Class 1 (Lisa Oliverio)

Gunckle Reading:

Finding patterns in experiences is an important scientific practice (Anderson, 2003). Scientists are engaged in a collaborative enterprise to explain how our world works (Gunckel, 2010).

The Gunckel piece elicits the idea and importance of classroom scientists collaborating and working through inquiry-based situations and explorations. However, educators often place science on the low priority, the back-burner, classroom filler category, neglecting the subject that actually allows children to ultimately explore their curiosity, ask questions and become critical problem solvers. Students need experience where they can explore such curiosity using hands-on and minds-on learning through inquiry, make connections and discover patterns, thus allowing students to make their own conclusions and explanations. With this students will become more invested and thus more motivated in inquiry based lessons. In such an environment, students will be acting like scientists themselves, investing time and effort into coming up with conclusions and see their curiosity shift from explorations to discoveries. Another valuable piece of inquiry based science learning is the emphasis on collaboration. In this way, students will benefit from learning and observing through others and working together as a team to become critical scientific problem solvers themselves.

As I read through this piece and noted the importance of self-discovery, I began to imagine my classroom this year. I have often heard my teacher discuss the need for students to read in content areas. Does an inquiry-based science classroom leave room for such instructional tools? Is this avenue within science learning important to consider when thinking of my own classroom in the future?

Ready, Set, Science! Reading:

“Science as practice involves doing something and learning something in such a way that the doing and the learning cannot really be separated.” (Michaels, Shouse, et al., 2007)

As students learn through inquiry, they are essentially practicing “doing” and then learning from their own doing. It is particularly interesting that this piece discusses that students who are engaged in scientific practice and inquiry not only learn about the content but also are developing process or social skills as well. Students are then able to apply and generate explanations to come to better understanding about the world.

While reading the biodiversity project, I noticed the rich experiences of the students through inquiry based learning as well the integration of other subjects within the science fieldwork. This allows students to make connections among subjects, building enthusiasm and motivation. Integrated curriculum provides meaningful learning experiences while building conceptual understanding and relationships.

I did find myself questioning the reasons for the order of the strands. It seems as through scientific inquiry based learning would begin with participating productively in science in order to generate evident, understand explanations and reflect on knowledge acquired.

Gunkle Reading - Laura Mastin

This article by Gunkle was directly applicable to what science my students are currently learning in our classroom. We just started a new unit on the states of matter. The first two days of this unit were exploration. The first day students were given a bag full of objects that they were to just have and explore. It was fun watching them because like we did with flashlights in class, they made comments, realizations, and had ideas about the objects. The second day students were given the same bag of objects and working in pairs were told to build a tower. Students had all different towers, but the objective was for them to use solid materials to build one big structure which was another solid. As you can tell, we spent a substantial amount of time exploring. We did not address any explanations those first two days.

I am anxious to see the result with my students. As shown in this article’s many charts, it is believed that the inquiry process of learning is beneficial by allowing students time to explore and identify patterns and ideas. At the start of this week, we will be continuing this unit, and working more towards the explanations. I hope to see patterns associated with this article.

-Laura M.

Ready, Set, Science - Laura Mastin

I found that reading chapter 2 of Ready, Set, Science after reading the previous article written by Gunkel was very interesting as I was able to compare the strategies discussed. Mainly, Gunkel stresses the importance of exploration and inquiry, where as Ready, Set, Science has stressed the value of all aspects of science. I am unsure which one I agree with, but I find both of them of value.

In Ready, Set, Science, their strands and uses of those strands make sense when thinking about teaching children. Children need the four aspects of science to fully understand a concept. Strand one is understanding scientific explanations. Students will be unable to comprehend a topic or use a the information being taught if they are unable to understand the vocabulary and concepts. Secondly, all children value learning from experience. This is what strand two is about. I have grown to understand that children need hands on examples, and multiple experiences. The third strand is reflecting, and without this teaching seems pointless. If students are unable to reiterate what they have learned, and to explain their experiences then they have learned little reasoning behind the science. Lastly, which I believe is close to experiences and inquiry from the Gunkel article, is participating in the science. When children get to put what they have learned into practice, they own that science. I agree with this article in the fact that all four strands are needed for maximum learning to take place.

