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LLED 320: Writing Reflection & Conferencing, Poetry Playoffs, Poetry Reading Discussion, & Lit Circle Books Out: Update for Tuesday, 21 February 2012

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We had a lot to get to today so I won’t start lollygagging now.  Oh, wait.  Speaking of lollygagging:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDaFcQJC4z8[/youtube]

OK.  Now where was I?  Oh, yes.  No lollygagging and all that.  Off we go…

Learning Intentions

Here are the goals I had for each learner by the end of today’s session:

I [the learner] can…

  • Self-assess my haiku writing
  • Give thoughtful feedback to an author in a conference setting
  • Rehearse and present my haiku with power and passion
  • Sell my preferred poetry strategy from the Chapter 8 reading to a classmate
  • Thoughtfully consider the Lit Circle books on offer and choose one to read

In hindsight, I think we touched on all of these.

Daily Write – Haiku Self-Assessment Process

I asked you to self-assess your haiku products and writing process with the following 4 sentence starters.  The audience was the “teacher” that you would conference with shortly:

  • You should notice…
  • I’m most proud of…because…
  • My greatest challenge on this task was…because…
  • My best haiku is…because…

Writing Conference

After modeling a writing conference focused on these three questions:

  • What’s working (in your work)?
  • What’s not?
  • What next?

I gave you a chance to have a go in the role of “teacher” and student in a conference setting.

Energizer #1 – Telephone Charades by Christina

Poetry Playoffs

I set the stage with a poetry presentation clip from the Mike Myers joint, So I Married An Axe Murderer:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkoQ4bUE5k[/youtube]

Then, in an effort to model the need for skill work with students if you want them to improve as speakers, we worked with Punch (=power) and Paint (=passion), two concepts we’ve played with before in our Me in a Bag Speeches (remember those?) in Term 1.  John S. O’Connor’s book, Wordplaygrounds: Reading, Writing, and Performing Poetry in the English Classroom, is where I found the ideas we used.  I can’t recommend this poetry book highly enough, as I borrowed our Haiku process from there, too!

Armed with your powers to punch and paint, you rehearsed for the PPs, we chose the draw, and decided how would would assess the presenters (on delivery, content, and form, as it turned out) [Thanks to Nicole for the photos in this post – LH]:

As the image above attests to, in the end, Eric A. – the freshly crowned Haiku Guru – took the honours with his piece.  Here it is in all its award winning  glory:

Entering

Naked I enter

From my mother’s womb I slip

…brr  Let me back in.

Luckily no one captured the final performance on their camera so I won’t be posting an accompanying video!

Energizer #2 – What’s My Fave Food by Mirela

Reading Discussion on Student Diversity’s Chapter 8: Poetry – Three Invitations

To process this chapter, I asked you to identify your preference for one of the three strategies outlined in the text and then sell it to a classmate.  We debriefed by talking about the reasons we thought the strategies might work with the learners in your classrooms.

Literature Circles Books Out

Using one full-blow book talk for The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter and a set of book trailers from YouTube, I introduced the set of books we’re going to work with over the final 3 weeks of class.

The book trailers are in a previous post and here’s the blurb I wrote up for The Crazy Man:

Homework for Wednesday’s Session – Novel Reading & Six-Hat Thinking

You have two tasks to take care of for Wednesday’s session and both are outlined in this image:

The hat you need to use for your Six-Hat Thinking on Chapter 6 – The Whole Class Novel was assigned by numbering off in class.  Here are how the numbers fit with the hats:

Here’s the Six-Hat Handout that was, ahem, handed out in class.  This style of thinking was pioneered by Edward deBono:

The video clip below gives you a nice primer on the purpose and power of the Six Thinking Hats approach:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqmCUAGcsnI[/youtube]

If you missed class and don’t have a number, just choose one, put on its associated Thinking Hat, and have a go with your reading and note taking.

Oh, and there’s no excuses for not doing this reading.  For some reason, Chapter 6 of the Student Diversity text is online here.

That’s all for today.  See you on Thursday.

– Lawrence

LLED 320 – Poetry Playoffs, Reading Placemat, De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats, Whole Class Novels, and Lit Circles: Update for Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011

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We covered a lot of ground today.  Here’s the highlights:

Poetry Playoffs

After reviewing the 8 Ps of Powerful Presentations:

  • Proper Articulation
  • Pronunciation
  • Power
  • Pace
  • Pause
  • Pitch
  • Passion
  • Poise

I asked you to rehearse your best haiku in case you were one of the 8 contestants chosen to face off.  Here’s the draw and how it turned out:

Congratulations to Kira on her victory.  In a related story, check out this clip to see Anthony Bourdain enjoying a bowl of “mysterious meat” pho and a beer:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsSiA-JHm0U[/youtube]

If you search this blog using the keywords Poetry Playoffs, you’ll find information I’ve posted last year on how to run a the PP in your class, if you’re interested.

