GLT-Concrete Poems!

What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.

Of all the lessons in the poetry unit this was by far my favorite. I think this was the students’ favorite poems to write because not only did they get to have fun with it, they were able to create an image and incorporate creativity both into their written poem and the shape/artwork that coincided with it. Every student was able to create a poem that they were excited and proud of. Before students were allowed to make their own poems we brainstormed a class list so that everyone would have an idea, something that I think was very beneficial to students who had trouble thinking of something. This lesson placed importance not only on the picture/shape they drew but also the words they chose. I was glad that we had student’s read their poems without showing the class and allowing their peers to guess what it was about before revealing their artwork. This really allowed students to learn how important good descriptive words could be in writing. I was also blown away by the quality of what students were creating. Not only were they getting into the nitty gritty of using words, phrases, and sentences but they were creating images with their words that you could really tell what they were trying to convey. For example one student did one about lighting and each bolt from the sky was a sentence about it. Students don’t get many opportunities to tune into their creative side and I think all the students took advantage of that during this lesson.

What did you learn about your students? literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

As mentioned in the previous question I learned how creative students can be when given the chance. I was also surprised at what they noticed and pointed out in the examples we went through as a class. For example it was ok to split words up and not write complete sentences. One student even said “so today it’s ok if we don’t follow the normal writing rules?” Once students were aware that they could use this to their creative advantage they did. I also learned how excited and proud students were of their work. I knew that they would enjoy them but I underestimated the extent.

When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Poetry is a genre of literature that normally gets overlooked or pushed to the side and viewed as less important. But, students all loved this unit and being able to create the different poems. I feel like some of the lessons were a little rushed to make it through the whole lesson and some students weren’t allowed enough time to finish all their poems. With this being said I think poetry could be spread throughout the while year maybe spending 2 or 3 lessons on it a month. That way students get a wide range of examples and kinds and they would be able to focus in and finish their poems regarding that days lesson either that same day or over the next few. In this particular lesson, while we did brainstorm a list of ideas and I circulated while individually helping anyone who seemed to be struggling with creating their concrete poems, we could have created a class poem. This would have been just another example for students to see but also to feel like they were a part of in making thus instilling more confidence and enthusiasm to create their own. After helping students who needed additional support they did achieve excitement about what they were writing about.


If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students?

Overall, I was highly pleased with how this lesson flowed and the outcomes of both the student’s understanding of this type of poetry and the ones they created. The only change I would make would be to create a class poem. This again allows students to practice writing and creating the poem before they are expected to create one by themselves. Also maybe seeing if there were examples of words creating pictures in an ad in the magazines or on a billboard so that they could make a connection to their own lives.

GLT

Concrete Poems Lesson

What students learned and which students struggled with the
lesson.

I was incredibly pleased with this lesson. I found some of the other lessons in which students had to think about syllables, metaphors and similes when writing and analyzing was much more difficult but I found all of the students in my class to excel in this specific lesson. I found all students to truly understand and grasp what this new type of poem I was introducing to them was. I was happy to see their excitement with writing the different concrete poems; they had wonderful ideas and came up with such great topics to write about. I feel there was not much struggle with this lesson and with students figuring out what to write about or how to write this type of poetry because I gave many examples, we made a class example, as well as made a class list on chart paper of ideas for great things to write about as topics for their concrete poems. I was the most pleased with this particular lesson with students understanding the style of poetry, there was little confusion and great poems were written.

What did you learn about your students? literacy practices that
extend beyond your objectives?

I learned a lot about my students through this lesson. I found their ability to use descriptive words as well as their creativity when describing their topic for their concrete poems to be amazing. I was very happy and excited to see how many students were able to write two and three different concrete poems. In past lessons some students struggled with getting through one poem. I also learned about the confidence many of my students have in getting in front of their classmates and talking. In this lesson was the first time my students read their poems to the whole group. I learned about their ability to express themselves as well as read at appropriate speeds and with feeling. I learned about how remarkable my students? imaginations are and how they are able to compare and describe things in such a fun and unique way, which I as an adult would never think of.

