An activity I would like to implement into my classroom is to annotate text as Dr. Wilhelm shared with us. I am planning on taking their 6 way paragraph text and annotating it, and then I will have them paraphrase what they read with an elbow partner. After both partners share, I will have them do a re-write of what they read. Then we will see if students can easily pull out the main idea from the text. This is usually something they struggle with, so I am hoping this will be the key to finding the main idea!
Excellent idea! I also was impressed with Dr. Wilhelm's use of annotation to identify key ideas in a text. In the workshop I attended on annotating to improve reading comprehension I also noticed how easy it is to adapt annotating to variety of activities and grade levels.
I would love to hear how this goes. I could do this with my students on a different level, but what a great way to work on comprehension for the reader and self-assess their clear writing skills as a writer.
Having them rewrite the information based on their annotations is a great idea. It may also help them to cite sources without copying and pasting from the source (plagiarize). I'd be interested in knowing if this helps the students paraphrase better.
Ditto, Anne. It's amazing how hard it is to make students really internalize plagiarism. We seem to deal with it every year in high school, and students will always say, "I didn't know that was plagiarism." It's been explained several times, of course, but they're not fully grasping (or not fully concerned) about what they're doing.
That sounds like a really great way of implementing some great strategies. It is a very detailed plan; I would love to hear how the students do reading like this. I hope their comprehension is much improved.
This is such a great idea. I wonder if it would work when researching a scene. This might be a way to help the students develop their characters and evaluate the circumstances of the scene.
I really like Anne and Lisa's ideas about how this could help students avoid plagiarism, find the main ideas, learn to paraphrase and/or summarize, and demonstrate mastery of the main ideas. This seemingly very simple strategy could be used to attack some pretty major concepts and skills.
I will do the activity on ekphrastic expression in the 5th grade classroom. I will post two pictures up around the room with a thesaurus nearby (to help with picking vibrant words). The students will rotate through the pictures, writing down words that they think describe the pictures, then in two groups of four (there are only eight students in the 5th grade), they will create a poem about the pictures.
Aaron HansonMarch 20, 2013 at 10:50 AM Very nice! I like the fact that you will have information stations (thesaurus) to assist them. Information stations have been invaluable for giving some of my lower students confidence.
I could see how this would easy for me to do in my classroom, also. I like the idea of integrated it into other subjects. I would like to find a picture that shows the main idea of a story, and help them describe the picture. I would like to see how this may help the students visualize the main idea in the story or text.
I have been thinking about different lessons I could use to have students finding more “vivid” words. I like how this will get students moving around the room too.
I can’t wait to hear how your students respond to this practice, and I love that you are going to keep a thesaurus nearby. I think it is a great way to support the development of this activity in your classroom while holding students to a higher standard. It could also be a great way to introduce/expand vocabularies.
I love it when you find ideas that would work just as well in a kindergarten classroom as they would in a college classroom (with a few modifications, of course). I think this is a great idea, and I love the idea of talking to kids about "vibrant" words!
I will do a graphic organizer activity using trade books and the US History curriculum. I will have the students each read through a short non-fiction book concerning some aspect of the expansion of the United States in the 1800's. I will then ask the students to partner up and complete a graphic organizer page finding as many ways as they can that their books relate to each other. When they have completed the worksheet they will write a brief article including as much important detail as possible.
This sounds really interesting. I would love to hear more details about the graphic organizer choices. I am interested in doing this with my students comparing non-fiction to fiction stories about the same subject or characters as well as different versions of classic fairy tales.
Yes, what type of graphic organizer would you use? A Venn Diagram, T chart, web? This sounds interesting and you could use it across several content areas.
I like using graphic organizers in small groups because I feel like it puts the students in charge of their own ideas and work, instead of me lining things out for them.
I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but using graphic organizers for informational texts (I'm usually teaching literary texts) would be so helpful, especially in getting students ready to respond to questions about organization, tone, etc.
I love that you are having them complete the graphic organizer and then having them use the complied and organized information to produce an article. I think that really validates the use of the tool while helping students go one step further in their understanding of the material.
