make him care.  I also worry that she may be assuming that he is lazy rather than uninterested or simply confused.  But then again, maybe I am making assumptions as well.  Maybe she feels that there is not enough time to teach spelling another way.

Since, according to O’Flahavan and Blassberg (1992), spelling instruction is most effective when it is embedded in writing, I wonder how things might be different if Mark was able to select words from his own writing to study and be tested on.  Perhaps this would motivate him because they are words he has shown an interest in using?  Additionally, I wonder if moving away from “studying” and “memorization” and instead integrating word study time into language arts instruction would make it easier for Mark to learn the words without feeling like he is studying.  A downside to both of these alternatives, however, is that  both require more time, something that it seems there is precious little of in a school day.  What would we have to give up in exchange for time to create word lists and run word study cycles?

Despite time constraints, I think it is unacceptable to continue with an instructional strategy that is not working for students.  If this were my classroom, I would build word study groups based on spelling ability and carve out word study time once a week during language arts instruction, possibly creating a station students can rotate in and out of with their groups during independent writing.  This situation reveals that teaching involves much more than simply administering tests.  Although teaching is about learning, motivation is part of what makes learning possible and so part of a teacher’s responsibility is to make sure that learning is both accessible and relevant.

Having reflected on this moment, I feel confident that although spelling tests are easy and time-efficient, if they are not successful in helping the students learn, they are not worthwhile.  This re-affirms my belief that teachers need to be flexible and responsive to the needs of their students.  In other words, when teachers design learning activities that are relevant and rooted in the needs of students, all students can learn to spell developmentally appropriate words.

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[1] Always use pseudonyms, keeping them ethnically appropriate when possible.