-Laura M.

A Writing Program That Scores With the 6-Trait Model by Lynne Shapiro

The message that I got from this article is that when give the correct methods and information, teachers and students can be successful in the classroom. When writers of all grades know what parts of writing they will be assessed on, they are able to write in a more focused way. The 6-trait writing model allows authors of all grade levels to write creative and vivid work with an appropriate voice as well as provides teachers with an assessment that help them plan for instruction. Implementing this 6-trait model approach is useful not only because it offers consistency from classroom to classroom but also gives more insight into the specific author’s strengths and weaknesses. By identifying a level in each of the 6 traits, educators then know where they need to help individual students as well as what strategies the students are struggling with as a class. When students are made aware of these 6 traits, they can then make connections to the components while reading, making them able to carry strong conversations and begin to read like writers.

I found this approach to writing very interesting and I think I will try to use it in my second grade classroom. Although our second graders participate in writers workshop everyday, I feel that it lacks structure. Many of the students hurry through their work so that they can begin to draw a picture. I really liked that this 6-trait model gave teachers a clear assessment to base their instruction off of. My students are writing small moment stories and have been for a couple of weeks but they are bored with the topic as they are not given much directions. I like that this model shows the teacher what to discuss with the students according to where they are in the writing process.For example, we are currently in the revising stage of the writing process but what this means has not been discussed other than to tell the children to reread their stories and add detail. I would love to start fresh next week by having a lesson on prewriting and talking about the purpose of writing and audience. I really liked how Ms. Rothman used visualization as a way for the class to close their eyes and think about their writing and I think that would work very well in my second grade class. There hasn’t been a discussion as to why we write in our class yet and the lack of enthusiasm during writers workshop tells me that this may need to happen soon. I could see the overlapping with our language arts program pretty easily. Each week we spend time on a specific area of word study and I think the students should be challenged to try and incorporate this into their writing. We are working with singular and plural nouns and I think it would interesting for them to identify these in their own writing. During our read aloud time, we often talk about book language but fall short when it comes to using language of the traits of writing. We could easily talk about words that make verbs stronger and which words act as transitions in a story. I think that breaking down the process trait by trait is something that would be very easily done in our classroom by having writers workshop be more than independent writing. I believe that if we start each workshop with a mini-lesson on a trait, the students will begin to develop their writing in a more thoughtful way.

In order to become successful with this approach, I need to more aware of what the students are writing. In our room, the students work on a piece that is kept in each tables writers workshop bin, which is stored under a table in the back. I was really impressed when watching Ms. Rothman’s video as she frequently took the children’s work home with her to read over and make personalized suggestions and comments. I feel that this would be beneficial to my class because I believe that many of them do not see the point of writing. If they know that I will be reading them, it may help them have a sense of audience and purpose. I would like to have a file with a copy of what the student is writing each week so that I can see their strengths, weaknesses and hopefully their improvements. Each week they write in a homework journal at home and then turn it in on Friday. So far, I have been checking to see if they write at least four sentences on the specific questions, but I think that I could easily incorporate some of the trait language into this journal. The idea of reading strong and weak pieces of writing for assessment practice or revision is something I would also love to exercise in the classroom so I would need to start looking through books and trying to find examples of this. If I could find examples that also incorporate that week’s word study that would be even better.