Graphic organizers are a great way for students to keep track of information. I was not aware of the power of the graphic organizers at the high school level until I used it to teach essay writing.
This is a great way to help students digest the meatier nonfiction texts that the CCSS requires. I think yours is a great reminder to use graphic organizers for all types of learning.
I am preparing to use annotating to improve reading comprehension in my 10th grade Language Arts classroom. I will use the annotation of informative texts that introduce topics to identify important and useful information as well as information that is unclear. I also plan to use annotation in the understanding of short stories by identifying the literary elements and literary techniques used by the author.
By annotating, my goal is to provide students with a clear way to break down a text as well as providing them with a document to reference later when studying or comparing literary works. During this prices students will also learn the process of annotating, which, due to its close relationship to note taking, will provide another method with which to succeed in difficult classes in the future.
I like the idea of the kids using their own notes as a study guide. Really resonates the purpose of annotating for them. Good way to teach them a skill through the use of content instead of the other way around!
This is basically close reading, which is very important in implementing the CCSS. My students, at all grade levels, struggle with analyzing and interpreting what the author writes, and my teachers struggle with figuring out how much to model, coach, push, etc. the students because the students become frustrated and unmotivated so quickly when they are asked to do in-depth thinking. I hope this works out well for you.
I also think this note taking is helpful for students. I tried a similar lesson in my classroom with a tough chapter in their science books, and the students did so much better on their tests!
This is great! I would like to do this too, maybe in combination with the model text Dr. Wilhelm used during his presentation. I'm leading my 9th graders into research, so it's perfect timing.
I agree with Monique. I teach a dual enrollment college course, and my assumption was that by the time a student is ready to take on the rigor of a college class, he/she should have note taking skills down. I have found this is not so. We have to make sure that kids are learning and using a variety of skills to be successful.
I am planning on teaching my little kindergarteners to describe things, using sensory language, as adressed in the revisions class that I took. I will break it up into mini lessons, to get kids to think about how to make their story's more interesting. We will be writing a class story to introduce the different types of senses we can apeal to while we write. This ties nicely into their scienc unit on the 5 senses. In terms of diferentiation for diferent ability levels, my higher students are capable of adding a little bit of sensory language into their writing. My other students are certainly capable of expressing themselves,using sensory language orally. Students at all grade levels can bennefit from adding sensory laguage to their expression.
I love the idea of doing a class story to support all your little guys while they get a good grip on the skill you want them to do independently. Great idea!
Perhaps for your struggling students, or for your entire class, you could bring in some things that they are familiar with and make a list of describing words in each of the five senses so that they get their brains revved up to think about using describing words in the story (front loading, as Dr. Wilhelm would say).
We did a description paragraph, and I brought in cookies. We used visualzing and verbalizing to describe fresh cookies, and I led them to describing sugar cookies. Almost all of students thought of Christmas cookies because it was around that time of year. We talked about how to make the reader "smell" the cookies and how they could "see" the cookies by the words we used! Another game we play is to have them describe a picture to a partner and the partner has to draw what the other person is describing. This game has really helped my students to use precise language.
Love this idea! I am always telling my second graders I want to know how it felt, smelled, sounded, looked and I want to know how it tasted. They look at me like I’m crazy but it really does help their writing to be more descriptive.
I love this idea; It is a great way to take early literacy learners written communication to the next level. I bet they will come up with some great stories. I love the writing with this age group because they have so much to say, yet don’t know how to communicate it in written form. I think this activity will provide them with some great new formats for expression. Can’t wait to hear how they do with it.
I use this concept with my high-schoolers as a way to connect them to sensory recall. They love it! I would like to try it with my preschooler, too. I think we could have a great deal of fun.
That sounds really supportive and fun. I picture my english 10 class as a group of grade schoolers sometimes when I try to get them to use skills they may not be good at yet. It is always a good idea to create a supportive and non-threatening learning environment so students can try new things.
