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I approached phase one with the certainty that structure was what their writing needed, prepared to give them organizing tools and graphic organizers that would make writing a breeze. I emerged from phase one prouder than I had ever dreamed, with my understanding of their mental organization of writing dramatically altered, and my graphic organizers in the trash.
Week 1
Our first week began with the introduction of the 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When, Why), through five colorful sheets taped above the board, each depicting a picture that gave students a clue to the word (i.e. a house for where, a clock for why). This was then followed by a group brainstorm of a sequence of 5 W’s that we could string together to make a sentence. This activity illuminated one of my biggest instructional discoveries during this process – this type of writing:
resulted in students volunteering sentences that read: “morning sister splashed pool to win the water fight.”
We needed to include the articles and conjunctions to enable students to generate correct sentences. This strategy resulted in board grids that looked more like this:
We needed to include the articles and conjunctions to enable students to generate correct sentences. This strategy resulted in board grids that looked more like this:
Which students read orally as: “In the morning, my sister splashed me in the pool because she wanted to win the water fight.” Much more logical. I also loved how the “Why” question was causing the students to really consider what was driving the actions of the characters in the sentence, a much higher level concept that really pushes them to become more conscious of others and consider their perspectives.
The second major turning point in my instruction came from their use of the graphic organizers – I carefully designed graphic organizers that were picture-coded to enable students to map out their sentences, then draw them, and then re-write them in the picture-coded order below, but this too proved to have the same problem as our board writing – when the articles and conjunctions were not written into the outline, they were absent from the sentences. For this reason, our instruction took a turn after we read Tacky, catering their instruction towards what style was clearly working best for them and beginning to see how it impacted their individual writing.
Week one ended with my read-aloud of the book Tacky the Penguin, after which the students were divided into ability-grouped pairs (1 approaching and 1 below grade level student to provide scaffolding and language practice) to play with the story cubes. The story cubes were oversized paper dice, with one of the 5 W’s written on each side and one “roll again” square. At conclusion of the week, we brainstormed three sentences (connecting parts of speech included), and they were released to write independently about Tacky for a brief period of time.
The second major turning point in my instruction came from their use of the graphic organizers – I carefully designed graphic organizers that were picture-coded to enable students to map out their sentences, then draw them, and then re-write them in the picture-coded order below, but this too proved to have the same problem as our board writing – when the articles and conjunctions were not written into the outline, they were absent from the sentences. For this reason, our instruction took a turn after we read Tacky, catering their instruction towards what style was clearly working best for them and beginning to see how it impacted their individual writing.
Week one ended with my read-aloud of the book Tacky the Penguin, after which the students were divided into ability-grouped pairs (1 approaching and 1 below grade level student to provide scaffolding and language practice) to play with the story cubes. The story cubes were oversized paper dice, with one of the 5 W’s written on each side and one “roll again” square. At conclusion of the week, we brainstormed three sentences (connecting parts of speech included), and they were released to write independently about Tacky for a brief period of time.
Week 2
To begin week two, we reviewed sentence creation using the 5 W’s on the whiteboard, creating another sentence and then sending them to add onto their writing pieces from the previous Friday. Students were monitored and individually conferenced with informally during this time, recording their independent writing behavior. The next day, we typed our stories, to work on our keyboarding skills and to prepare for the writer’s celebration final product. The students typed their pre-written and corrected (minor spelling and punctuation) stories onto Evernote on their iPods, and I printed them off in circular shapes. We talked about how Tacky had a very unique style – and how our writing pieces would complete his outfit perfectly as the bold floral design on his shirt.
On Wednesday of week two, we had a writer’s celebration for our Tacky pieces, before which we brainstormed describing words and compliments on the board. It was wonderful to get to see students reading and genuinely appreciating their peer’s work and the glimpses of pride as the curious authors of each piece checked in on their compliment cards throughout. Success!
My goal with digital literacy was to increase their comprehension across different modalities, and also to keep motivation high instead of seemingly drilling students with the mechanics and structure of writing. We watched the movie Frozen, a recently released and highly popular movie that employs several narratives that the students could draw from in their story. I enjoyed how this video presentation of the story allowed the students greater access to higher level vocabulary and plot developments – no character was explaining the “why” behind their actions, but in our end of the week brainstorms, each child could clearly articulate the specific reasoning behind each act.
On Wednesday of week two, we had a writer’s celebration for our Tacky pieces, before which we brainstormed describing words and compliments on the board. It was wonderful to get to see students reading and genuinely appreciating their peer’s work and the glimpses of pride as the curious authors of each piece checked in on their compliment cards throughout. Success!
My goal with digital literacy was to increase their comprehension across different modalities, and also to keep motivation high instead of seemingly drilling students with the mechanics and structure of writing. We watched the movie Frozen, a recently released and highly popular movie that employs several narratives that the students could draw from in their story. I enjoyed how this video presentation of the story allowed the students greater access to higher level vocabulary and plot developments – no character was explaining the “why” behind their actions, but in our end of the week brainstorms, each child could clearly articulate the specific reasoning behind each act.
Week 3
Our brainstorming on this digital literacy topic was very fruitful, but I was careful to limit our board writing to a single, more boring sentence that a student probably would not choose to write about, to encourage them to use the sentence skeleton instead of copying down the sentence and adding onto it in their story. What do you know – it worked! I had no direct board copiers, and I could see in several student’s papers how they had taken our sentence, replaced the 5 W’s with their topic, and used the skeleton of connecting words to make it into an eloquent, meaningful sentence! On day two of writing, I added to the board:
Questions
This greatly helped me circulate the busy writers, and I was very impressed that they could translate “Number 1” into re-reading the question, applying it to their own writing, answering it, and continuing to meaningfully elaborate on their piece. After day two, I corrected their papers for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization (none of which were goals of this intervention – I wanted them to focus on content instead of fretting over non-semantic details). The finished their writing on day three and began to type their stories into a computer program called Pixie. This application allowed them to type on the computers, providing valuable keyboarding practice, and provided backgrounds and stickers to illustrate with at the end. Unfortunately, Pixie does not have autocorrect spelling, so this presented a bit more work than they were used to. After their two days spent creating their final product, we printed their creations in color and had a writer’s celebration! This one was with the second graders as well so they were extra proud to see their role models complimenting their work.
Questions
- How did they feel?
- What happened next?
This greatly helped me circulate the busy writers, and I was very impressed that they could translate “Number 1” into re-reading the question, applying it to their own writing, answering it, and continuing to meaningfully elaborate on their piece. After day two, I corrected their papers for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization (none of which were goals of this intervention – I wanted them to focus on content instead of fretting over non-semantic details). The finished their writing on day three and began to type their stories into a computer program called Pixie. This application allowed them to type on the computers, providing valuable keyboarding practice, and provided backgrounds and stickers to illustrate with at the end. Unfortunately, Pixie does not have autocorrect spelling, so this presented a bit more work than they were used to. After their two days spent creating their final product, we printed their creations in color and had a writer’s celebration! This one was with the second graders as well so they were extra proud to see their role models complimenting their work.