When and how will you re-teach the material to students who
need additional support?

I will try my very best to fit in time for more poetry review. I would like to add in each month one lesson for a review of the different types of poetry we learned about throughout the unit. I know that will be difficult because of the very tight schedule we already have but that is my goal. I will also try and make any connections between texts we read, stories we tell or anything we see throughout the year that may relate to my poetry unit. I want to try and remind them throughout the year of all they learned throughout the two week period and help them to understand the importance of continued practice of reading, analyzing and writing poetry. If students would like to stay in during recess time or take home a poetry packet to work on I would be more than happy to make up something like that. Some students seem to be so excited still about writing poetry and I see them writing poems with any free time they have. I believe having an option for an extra assignment or activity for students to do outside of school that relates to my unit would be fun and incredibly beneficial for students remembering and sticking with all they learned throughout the unit and actually practicing it beyond the two weeks we had together.

If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you
do differently and how do you think the changes would
improve students?

I feel many of my poetry lessons I would have taught differently but with this specific one I was very pleased with the outcome. I would have liked to have more time at the end for students to read their poems and quiz each other on trying to guess what the topic of their concrete poems were. It saddens me each time when we share that I am not able to get to all students. I would have liked to hit half the students during the end of the lesson and the other half at the beginning of the following day but time just simply does not allow for that. I feel describing the set up of concrete poems, giving many examples and setting up expectations for writing concrete poems was very helpful in this lesson going successfully. I also believe it was very beneficial for us as a class to make a concrete poem. It allowed students to not only see examples, but be a part of making a class example and really experience the process. I also believe making a brainstorming list of topic ideas for the poems was helpful for any students that frequently have troubles with getting started on writing their poems.

GLT

The introduction to my literacy unit went extremely well (as did the unit overall). My students were introduced to Patricia Polacco as an author and as a person. They were truly involved in the read aloud and discussion of Polacco. They also learned how we would be using an author study to help us learn and strengthen our reading strategies. This lesson was very important for my entire unit as it set up the atmosphere and expectations for the 9 days that followed. I encouraged all students to participate, thus ensuring that the majority of them would learn some key ideas about the author. Using a group share discussion also assisted with their learning, as 30 students sharing their ideas helped spark the connection for students who may have been struggling.

In reading my students entries in their Author Study Journals, I discovered that several of them were not using their resources to assist with spelling (many errors with high frequency words and words that we had listed together on the SMARTboard). Setting up the journal in an example was helpful to many of them, but I noticed several entries that were almost exactly the same as the example I shared with them. Several students struggle with capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure. After teaching this lesson, I learned that I needed to spell out my expectations for their writing every day to remind them of these practices.

I would not re-teach this exact unit specifically, but I am definitely open to teaching another Author Study. I felt that using an A.S. was an excellent way to teach reading strategies within a specific genre. If I were to teach the same lesson again, I would have given more explicit instruction to assist the students who needed additional support. I also would have had these 5 students sit with a parapro or parent volunteer to keep them on track and help them structure their writing. Having a small group be involved with an adult would have been very beneficial in improving my students' learning.

Week 7

Chapter 10 (Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection) of Strategies that Work:

The "big idea" of Chapter 10 really revolves around determining important parts of text, and how to go about doing so. Harvey and Goudvis mention that as teachers we often tell students to highlight the key ideas in a passage, but we never/rarely teach them how to find the key ideas! Immediately after reading that sentence, I thought back to my elementary and middle school days. My teachers would tell us what we should highlight, but they would not tell us why they chose that sentence/phrase. I have not encountered this in my placement classroom yet, but we are just now slowly getting into reading non-fiction for Social Studies. The chapter mentions pointing out to students that bolded, italicized, boxed, and different colored text often include important ideas; the writer of the piece is begging you to pay attention to that section! It is also important not only to highlight or underline the important ideas that the writer wants you to notice, but take notes or sketch a picture next to that important information: why do you think that idea is important, what were you thinking when you highlighted this section, make connections to other ideas?