Since we are in the middle of our plant unit, I am going to do a lesson on similes and integrate it into our plant diagram flip book that discusses and illustrates plant parts. I will read Quick as a Cricket along with another book and have them add similes for each plant part onto their flip books. We haven't talked about similes yet this year and I love the idea of integrating it into something they have become so familiar with. It will also be a great assessment of just how well they do know each plant part and their main purpose.
I really like this idea of connecting science with similes in writing. I know that I really struggled with science as a student myself because of all the terminology. I believe that a lesson like this would have really helped by build connections for a better understanding of what I was learning. I think this will be very beneficial for your students. Great idea, thank you for sharing!
My idea isn’t necessarily one lesson, but something I want to immediately incorporate into all my lessons. Dr. Wilhelm not only talked about but modeled to us the 8 second wait time! As educators we all know about wait time and generally I believe practice it. But, something resonated with me during his presentation particularly with my “switch’ group of students for reading. I have the same students who participate day after day. I keep a container of name sticks for both my homeroom class and my switch class handy to get more students involved. But, over this next week I want to be very aware of the 8 second time frame. I plan to do this in all subjects, but I am particularly going to keep track and actually count in my head for my switch class to see if I can’t get more students to volunteer themselves to participate in classroom discussions.
I like this, Monique! It's so easy to default to allowing the "quick to answer kids" to do all the work, so to be more intentional about wait time and making sure all students answer is a worthy goal.
Thanks for the reminder! I had not thought about this when I was thinking about what I would implement. Yes, I need to be more aware of this in my interactions with my students.
I found myself trying to do this, also, after I came back from the conference. It's amazing how long 8 seconds really can seem when you're in front of the room, yet it seemed to help me be able to reach some of my reluctant sharers.
I plan to incorporate more art and video and music into all of my literature units for the remainder of the year. Specifically, I used a video on education reform to supplement Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass, as we talk about their varying views on education. I'm actually using the discussion that came from that activity as a lead-in for a writing assignment and possibly research. I'm also incorporating minimalist art into our next unit of minimalism, and plan to have students respond to the art and how it adds to or changes the text (or vice versa).
Don't forget to add a little drama into the mix. The kids love to get up and act out what they see. I have been delighted and surprised to watch the most hesitant students get up and perform.
I would like to incorporate the interactive notebooks into a read aloud. I think writing activities could be more directed to carry students through the reading of a story by having them create an entry prior to reading, during and then finally after. I believe that with the proper prompting and usage of times students could cover the majority of the common core standards for each read aloud while practicing best reading practices such as activating prior knowledge, stopping to think and reflective practices.
I would like to use the interactive notebook idea in my theatre history unit. My students need to have access to the information, but really despise the lecture format. I think they would love to really get their hands dirty as they gather the information.
Multimedia is the thing that gets students interested and engaged at times. I find that although books can be interesting, connecting one to video, art, and music does wonders for the depth of discovery students are willing to participate in. I like your ideas relating to specific units.
I recommend that you all look into Jerome Harste's work, particularly the chapter available on-line called Six Points of Separation. This chapter really brings together an understanding texts in a fresh way given that music, dance, art, etc are also considered text.
You might also want to consider multigenre papers, originally from Tom Romano. I have gone to multimodal 'papers' and incorporated other possibilities for texts in the same vein as the multigenre paper approach.
Here is the website for Jerome Harste's Six Points of Departure (hope it's the same thing as above). https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/23414Chap01.pdf
Now that it's mid-April, I can happily report that I've actually implemented several of the ideas gleaned from this conference! I know, I'm an under-achiever (late in posting to this blog) AND over-achiever (because I've really used so much from the conference) :). I'll tell you the most recent and the furthest stretch: I plan(ned) to use Wilhelm's close-reading strategy to walk my students through A Modest Proposal. They will read the essay first, cold, and then we'll discuss why and when close-reading can be beneficial. Then I'll model a read-through and annotation of the first 6 paragraphs and set them to reading the rest again with this tool.