Wrapping Up Writing in the Classroom

I mentioned that we just touched on writing in the classroom.  Also, I urged you to consider the principles of effective writing instruction as you teach.  Penultimately, in an effort to address several comments that arose as I marked your LLED 320 Writing Assessment Tasks, I pointed you toward the ESL Standards document (2001) developed to assist teachers with the assessment of writing, reading, and oral language work completed by EAL / ESL students.  It’s structured similarly to the Performance Standards document we used in class and you can find it on the Ministry of Education ESL website or below:

Finally, if you’re interested in a great LA survey text that has a good section on Writing To Learn, I recommended that you check out Marion Crowhurst’s Language and Learning Across the Curriculum (LB1576 .C76 1993 in Ed LIb).

Factors That Help Students Develop As Readers

We ended our previous session with by having you consider the factors that you thought helped students develop as readers.  I asked you to put your ideas together and create a placemat with a group of three others and try to come up with 3 – 5 factors that all group members could agree on.  After sharing the ideas of several groups, we compared the responses with the research:

I asked you to consider our upcoming reading activities through the lens of those 4 factors.

Considering Whole Class Novel Studies Using Using De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats

With your graphic organizer of Chapter 6 – Whole Class Novel from Student Diversity in hand, I asked you to consider the WCN through the lens of one of De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats.  After reading up on what type of thinking each hat represents using the handout below:

I asked for each group to report out on their thinking around WCNs.  To wrap up, we all put on our Blue Hat – the metacognitive hat – and discussed the process of using the 6 Thinking Hats.  It was pretty meta!

Lit Circles: Double-Entry Journal Task

One During-Reading activity that really promotes thoughtful engagement with lit circle books it journaling.  In an effort to model this process with you, I’m asking you to keep a Double-Entry Journal as a means to consider the lit circle activities we’re engaging in during class time.  The task will be completed in class and it’s due on Thursday, 3 March 2011.  Here’s the handout:

To this point you had experienced:

  • Book Talks
  • Time to Read (in class and at home)
  • Sticky Notes

I asked you to choose to of those ideas and to give me your thoughts on them in the My Thinking side of the journal.  We took 10 or so minutes in class to do this.

Lit Circles: Conversation Time

I modeled a Lit Circle conversation with the members of The Hunger Games reading group and utilizing a Fishbowl strategy.  After a quick debrief, I asked each reading group to meet and engage in a similar conversation.  The discussions were lively and could have run much longer than the time we had left in class.

That’s all for today.  As a good follow up to our in-class activities, I recommend reading Chapter 7 – Literature Circles: The Basics, the Big Ideas, and Beyond in Student Diversity. It provides more details on how Lit Circles addresses the factors that help students develop as readers and it illustrates a model of how one teacher uses Lit Circles in her classroom.

That’s all for today.

– Lawrence

LLED 320 – Haiku Revision, Lit Circle Books Out & Intro to the Reading Process: Update for Thursday, 17 Feb 2011

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Haiku Revision

To get you thinking haiku again, I asked you to watch two video clips – a funny one and a serious one – and to bring the 5 criteria for a powerful haiku we developed in class back to the front of your brain.  Here are the clips:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnqUmmJ-zE[/youtube]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2268876[/vimeo]

Next, after a short review of the principles of effective writing instruction, we engaged in Author’s Club – a process for refining writing that I picked up at a writing workshop by Diana Cruchley.  Here’s the PDF I used to structure the Author’s Club work:

Here’s the PPT Slideshow I showed that served as a model mini-lesson on punctuation and line breaks in poetry:

For Tuesday’s class, please revise and create a good, final copy of your best haiku.  Be sure to staple the original draft versions of all 3 poems to your best copy page.

In Tuesday’s class we will have Poetry Playoff in which 8 (or more!  I have an idea.) randomly chosen poets will face off in a single-elimination tournament as a showcase for their haiku writing prowess.

Lit Circle Books Distribution

As the kick off to our work with Literature Circles, I organized the distribution of the texts we’re going to read.  Due to time constraints, I gave an in depth book talk of only one book – The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter, Sarah book talked Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech and, for the rest, I only showed a book trailer or gave a quick blurb.

Here’s the list of in-depth book talks for most of the books in the kit:

Here are most of the book trailers and videos that I showed to “sell” the books:

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufQeRrPQAbg&feature=fvwrel[/youtube]

Boy in the Striped Pajamas (actually a movie trailer) by John Boyne

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBdalsgNHsM&feature=related[/youtube]

The Giver by Lois Lowry

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNL77KnIRI8[/youtube]

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TnxXoMpF3c[/youtube]

Schooled by Louis Sachar

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gVC14-hcw4[/youtube]

If you were away from class and didn’t grab a book, please see me on Tuesday to get one.

Prior Knowledge on the Reading Process

As class wound down, I asked you to consider what you to consider factors that help students to develop as readers.  You wrote your ideas on a numbered sheet of paper.  Please bring that sheet and the mind map / graphic organizer you created to represent Ch 6 – The Whole Class Novel in the Student Diversity text to class on Tuesday… along with your haikus.

Cheers,

– Lawrence