I think this module helped me to see that before planning a unit, you have to be very conscious of what your objective is. I also think it’s important for the students to know what the goal is whether it is for the day, week or month. I’m sensing a lack of purpose in my classroom and I’m wondering if it is because the students don’t always see the usefulness or importance of the subject. Just as students are stronger in some traits of writing than others, they may have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to test taking and for that reason I think that assessment techniques should be varied. I know that many of my students are visual learners or like to participate in hands on activities so I will try to make my assessments using graphic organizers and hold discussions based on participation. In looking at my two samples of writing from the class, I notice that there are several papers that I had to come back to many times before understanding what was trying to be said. This tells me that the student was thinking about the subject but having trouble writing their thoughts, so i know that I need to 1. talk to this person to orally assess their comprehension and 2. then go back to their writing and see if I can see what they were trying to say and use that to improve their writing.

Salch & Marino (Conferring in the Writing Workshop)

Take home message: Conferring about writing is not easy, it is a “learnable skill” which takes just as much focus on listening as it does on discussing and teaching.

This article focuses on the difficulties of conferencing during writer’s workshop. This article mentions ways to becoming closer to an expert conferrer. It mentions the power of listening, demonstrating emotions while reading, focusing in on one issue and creating an environment that allows the student to become an active participant in his/her own writing conference. Salch and Marino focus on the importance of creating an environment that is favorable to both the student and the teacher, paving way to mini-lessons, beneficial conversations and learning avenues. This article reveals the significance in finding specific areas in a student’s work to praise while teaching the writer, not teaching the writing. Conferences should focus on the work the student is currently working on as well as how it is they are to become better writers. The article mentioned the essential piece of reflecting on such conferences and being able to name directly what it is that we have done to help the student become a better writer.

This approach would definitely be beneficial in my classroom. Currently the students have writer’s workshop and the teachers navigate around the classroom to discuss with students about their work. However, there does not seem to be much discussion around the processes of the students. Rather, I have seen discussions merely focused on content of the students’ work. During this time of independent writing, it would be beneficial for the teachers to meet with individual students and discuss processes, content, and further development of writing abilities. This allows teachers to understand where writers are coming from in the realms of processes and techniques. It will create an environment that is personal yet responsive to each students’ needs and wants.

In order to fully understand, visualize and participate in writing conferences, it would be beneficial to see more teachers engage in this particular activity. In order to carry out such plans, I will need to work on classroom management skills that will create an environment that is conducive for independent work. I will need to create an atmosphere that students are dependent and free to work by themselves as well as discuss with myself without hindering others opportunities to clearly think and reflect. I will need to focus less on the specific “plans for the day” and focus more on listening to students and “going with the flow”. It is important to sometimes navigate away from clear plans and written dialogues, and focus more clearly on where the students are at, and where they may need to be.

This module has allowed me to concentrate and reflect on writing in my own classroom. I was able to start understanding assessments and the variety of avenues in which these can be taken from. I have understood the importance of pulling from a large variety of assessment means in order to provide students with a multitude of different means to convey what they may know. It is important to begin to assess the students’ work in writing as it contributes and integrates into many other subjects including reading and language development.

Beth Kovalcik, Janine L. Certo

Summary

This article overviews a method in teaching a class of second graders poetry. Each day there is a different lesson focusing on one aspect of poetry; color and rhyme, repetition and alliteration, onomatopoeia, and collaborative poetry. This article also addresses how to provide extra support for students struggling with the mechanics of writing so they can still be authors of poems. At the end of this poetry unit, they created a “Café” within their classroom. They invited parents, decorated table with table cloths and vases, and provided refreshments. The morning of their poetry reading students rehearsed while the rest of the class would provide the reader comments, two things the reader did very well and one suggestion for something they could work on. When parents arrived, the class read their collaborative poem, and then each student read his/her poem individually on stage.

Discuss whether and how you would use this approach at your grade level, where it could fit within the language arts curriculum in your classroom, and what it offers for enriching writing instruction beyond what you thought about as you completed Task 1 of this module.