I'm not sure why I can't add replies below the original comments. I apologize. Here are my 5 replies all lumped together: Thanks. 5 Replies: Assn 3 Anne: I like your idea for employing Ekphrastic expression in your classroom! Getting kids out of their seats—it is something high school teachers, at least this one, aren’t consistent about. And April’s addition to your comment is great—it’s a fun and innovative way to approach all subjects including science Aaron: I fully intend to steal your idea. I look forward to seeing how it goes for you . Sounds great! This is why we have the INWP—teachers teach best practices best, right?! Ha. April: I like your idea and the additions you’ve made to other ideas in this assignment section! Implementing workshop strategies into other content areas is so huge. It is for this reason I think our district should send all elementary teachers to this conference! Monique: The 8 second wait…yikes! I hope it goes great! You hear it all the time, and it seems like such a simple concept. I thought about this after the session too, and I realize how terrible I am at giving wait time. Another issue I have: I just answer questions. I never let other kids converse. I will work on both of these. Good luck! Heather: Your idea is very much like what I want to accomplish in my classroom. As I become more effective in selecting meaningful texts, strategies, and assessments, I find that proper set up and guidance is key. If I fall short in the planning/execution of any of these areas, the kids get derailed pretty easily or they go back to their, ack!, old habits.
An activity I would like to implement into my classroom is to annotate text as Dr. Wilhelm shared with us. I am planning on taking their 6 way paragraph text and annotating it, and then I will have them paraphrase what they read with an elbow partner. After both partners share, I will have them do a re-write of what they read. Then we will see if students can easily pull out the main idea from the text. This is usually something they struggle with, so I am hoping this will be the key to finding the main idea!
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea! I also was impressed with Dr. Wilhelm's use of annotation to identify key ideas in a text. In the workshop I attended on annotating to improve reading comprehension I also noticed how easy it is to adapt annotating to variety of activities and grade levels.
DeleteI would love to hear how this goes. I could do this with my students on a different level, but what a great way to work on comprehension for the reader and self-assess their clear writing skills as a writer.
DeleteHaving them rewrite the information based on their annotations is a great idea. It may also help them to cite sources without copying and pasting from the source (plagiarize). I'd be interested in knowing if this helps the students paraphrase better.
DeleteDitto, Anne. It's amazing how hard it is to make students really internalize plagiarism. We seem to deal with it every year in high school, and students will always say, "I didn't know that was plagiarism." It's been explained several times, of course, but they're not fully grasping (or not fully concerned) about what they're doing.
DeleteThat sounds like a really great way of implementing some great strategies. It is a very detailed plan; I would love to hear how the students do reading like this. I hope their comprehension is much improved.
DeleteThis is such a great idea. I wonder if it would work when researching a scene. This might be a way to help the students develop their characters and evaluate the circumstances of the scene.
DeleteI really like Anne and Lisa's ideas about how this could help students avoid plagiarism, find the main ideas, learn to paraphrase and/or summarize, and demonstrate mastery of the main ideas. This seemingly very simple strategy could be used to attack some pretty major concepts and skills.
DeleteI will do the activity on ekphrastic expression in the 5th grade classroom. I will post two pictures up around the room with a thesaurus nearby (to help with picking vibrant words). The students will rotate through the pictures, writing down words that they think describe the pictures, then in two groups of four (there are only eight students in the 5th grade), they will create a poem about the pictures.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAaron HansonMarch 20, 2013 at 10:50 AM
DeleteVery nice! I like the fact that you will have information stations (thesaurus) to assist them. Information stations have been invaluable for giving some of my lower students confidence.
Delete
This is something I could do with my second graders! I love this idea! I could do it with pictures of our science content. Love this!
DeleteI could see how this would easy for me to do in my classroom, also. I like the idea of integrated it into other subjects. I would like to find a picture that shows the main idea of a story, and help them describe the picture. I would like to see how this may help the students visualize the main idea in the story or text.
DeleteI have been thinking about different lessons I could use to have students finding more “vivid” words. I like how this will get students moving around the room too.
