Teachers,
If you have completed The Autobiography Project with your class, could you bring three (1 low, 1 med., and 1 high) samples to next Friday's meeting (2/6)? Please bring enough copies to distribute to all of the language arts teachers. We may not have time to discuss, but I'm sure we'd all be interested in reviewing the completed project at different levels. Any other suggestions?
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Okay so I know I'm a big nerd but that meeting was great! I felt like I was in class - I love being able to talk about concrete curriculum ideas. It left me feeling less isolated. Thanks.
Having said that, I'm psyched to start thinking about other aspects of the writing curriculum that we could bring to the the table to discuss next time (and in future meetings). These are some things we discussed at the end of today's meeting, but of course didn't set in stone. Feel free to add, change, etc. There is quite a bit, too, so we could prioritize which we'd like to share about first.
- Specific writing pieces...how do you choose what your students will write? Should we have certain types of writing pieces we want addressed at all grade levels and others we could stagger throughout?
- Quickwrites vs. full writing pieces that go through all stages of the writing process... how we include each in our writing curriculum, the value of each, etc.
- Writing in the content areas...both writing pieces that go along with content area curriculum, as well as using writing (quickwrites during a lesson, as a class starter, etc.) as a learning tool in the content areas.
- Vocabulary - how to teach it effectively!
- Mini-lessons....are they really mini? How do they work best? What kinds of skills do we target in them?
- Grading writing pieces...how to use rubrics w/time effectiveness...maybe we could share ideas about this and even share a variety of rubrics we've used so we could create some sort of pool that we could pull from to put together the ones we use. This way we're not starting from scratch each time and we could learn from each other.
Okay that's all I've got for now! Looking forward to our next meeting!
I agree! Thanks, Laura! I am most interested in what Steve is learning in his class this semester. I would love to see some vocabulary in writing lessons/research/ideas. I would also like to work on improving my rubrics and maybe developing some common rubrics.
Ok so the thing I am most interested in is how people conduct their daily writing lessons? Like how do you begin reinforce and end your lesson. Do you have lessons or do you mostly just have the students learn through writing? Also as Laura said about the different writing pieces what are you grading and not grading.
I have found a few really cool quick write ideas that lend themselves very nicely to the other content areas...which have lead to some awesome discussions in my class. I think they would definitely help you guys since you are more about the other content areas and I don't hit them as big time or even as much.
As for vocabulary I am interested how you guys pick your vocabulary words for study, what kind of activities you do to reinforce them and how you keep them apart of your classroom.
How much are we using picture books across all levels as a teaching tool for writing skills and comprehension?
Just a few thoughts I totally dug the meeting as well, and would love to someday not hate teaching writing.
Friday's meeting opened up all kinds of exciting ideas for all grade levels! It sure helps to discuss what we're doing--then we get a feel for ways we can bridge through the grade levels.
Laura, I think there is so much to think about. I am going to keep a journal for myself--writing down ideas as they come to me, so that next time we meet, I can share. I will tell you that we are just starting a new writing assignment about the seasons, so it is related to science, but it also has personal components that students can personally relate to. So I will bring all my info on that to the next meeting (unless you want to visit my room sooner)!!
I think that sharing rubrics and ideas will definitely help the teachers and the students--so going from one grade to another won't be such a huge transition!
For Steve: what I often do is first present the assignment and we brainstorm vocabulary words first. They keep vocabulary from their reading stories in Learning Logs! Since I often use content areas to write about, it can be pretty specific. Not always will I do content subjects, however, but there are still plenty of words to think about that would "suit" a particular piece. I also like to write the words down so the students can see correct spelling. One thing I did recently was leave out index cards (they are great for writing) for any student to write a word they thought would be useful for an assignment (it was on animals). I threw out repeats and used sticky tack to hang around the front board--they liked being the experts!! After we have some vocabulary, I use the document camera these days to begin pre-writing (spider). Next we might begin a topic sentence for the first paragraph , which for my class would be a list of 3 "things". I try to also use another "interesting" sentence to go with it. My students are welcome to copy my extra sentence if they can't come up with their own. We proceed writing it together--adding details and examples in all 3 body paragraphs, and then write a closing paragraph.
This shared writing piece is left up on the screen every time we work on this assignment. I think modeling and seeing the teacher write is important. Sometimes kids just need to see how to get started. I have more ideas but this is ridiculously long--sorry!
Steve, I will email you those primary writing ideas today--Laura, there are things in there which can be used by 4th graders, too!
Thanks!!
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