I would love to fit this into our language arts curriculum. It seems like a very positive unit, one that students enjoyed as well. I think that this could fit into our curriculum under our writing category. In our classroom we have journal entries with prompts, this could be something that instead of our usual prompts for a week or two we work on poetry in their journals. This enriches writing instruction because it forces students to think about details, to learn mechanics of poetry such as alliteration and repetition, and also gives them a chance to be an author and feel a sense of ownership. Their poems are something that need to be read aloud, and they should be the ones reading them. This provides a chance for them to learn speaking skills, reading skills, and pride in their work.

Also identify what you think you need to learn to do as a professional in order to use this approach well with your students.

Before I could use this approach, I would need to create a great classroom community where students feel safe and don’t feel like their taking a risk of being made fun of. This is important because students will not want to share their work if they feel this way. As a professional I need to learn skills and activities to do so. I also need to learn more about poetry and focus areas in poetic writing.

Types of assessment necessary for informing your unit development

The article I read for jigsaw, had a point in it where it discussed scripting and transcribing for students as they write. They mentioned that the goal of that assignment was poetry, not spelling and handwriting. This is something that I am going to keep in mind when planning my unit. I will make sure that I can identify the goal, and then decide if there is a way to further promote just that goal without other issues hindering that goal. Because of journals, I have an idea of where students are at in their writing but I need to informally assess students’ spelling and reading skills so I have an idea of what group to place students in during my unit.

Book Club Plus comparison

I see many representations of the Book Club Plus model in my second grade classroom. Although the students each have a reading book called Storytown, along with the rest of the school, it has not been used as anything other than a resource for them to use when they finish tasks early. For example, if children finish their morning work they are allowed to pull out their Storytown books and silently read. I am actually very thankful for this because I feel that my CT does a great job choosing texts that relate to the theme of each week. Also, because these Storytime texts are not forced upon the students, they seem to really enjoy reading them during the few extra minutes before transitions.

As mentioned earlier, our school uses the Radner model’s weekly learning priorities in which each week there is a certain focus or theme. I feel that my CT does a great job of picking texts that both go along with this focus as well as explore content that is meaningful to primary-grade children and specific enough to provide questions for discussion, as the BCP recommends.Our time for Read Alouds has a designated time and place as the BCP suggests which is every morning, after our morning meeting,on the carpet. During this carpet time the children have to both listen and speak. My CT lets them know whether she will allow them to ask/answer questions along the way or if she is going to read the book all the way through first and then go back to discuss.We also talk about the difference between an author and an illustrator and the genre of the book. For example, this week is all about predictions and my CT began by reading the first few pages of Flat Stanley and then stopping and making a prediction of what would happen next. The class talked about whether or not they agreed with her prediction before she started to read again. Later she stopped and asked the students to write a one sentence prediction of their own, as well as a picture of what they thought would happen next. My CT often gives the children opportunities to talk about the text, or “think alouds” in which they make connections, inferences, and predictions. The focus or theme of each week draws on the week before so for that reason students are able to make connections between the book we are reading one day and one we have read the day or week before. In this area, my CT keeps a book shelf that holds only the books we have read for Read Alouds so that the children are able to view what we have read as a class which also makes it easier for them to refer back to during discussions. There have been a few books that we have read more than once, each time with a specific purpose and we usually always have some sort of an extension that occurs from a Read Aloud. Every week so far we have done a graphic organizer in which the students have to recall three characters from the text, illustrate an important part of the story and then write a summary that includes who, what and why.

One part of BCP that I really agree with and happen to witness in my classroom is students having ownership of literacy. Each student in my second grade has their own book box with their name on it. Students are allowed to visit my CT’s personal library to pick out five books, using the five finger rule, to store in their box. During D.E.A.R, students are instructed to grab their boxes and bring them to their desk. I really love that the students get to pick not only one, but five texts of their own to read and you can tell they like it as well. My CT’s library is also an element of the classroom that I really like. It is in a corner of the classroom and includes over twenty bins that are labeled according to themes and genres, which makes it really easy for the children to look for books that interest them. There is a very diverse quantity of books and each one has a card inside, the kind you would find if you were to check out a book from the real library, which allows the students to take these texts home.