DeleteCool idea! I'm going to steal that when we get to our brief poetry unit at the end of the year.
DeleteI can’t wait to hear how your students respond to this practice, and I love that you are going to keep a thesaurus nearby. I think it is a great way to support the development of this activity in your classroom while holding students to a higher standard. It could also be a great way to introduce/expand vocabularies.
DeleteI love it when you find ideas that would work just as well in a kindergarten classroom as they would in a college classroom (with a few modifications, of course). I think this is a great idea, and I love the idea of talking to kids about "vibrant" words!
DeleteI will do a graphic organizer activity using trade books and the US History curriculum. I will have the students each read through a short non-fiction book concerning some aspect of the expansion of the United States in the 1800's. I will then ask the students to partner up and complete a graphic organizer page finding as many ways as they can that their books relate to each other. When they have completed the worksheet they will write a brief article including as much important detail as possible.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really interesting. I would love to hear more details about the graphic organizer choices. I am interested in doing this with my students comparing non-fiction to fiction stories about the same subject or characters as well as different versions of classic fairy tales.
DeleteYes, what type of graphic organizer would you use? A Venn Diagram, T chart, web? This sounds interesting and you could use it across several content areas.
DeleteGraphic organizers have helped my students to become much better writers. I am also interested in what kid of graphic organizer you may use.
DeleteI like using graphic organizers in small groups because I feel like it puts the students in charge of their own ideas and work, instead of me lining things out for them.
DeleteI don't know why I didn't think of it before, but using graphic organizers for informational texts (I'm usually teaching literary texts) would be so helpful, especially in getting students ready to respond to questions about organization, tone, etc.
DeleteI love that you are having them complete the graphic organizer and then having them use the complied and organized information to produce an article. I think that really validates the use of the tool while helping students go one step further in their understanding of the material.
DeleteThis would be a wonderful way to show how all technical theater inter-relates. I love this idea and will use it in my class, too.
DeleteGraphic organizers are a great way for students to keep track of information. I was not aware of the power of the graphic organizers at the high school level until I used it to teach essay writing.
DeleteThis is a great way to help students digest the meatier nonfiction texts that the CCSS requires. I think yours is a great reminder to use graphic organizers for all types of learning.
DeleteI am preparing to use annotating to improve reading comprehension in my 10th grade Language Arts classroom. I will use the annotation of informative texts that introduce topics to identify important and useful information as well as information that is unclear. I also plan to use annotation in the understanding of short stories by identifying the literary elements and literary techniques used by the author.
ReplyDeleteBy annotating, my goal is to provide students with a clear way to break down a text as well as providing them with a document to reference later when studying or comparing literary works. During this prices students will also learn the process of annotating, which, due to its close relationship to note taking, will provide another method with which to succeed in difficult classes in the future.
I like the idea of the kids using their own notes as a study guide. Really resonates the purpose of annotating for them. Good way to teach them a skill through the use of content instead of the other way around!
DeleteThis is basically close reading, which is very important in implementing the CCSS. My students, at all grade levels, struggle with analyzing and interpreting what the author writes, and my teachers struggle with figuring out how much to model, coach, push, etc. the students because the students become frustrated and unmotivated so quickly when they are asked to do in-depth thinking. I hope this works out well for you.
DeleteI also think this note taking is helpful for students. I tried a similar lesson in my classroom with a tough chapter in their science books, and the students did so much better on their tests!
DeleteThis is a good reminder that students need to be taught how to take notes and we need to start in the primary years.
DeleteThis is great! I would like to do this too, maybe in combination with the model text Dr. Wilhelm used during his presentation. I'm leading my 9th graders into research, so it's perfect timing.
DeleteI agree with Monique. I teach a dual enrollment college course, and my assumption was that by the time a student is ready to take on the rigor of a college class, he/she should have note taking skills down. I have found this is not so. We have to make sure that kids are learning and using a variety of skills to be successful.
