My target area for guided lead teaching was the 5 square paragraph essay. My three detailed consecutive lessons focused on modeling this writing process to prepare students to create their authored essay. Overall, I believe these lessons went really well. Before my internship year, I did not understand the extreme importance of modeling. Now I know, how you model a process you wish your students to complete has a huge impact on the outcome of their products. Taking needed time to model each step had a positive impact on the work that my students were able to create. I started these lessons with explaining the rubric upon which their expectations are listed. I feel that this was a very positive way of starting the unit. The students were able to see exactly what the expectations were, and made goals for themselves on how they were going to accomplish them within their papers. Knowing this, we then went through several samples of student papers and identified the strengths and weaknesses. The students were able to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses and understand what a paper needs to include in order to be efficient. The students learned the importance of organization as I modeled the color coding process of central ideas and how it is transmitted on to paper when writing each paragraph. The students were very interested in the topic of giving thanks as Thanksgiving is approaching. The brainstorming activity went very well as we worked on detailed descriptions of all areas of the topic. Due to the fact that these three lessons focused on modeling the 5 square paragraph which they have previously practiced in grade 3, there were not struggles within these lessons. Students were able to access their prior knowledge about the topic to comprehend the information being presented.
There were some alternate reads as the students began to complete their own graphic organizers. Students had a difficult time switching from the expectations they were held to in third grade, to the current expectations for fourth grade writing. Prior to this year, students were asked to pick three separate topics for each of the body paragraphs. However, this year we are asking them to pick one topic and focus solely on that. For example, rather than stating they are thankful for their family, friends, and food, they would choose that they are thankful for their family and then each paragraph would consist of a different element such as why they are thankful for their family, what makes them thankful, and how do they show they are thankful. There were not specific students that struggled with this, as they struggled as an overall class.
I was extremely impressed by my students’ literacy practices. They extended beyond my objectives. My objects cover the standard essay that asks students to focus on the ideas and content. I found that my students loved adding voice to their papers in order to make it their own. Not only did they include the necessary content, but they also added ideas that only pertained to them as a specific student. The students were proud to share their work as it was special and important to them as individuals.
As the students began to create their own graphic organizers I had to reteach and remodel the process. After the first day of filling out their graphic organizers I knew I had to refocus the students and steer them in a new direction. Like I mentioned previously, the expectations for fourth grade are much higher than third grade. After I read through students’ graphic organizers, I re-modeled the process and had them redo their organizers. Rather than stating they are thankful for their family, friends, and food, they would choose that they are thankful for their family and then each paragraph would consist of a different element such as why they are thankful for their family, what makes them thankful, and how do they show they are thankful. There were not specific students that struggled with this, as they struggled as an overall class.
Rather than modeling one specific example of a 5 paragraph essay, I would give students several different ideas and view points. The students struggled with the content of their central ideas. I believe that if I had provided them more examples on their specific topic I would have had more success the first time around on the graphic organizers. I modeled a paper that was different than the topic they wrote about, as I wanted them to create their own thoughts and ideas. However, I now know that the students needed more direct instruction in order to be successful in this transition.
I think it is interesting to see that these 5 square organizers have followed my students all the way to 5th grade from apparently 3rd! Though this is not something that was directly used in my lesson, I am able to relate with you on how important it is to model the expectations that you have for your students and the work that they are expected to produce. My students were given a variety of different tasks to perform related to the chapter of the novel that was read that day. I found however that even after giving them specific verbal instruction, with the written intstruction in front of them that some were still unable to follow direction or do what was asked of them.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though I would have modeled more than I did on some of the assignments if they were not walked through the lessons that were previously done with my CT in her Genre unit. She told me that by now they should be able to complete these "constructive response" questions by now since they have been doing them for a while now. Which apparently was not the case.
I tried to break down the questions into more of an organizer, rather than having them be so concerned to put it in paragraph form, but still was not seein much of a result. I guess what I would like to know, is how do you get them to perform these tasks without having to model everything? I feel like my students need, or expect this to be done for them for everything, and when it's not, they either think they do not know what they are doing, or just simply throw something together.
I'm posting this comment from Kristin Tonkovich (she had trouble posting)
ReplyDeleteResponse to Lindsey’s blog post:
Lindsey, I found your reflection very interesting and something that I could definitely relate to in my 4th grade class with unit teaching.
I completely agree that I was not aware of the high impact or extreme benefit of modeling writing to students! I quickly realized that modeling the skills or strategies for writing, in my case summary writing, is so important because these students are all coming in with different levels of familiarity with the task, like you mentioned. I, too, found that it was very helpful to students if they could watch me use the strategy I was discussing, or watch the way that I would complete the task I was giving them, and then apply it to the task on their own. It gave them an idea of what I considered good work, and explicitly demonstrated the steps that they could take to complete the task.
Another thing that I saw work well in my class, was an extension of the modeling process, where I could scaffold students learning by slowly decreasing my level of involvement, which I think is something Haley touched on in her comment as well! Here’s what I did:
On the first day of my three-day lessons, I reviewed expectations of made an anchor chart of elements that good summary SHOULD include, and things a summary should NOT include. This was sort-of an introduction, although it came in the second week of the unit, and it gave students an overview of what they would be working with. It was also something that they could reference whenever they wrote a summary.
Next, on the second day, we worked on a summary together. Every student had a copy of the text and I started by modeling while I read the first couple paragraphs of the text. I would “think out loud” and tell the students exactly which pieces of information I would include in the first part of my summary if I were writing one. Then, I grouped the students and had them work together to pick out other parts of the text that needed to be in our summary. The result was a summary written by the entire class. Since I had already modeled my thinking, they students were familiar with the process of choosing information from the text. I gradually let the students do the task on their own. This activity also allowed for “teaching moments” where I could address any issues that came up, or I could ask the class if they agreed/disagreed with the part of the summary that a group suggested.
Lastly, on the third day, I had the students try it without my assistance. I knew that the students were ready for this phase because we discussed the expectations, they had seen me model the task, and we had done it together.
Obviously depending on the specific writing skills being taught, the steps I used might vary, but I found it was a really nice balance of teacher modeling, and the students being able to apply what they learned. As Haley touched on, there’s that fine line between modeling every little thing for your students to the point where you don’t feel like they are doing their own work, and effectively modeling in order to scaffold learning. This seemed to be a good work well for me!
Love that you modeled at the beginning of the unit with writing your own 5-paragraph essay. I also love how you color coded the central ideas. I think this is a great way to connect the dots for the students (scaffolding). I like how you were monitoring your students’ progress throughout the unit. (You read through their graphic organizers before they wrote their paper. You then realized that they needed more instruction before writing the 5-paragraphs, so you gave more instruction.) If you were not monitoring the students learning on a daily basis, you would not have known the difficulty/confusion they were having.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Was this the first time that 4th grade wrote a 5-paragraph essay? If it was their first time to write the 5-paragraph, I think writing on the same topic as your students would have been a good idea (which you mentioned). Creativity and individuality can be developed later on, I think it is important that the students understand the mechanics of their writing first (which I think you realized).
Question: When you were modeling at the beginning of the unit (writing your 5-paragraph essay), were you emphasizing the difference between 3rd grade writing and 4th grade writing? If not, I would suggest doing this next time around. This could cut down on the confusion when writing their graphic organizer.