Chapter 12 (Content Literacy: Reading for Understanding in Social Studies and Science) of Strategies that Work (STW):

The first big idea that caught my eye in this chapter is that in order to have more time spent on Social Studies and Science in the classroom, we MUST use it as content of literacy lessons. STW quotes a study done in 2006 that states, "Literacy clocked in at 750 minutes per week, math at 300 minutes per week, and science at sixty-five minutes per week." This fact broke my heart as a Social Studies major, it isn't even included in the study because the amount of time spent on the subject is so short. The chapter discusses how using these content areas within literacy would "spur curiosity" and "spark exploration." I could not agree more. It is extremely frustrating to me that Language Arts time in my classroom is dominated with fiction books instead of including rich, interesting pieces of nonfiction. Using these content texts would encourage thoughtful, higher levels of thinking. Literacy should be focused on reading to learn in order to promote in depth thinking and learning. Many of my students enjoy reading Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Series of Unfortunate Events, etc. but these texts hardly take a serious effort in terms of higher thinking. With non-fiction Social Studies and Science texts, students would be forced/encouraged to ask authentic questions, investigate their findings, and use many aspects of literacy to expand their knowledge base.

Poetry as a Bridge to Authentic Questions

When reading over the difference between authentic and assessment questions it’s easy to see that assessment ones are more prominent within many classrooms. Authentic questions prompt thinking and challenge us as individuals. As a teacher it’s hard to ask questions that we don’t necessarily know the answer to. With this being said when looking through the different strategies poetry seemed to be the perfect outlet to encourage authentic questions. Everyone reads and responds to poetry differently so it’s a perfect place to start in challenging students thinking. On pg 119 in Strategies that Work it gives an example poem that a teacher used to take students questions and guide them to inferential thinking. In the strategy example students questions ranged from vocabulary to themes to abstract thinking. This got me thinking…. How come poetry can challenge students’ to think outside the box? And why is this automatically what we (or at least I did) think of when we want to encourage students to ponder and question beyond the text?

To respond to these questions I would first look at students’ as a whole class and then begin to focus in on specific students. Many times there’s a clear divide between students loving and hating poetry with very few in the middle. I think this is because it isn’t something that they’ve had a lot of experience with and is somewhat uncharted territory. I think that to get students’ to be able to answer and eventually ask their own authentic questions they need to be shown how and not let an easy way out. They need to become comfortable with there not necessarily being a right or wrong answer and is why some love or hate poetry as a whole. Poetry can be interpreted and analyzed in numerous ways regardless of what the author wanted to portray. I think sometimes teachers overlook using poetry as a model for this thinking because they underestimate students’ ability to think critically.

As previously stated it is the easy way out to only ask questions that students can give a yes, no, or specific answer for. Students aren’t necessarily ready or have precious experience with authentic questions and if introduced to would need time to become better acquainted with. In the long run using these types of questions benefits the students because they get to not only challenge their own thinking but others as well. It allows for deeper connections to form and develop into understanding. While I think poetry would be a good place to start and introduce students to authentic questioning it’s something that could definitely be branched out into different forms of literacy and can bring forth meaningful discussions.

Assessments

I found myself connecting with a large amount of the assessment sites discussed within Book Club Plus. I have found these different assessments occurring frequently within my classroom. There were three main assessment sites I found myself connecting with the most in regards to my classroom. They were Reading Logs, from the idea of students being able to write and communicate ideas. Secondly, Guided reading groups, which focuses on reading in which students can make meaning from a variety of texts. Lastly, the assessment speedwriting is something that occurs within my classroom which focuses on students being able to write for different purposes and audiences.