DeleteI am planning on teaching my little kindergarteners to describe things, using sensory language, as adressed in the revisions class that I took. I will break it up into mini lessons, to get kids to think about how to make their story's more interesting. We will be writing a class story to introduce the different types of senses we can apeal to while we write. This ties nicely into their scienc unit on the 5 senses.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of diferentiation for diferent ability levels, my higher students are capable of adding a little bit of sensory language into their writing. My other students are certainly capable of expressing themselves,using sensory language orally. Students at all grade levels can bennefit from adding sensory laguage to their expression.
I love the idea of doing a class story to support all your little guys while they get a good grip on the skill you want them to do independently. Great idea!
DeletePerhaps for your struggling students, or for your entire class, you could bring in some things that they are familiar with and make a list of describing words in each of the five senses so that they get their brains revved up to think about using describing words in the story (front loading, as Dr. Wilhelm would say).
DeleteWe did a description paragraph, and I brought in cookies. We used visualzing and verbalizing to describe fresh cookies, and I led them to describing sugar cookies. Almost all of students thought of Christmas cookies because it was around that time of year. We talked about how to make the reader "smell" the cookies and how they could "see" the cookies by the words we used! Another game we play is to have them describe a picture to a partner and the partner has to draw what the other person is describing. This game has really helped my students to use precise language.
DeleteLove this idea! I am always telling my second graders I want to know how it felt, smelled, sounded, looked and I want to know how it tasted. They look at me like I’m crazy but it really does help their writing to be more descriptive.
DeleteI love this idea; It is a great way to take early literacy learners written communication to the next level. I bet they will come up with some great stories. I love the writing with this age group because they have so much to say, yet don’t know how to communicate it in written form. I think this activity will provide them with some great new formats for expression. Can’t wait to hear how they do with it.
DeleteI use this concept with my high-schoolers as a way to connect them to sensory recall. They love it! I would like to try it with my preschooler, too. I think we could have a great deal of fun.
DeleteThat sounds really supportive and fun. I picture my english 10 class as a group of grade schoolers sometimes when I try to get them to use skills they may not be good at yet. It is always a good idea to create a supportive and non-threatening learning environment so students can try new things.
DeleteSince we are in the middle of our plant unit, I am going to do a lesson on similes and integrate it into our plant diagram flip book that discusses and illustrates plant parts. I will read Quick as a Cricket along with another book and have them add similes for each plant part onto their flip books. We haven't talked about similes yet this year and I love the idea of integrating it into something they have become so familiar with. It will also be a great assessment of just how well they do know each plant part and their main purpose.
ReplyDeleteOh, this is really creative, and a good way to integrate science, writing, and reading all together.
DeleteI think with common core we will have much more freedom to integrate multiple subjects like this! What a creative and fun idea.
DeleteThis is a great idea and the students will have so much fun becoming authors. I like how you are incorporating skills from several core subjects.
DeleteI really like this idea of connecting science with similes in writing. I know that I really struggled with science as a student myself because of all the terminology. I believe that a lesson like this would have really helped by build connections for a better understanding of what I was learning. I think this will be very beneficial for your students. Great idea, thank you for sharing!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy idea isn’t necessarily one lesson, but something I want to immediately incorporate into all my lessons. Dr. Wilhelm not only talked about but modeled to us the 8 second wait time! As educators we all know about wait time and generally I believe practice it. But, something resonated with me during his presentation particularly with my “switch’ group of students for reading. I have the same students who participate day after day. I keep a container of name sticks for both my homeroom class and my switch class handy to get more students involved. But, over this next week I want to be very aware of the 8 second time frame. I plan to do this in all subjects, but I am particularly going to keep track and actually count in my head for my switch class to see if I can’t get more students to volunteer themselves to participate in classroom discussions.
ReplyDeleteI like this, Monique! It's so easy to default to allowing the "quick to answer kids" to do all the work, so to be more intentional about wait time and making sure all students answer is a worthy goal.
DeleteLet us know how it works and if more of your students are participating. Can’t wait to hear more!
DeleteThanks for the reminder! I had not thought about this when I was thinking about what I would implement. Yes, I need to be more aware of this in my interactions with my students.
