Implementing a new literacy approach.

As part of my role as the literacy lead teacher for our school, I am currently working with some staff to implement a new approach to teaching literacy which we have developed based on the work from Jeff Anderson, Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey, Gail Loane, and Sally Muir, and follows the lesson structure of Notice, Think, Imitate, Innovate.

Today I tried a Gail Loane quick write lesson based on a hut memoir.  I followed the lesson plan carefully and thought the lesson was going to be a huge success.  Students were engaged as they visualised a time when they made a hut.  They were all very excited to share their memory with their buddy and wanted to share it with the class.  I ensured I kept the unpacking of the text and sharing time snappy so that there was plenty of time for writing and self reflection.  Students were able to help co-construct the success criteria for their memoir and we talked about the need for speech with a new line for each new speaker. 

Students were given 10 minutes to write then had to read their work and check the success criteria to see if they were on track to meeting it.  They were then given another 10 minutes writing time to complete the piece and also add any of the success criteria features that they may have been missing.

What happened:
Prior to today's quick write, students were writing good descriptive pieces which are including lots of their senses as this was part of our Sheena Cameron & Louise Dempsey approach to writing.  However after reading through the student's work at the end of the lesson, I found most students writing met the success criteria but didn't have the 'wow' words, details or descriptions like previous pieces.

Questions I know have:
* Were students too focused on meeting the success criteria that they forgot to add the detail?
* While students included speech, many didn't have a conversation/argument between their characters.  Was this because they just wanted to tick of using speech?  Should the success criteria have included speech as a conversation - multiple comments back and forward between characters?
* Were students not including precise details and senses because the Sheena Cameron visual clues were not part of the success criteria?
* Do students need to practise the specific skill from the exemplar (imitate) like the skill of speech for a conversation - in silo like Jeff Anderson suggests, prior to writing it in a bigger context?  Would this then allow students to master the new skill prior to writing so they can then apply it in a bigger context and focus their energy on developing their ideas?
* Do students just need to get used to the change in lesson style?

Where to next:  Will these make a difference to the quality of writing?
* (Grammar and conventions): Have students practise imitating the specific skill that needs to be developed prior to using it in a wider context. 
* Include the visual success criteria for senses to see if this prompts students to include more details.
* Re-read the exemplar text then have students re-read their own writing.  Will they hear/see where changes and improvements could be made?
* Keep trying the new approach.  If writing doesn't improve, go back to the drawing board and find out why their writing isn't improving.
* Have students notice and identify more of the features used in the exemplar.

Developing literacy - modelled writing lesson.

Today I modelled the new writing approach we are trying to implement across the school. Several colleagues came to observe me teach writing to a Year 3 class paired with a Year 5 class. In the previous lesson I had taught the children how to use 3 good (or bad) statements and worked on NOTICING what was in the writing. The children worked with their buddies on IMITATING the exemplar and working on using the writing skills as part of their own practice.

When my observers arrived I was unpacking the next part of the lesson - sharing the aim with the children, which was to create a Monster Menu. I shared menus and asked them what they noticed. The most powerful part for the observer was noticing the range of exemplars I used, as this made them think that they am not giving enough time to the discussion and the noticing phase. I used prompting and modelling and asked hinge questions to see what the children could tell me about the exemplars. I praised the children when they gave me the answers I was looking for and revoiced what they had said. To finish that part of the lesson I gave them paper copies of the exemplars for their books and asked them to compare and contrast by highlighting all the things that were the same across the exemplars.
   “If I was going to highlight I need to look and find what is the same in both.” I told the children that I would be giving them only 4 minutes to do the activity before they had to share with the rest of the group. I also shared the fact that this was going to help them to write their success criteria for their own writing.

What did the observers learn?

• That it is important to have a range of exemplars ready so the children can discuss (Notice/Think) what they are trying to achieve with their own writing. 
• That there needs to be time given to practising the writing craft.
• By using questions I can ensure that everyone knows what to do

Where to next for developing literacy in other rooms?

• Ensure teachers give more time to the discussion. 
• Ensure students have exemplars of writing to refer too.
• Share the why and relate it back to the student's writing goals.
• Constantly share and revoice what has been said and make it relevant.
• Be explicit with the use of visual success criteria.
• When giving the children an activity, give them a time frame and tell them for how long in order to move on with the lesson.
• Actively rove and give the children feedback.  
• Give students time to self-reflect during the writing time and direct students them to the success criteria.

Vikram - Voyager Course 2017

Jeff Anderson Writing PD

Jeff Anderson

When Reading and Writing Collide: Teaching Grammar and Editing Effectively

Friday 14th July 2017

Grammar is there to make writing better.

Ways to ruin writing

• Flood lessons with unnecessary, abstract terminology.

Instead- show what conventions do for readers and writers.

• Take a right-or-wrong stance. (Correcting is not teaching). If there’s only one answer, it's a worksheet.

Instead- show how conventions activate meaning.

Grammar is reading and writing crashing together, making meaning.

• Talk
• Grammar
• Craft
• Effect
• Meaning
• Composition
• Comprehension.
• 
• Focus on product over process

Instead- Teach the writer, not the writing. (Give them patterns of power.)