To start off with, reading logs are an assessment that goes on in my classroom on a weekly basis. Students are expected to read 150 minutes from Monday to Monday of each week. Along with reading 150 minutes they also must answer comprehension questions to go along with their reading and are given guiding questions on the back of their reading log sheet. This stays consistent throughout the entire year, students are expected to complete this log each week as well as have it signed by a parent. Failure to do so results in staying in during recess as well as having to complete it along with the new one for the week. I find the reading log to be very important for some children because otherwise they simply would not read. It is important for the students to be held accountable to read each week no matter what. In regards to being a helpful assessment of my student’s literacy learning, I do not seeing it being incredibly beneficial and telling very much about my students. Students are only expected to write one sentence for each of the guided questions that go along with the book or books they are reading during that week’ s reading log. I do not find there to be much information I can take away or assess from these logs other than if a student is reading or not, what they are reading and a little bit on the side of if they are understanding what they are reading, Overall I think it is a very critical weekly routine, but as far as being a very beneficial tool for assessing, I do not believe it is that strong of an assessment.

Secondly, guided reading groups are another type of assessment that occurs in my classroom. This is an important part of reading workshop and something that happens on a daily basis. Each guided reading group is given a different book they are to read as well as worksheets, questions and writing prompts to work on while reading the book. We have not gotten very far into guided reading groups but I believe as it progresses it will be an incredible assessment tool for students’ literacy learning. This is a much more focuses and individualized way of assessing students progress in the specific aspect of literacy we are having them focus in on and working on in their reading group. I feel that this smaller group atmosphere and each group working on what they need specifically to better their literacy learning is a very efficient and productive form of literacy assessment. I look forward to see how guided reading groups progress throughout the year and how I am able to see growth in my students in the many different areas they are focusing on through these groups.

Lastly, speed writing is the other assessment tool I have experienced in my classroom. I believe it to be very beneficial as well in some aspects. It can be a great tool to see what students are able to write on the spot without a prompt or large amount of time to form thoughts and ideas. This is a way for the teacher to see what students need significant help and practice with their writing. Although quick writes do not necessarily focus on development of stories, details and focusing in on events, I believe it is a good assessment to see easily what students need more writing experience and practice. Although it does not weed out good writers and bad writers, it does allow the teacher/reader to see how easy it is for a student to be able to write for different purposes. This is a practiced skill and something that is easily accessed through speed writing. Therefore I believe it is a beneficial assessment for looking at student written work.

Week 4: Text Talk

During the past three weeks at Dimondale Elementary, I have been able to observe and participate in talk about text almost every day of the week. My mentor teacher has a 90 minute literacy block every morning, during which we often have Reading and/or Writing Workshop. We often begin the workshop with a read aloud to the students. Primarily, the talk about text I am seeing during this time is completely teacher-led. She asks the guiding questions about the story every day and shares her ideas with them. Approximately two times a week, she initiates a turn-and-talk during which the talk is student-led, but only with a partner. She takes volunteers after the turn-and-talk to share their ideas about the story, so a short amount of time is dedicated to student-led group talk. Much of the time the talk about text is related to making text-to-self connections. During my discussions with my mentor teacher, we have discussed getting the students to be more confident in talking about the books that they are reading. Occasionally after independent reading time, she has them share something about their books (including what they think the author's purpose is and a part of the story/text that they can relate to).
The talk about text within Book Club Plus! the instructional purposes of surface knowledge, inquiring into text, and reflection upon text. The talk in my classroom provides more opportunities for surface knowledge and reflecting upon text than it does for inquiring about text. Surface knowledge includes read-aloud discussions (which we do almost every day as a class) and opening community share (which my mentor tries to do twice a week), and reflecting upon text includes summarizing and synthesizing a text (students do this when they must reflect and share what they have learned by reading the text). Our students have not has many opportunities to inquire about their texts (using book clubs conversations, guided reading sessions, or writer's workshop). While we often engage in writer's workshop, their writing using revolves around personal narratives. I would like to encourage them to use the time they have during writer's workshop to share their ideas about what they are reading. Since we have not started our book clubs yet, and are still testing students to find their reading levels, we have had extremely limited opportunities to encourage students to talk about their inner conversations with texts they are reading. When talk is primarily teacher-led, I feel it is hard to get the students adjusted to talking about their texts on their own.
Have you started book clubs in your own classroom? If so have you had issues with students feeling comfortable enough to share their ideas about the text?