DeleteI found myself trying to do this, also, after I came back from the conference. It's amazing how long 8 seconds really can seem when you're in front of the room, yet it seemed to help me be able to reach some of my reluctant sharers.
DeleteI plan to incorporate more art and video and music into all of my literature units for the remainder of the year. Specifically, I used a video on education reform to supplement Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass, as we talk about their varying views on education. I'm actually using the discussion that came from that activity as a lead-in for a writing assignment and possibly research. I'm also incorporating minimalist art into our next unit of minimalism, and plan to have students respond to the art and how it adds to or changes the text (or vice versa).
ReplyDeleteThose sound like awesome ideas. I’m sure your students will not only get more form the class but also have more fun!
DeleteDon't forget to add a little drama into the mix. The kids love to get up and act out what they see. I have been delighted and surprised to watch the most hesitant students get up and perform.
DeleteI would like to incorporate the interactive notebooks into a read aloud. I think writing activities could be more directed to carry students through the reading of a story by having them create an entry prior to reading, during and then finally after. I believe that with the proper prompting and usage of times students could cover the majority of the common core standards for each read aloud while practicing best reading practices such as activating prior knowledge, stopping to think and reflective practices.
ReplyDeleteI would like to use the interactive notebook idea in my theatre history unit. My students need to have access to the information, but really despise the lecture format. I think they would love to really get their hands dirty as they gather the information.
ReplyDeleteMultimedia is the thing that gets students interested and engaged at times. I find that although books can be interesting, connecting one to video, art, and music does wonders for the depth of discovery students are willing to participate in. I like your ideas relating to specific units.
ReplyDeleteI recommend that you all look into Jerome Harste's work, particularly the chapter available on-line called Six Points of Separation. This chapter really brings together an understanding texts in a fresh way given that music, dance, art, etc are also considered text.
ReplyDeleteYou might also want to consider multigenre papers, originally from Tom Romano. I have gone to multimodal 'papers' and incorporated other possibilities for texts in the same vein as the multigenre paper approach.
Here is the website for Jerome Harste's Six Points of Departure (hope it's the same thing as above). https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/23414Chap01.pdf
DeleteNow that it's mid-April, I can happily report that I've actually implemented several of the ideas gleaned from this conference! I know, I'm an under-achiever (late in posting to this blog) AND over-achiever (because I've really used so much from the conference) :). I'll tell you the most recent and the furthest stretch: I plan(ned) to use Wilhelm's close-reading strategy to walk my students through A Modest Proposal. They will read the essay first, cold, and then we'll discuss why and when close-reading can be beneficial. Then I'll model a read-through and annotation of the first 6 paragraphs and set them to reading the rest again with this tool.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why I can't add replies below the original comments. I apologize. Here are my 5 replies all lumped together:
ReplyDeleteThanks.
5 Replies: Assn 3
Anne: I like your idea for employing Ekphrastic expression in your classroom! Getting kids out of their seats—it is something high school teachers, at least this one, aren’t consistent about. And April’s addition to your comment is great—it’s a fun and innovative way to approach all subjects including science
Aaron: I fully intend to steal your idea. I look forward to seeing how it goes for you . Sounds great! This is why we have the INWP—teachers teach best practices best, right?! Ha.
April: I like your idea and the additions you’ve made to other ideas in this assignment section! Implementing workshop strategies into other content areas is so huge. It is for this reason I think our district should send all elementary teachers to this conference!
Monique: The 8 second wait…yikes! I hope it goes great! You hear it all the time, and it seems like such a simple concept. I thought about this after the session too, and I realize how terrible I am at giving wait time. Another issue I have: I just answer questions. I never let other kids converse. I will work on both of these. Good luck!
Heather: Your idea is very much like what I want to accomplish in my classroom. As I become more effective in selecting meaningful texts, strategies, and assessments, I find that proper set up and guidance is key. If I fall short in the planning/execution of any of these areas, the kids get derailed pretty easily or they go back to their, ack!, old habits.