Patterns of power process.

Make a plan:

• Select a standard.
• Dig into the craft (the author’s craft) and function of the convention (what it does).
• Consider what the learners actually need to know.
• Create a focus phrase.

Eg:

Standard - Capaitalise days of the week and months.

What do capital letters do? ( what do your eyes do when you come across a capital letter in the middle of a sentence? - it gives a word emphasis. It makes a word standout.) Goal- I only use capital letters for a reason!

Terms to know- capitalise, days, week.

Author's purpose - why?

Author's craft - how?

What do capital letters do for writers and readers? (Function)

Create a focus phase:

• Concise and manageable
• Written in student-friendly language
• Based on a clearly defined goal (Use I to focus the student and give ownership). Or (Writers use…) interchange between writers use and I use.

Eg: I capitalise days and months.   Writers capitalise days and months.

Into the classroom:

What do you notice?

Eg: On Saturday, D.W. went out to eat.

Full stop at end of sentence…

• What do you see?
• What do you already know?
• Is there anything you're Wondering about?
• What else?

What is the comma doing when you read the sentence aloud? What is the comma doing when you just read it with your eyes?

Mistakes are sign of growth

When you struggle- that's your brain growing!

Commas, periods, capital letters - all have a function, all have meaning.

Compare and contrast

How are they alike and different? Create another sentence that models the skill from the first sentence.

On Saturday, D.W. and her family went out to eat.

On Monday nights, my mum goes bowling.

Use a standard: Author’s craft and purpose.

What do serial commas (commas in lists) do for readers and writers? (Function)

• I use commas to seperate three or more items in a series.

RAS (reticular activated system)

Acts as a filter. You consciously see it everywhere.  With commas etc, students will start to become consciously aware of them and will start to see them everywhere.

Compare and contrast

Practical application: Trying it out.

Imitate

• Shared - teacher writes what they hear from the kids
• Interactive - kids add to the writing (add the comma, full stop etc)
• Paired - try it out with a partner
• Individual

Eg: Christmas sounds like happiness, singing, and the jingle of sleigh bells.

Let’s celebrate

What is celebrated gets repeated.

Read the sentence aloud twice because you hear more the second time. First time you hear the ideas, second time you hear the structure and the ideas.

Micro workshop

• Draft ideas
• Get feedback
• Edit
• Recraft

Quick Edit

Have the student read their writing aloud - only the words on the page,  or the words they would fill in if corrected.

• I read my writing twice, so my reader only has to read it once.
• Highlight correct use of focus skill
• Make changes as needed
• Read one more time

Respond

Collect

Collect beautiful sentences, then sentences with serial commas, then closes etc

Write

Rapid Revision

• Reread my writing twice
• Look for phrases to use the convention to make my writing clearer for my reader.
• Make change(s). Reread my writing, making sure it makes sense.

Subjunctive mood: (in the below sentence, the use of were instead is was is subjunctive mood).

• Contrary to fact
• Wish
• Fantasy
• 

2017 Teaching Action Inquiry - Writing

This year my teaching inquiry continues to focus on accelerating writing.  This is because my class and the school wide data shows that writing is the greatest need.

Below is the link to my teaching inquiry. 

Collaborative Teaching Inquiry 2017

Apple Towards Transformation

Term 1 2017 reflection

As I am about to embark on the second term for the year, I felt it was a good time to reflect on term 1.
2017 is a year of many new challenges and experiences for me.  For the first time, I have taken on the role of team leader where I have the honour of leading the Year 5 team and have the pleasure of working alongside four amazing teachers.

I am also the Responsive Learning Leader for Literacy across our school.  My role is to oversee the accelerated literacy programme across the school; report to the teams/BOT/Principal on the literacy programme including student progress and achievement; and to support teachers to make cross curricular links in literacy (reading, writing, oral language).

As well as my new roles, I am currently on two PD courses.  First is the Apple Towards Transformation course which sees me working with an Apple facilitator to learn a range of new apps for enhancing learning and teaching practise.  All of my students are using 1-1 ipads.   The second course is the Voyager course run by Dr Vikram Murthy.  This course is about cross-school collaborative inquiry and collective wisdom which uses action science, action learning, and appreciative inquiry methodologies to solve intractable problems and realise organisational opportunities.

Whilst I am really enjoying all my new roles, I have found that I tend to be out of my classroom a lot.  This has made planning trickier as I don't want my professional development to be detrimental to my students because I am not in the classroom.   Trying to set up an effective teaching program that sees my students continuing with their in depth teaching sessions and which focuses on accelerating learning, has been a challenge at times, however by spending most of term 1 ensuring students know how to identify their learning needs based on formative and summative assessments, student rubrics and goal sheets, as well as students learning how to plan their own learning day and book their needs based teaching sessions, the class is starting to run more smoothly and my absences from the classroom aren't so disruptive.  Whilst students are beginning to become self-reflective, independent learners, I am not sure the rate of acceleration is as good as it would be if I was in the classroom the whole time.  Now that routines and expectations are established, going into term 2, my big push is going to be around accelerating learning both within my own class and across the other Year 5 classes.