Each afternoon we also set aside time for Writers Workshop, in which each table is responsible for a bin that contains dictionaries, a thesaurus, and a folder for each student. In this folder is a booklet of three pages where the children are to write about the beginning, middle and end of a small moments story. We come back to these booklets every day for the students to reread, edit, and add more detail. Students are also responsible for keeping a Reading log and readers response journals. The reading log is kept in their individual book box and when a student has finished reading a book, they write the title, circle whether it was fiction/nonfiction, label it as hard, easy or just right, and then put a smiley face or frown to indicate if they enjoyed it. In their readers response journals, students take their opinion one step further by writing about the book that they are currently reading or one that they have just finished. If they are still reading the text they may make inferences or predictions and if they have finished reading, they can tell what they liked most about the book, summarize it or take it one step further and write what they think will happen next.

The one element of the BCP model that I have yet to see in my classroom is group reading. My CT is still very busy finishing STEP assessments for each of the students and until she can complete this, she doesn’t feel comfortable grouping the class. Once she is aware of everyone's reading level, she plans to incorporate daily guided reading and centers that include opportunities for children to read together or what she calls “buddy” reading. I feel really fortunate to be in a classroom in which the students have many opportunities throughout the day to read and write as well as view and discuss literacy.

Book Club Plus! Instruction vs. Literacy Instruction in room 106!

Book Club Plus framework seemingly focuses on a range of literary activities including community share, independent reading, writer’s workshop, shared reading, teacher read aloud and guided reading and literacy centers. This model focuses on the use of themes throughout all avenues, and especially focuses on creating authentic literacy contexts in the classroom. The instructional elements concentrate on the four core target areas: comprehension, writing, language conventions and literary aspects. This model creates an environment that gives students varies opportunities to engage in texts, talk and writing as students read, reflect and create.

Literacy instruction in my classroom occurs throughout much of the school day. The students have numerous opportunities to work with texts at a multitude of levels and through various activities. The school day begins with a teacher read aloud. The students engage in listening, speaking and strategizing to understand the text. There is much talk and discussion through such scaffolding by the teacher. The morning is similar to that of Janine’s morning routine, as described in Chapter Two. In this event, the teacher read aloud for both classrooms are used as the Book Club story. There is substantial discussion based on this book as well as modeling, scaffolding and facilitating strategies and skills through opening community share. In this instance, the Book Club Plus model parallels instruction in my own classroom. “In [both of these] settings teachers explicitly teach and model strategies that students can use to prepare for reading, to record ideas and responses, to make meaning as they read and to monitor their progress” (44)

From here the students engage in a writing element that directly correlates with the reading strategy presented at community share and teacher read aloud. The students follow by writing a piece on the comprehension strategy for the day. For example, today the focus was on visualization. After modeling, scaffolding and facilitating, the students were asked to complete a journal that described the “snapshots” they saw in their minds during the story and to create an illustration of what they had pictured. The students are also asked to engage in independent reading throughout the day when their work has been completed.

After the community share and teacher read aloud, there is an hour literacy block, which focuses on center work and guided reading groups. The students participate in writing, listening, independent reading, computer and word study centers. There is also a rotation into guided reading. I have yet to see this take place, as centers will begin next week. Currently the teacher is STEP testing in order to understand where the students are at and what needs to be improved. The teacher creates guided reading groups based on this information and their reading levels (hopefully these scores will be dynamic and thus reading groups will change). During this time, the students have been given time to read independently.

When time allows, the teacher will also facilitate word study. Here, the students are subjected to phonemic awareness (blending, segmenting), letter sound knowledge and spelling. Shared reading occurs on occasion.

In the afternoon there is also a block of time given to writer’s workshop. Here the students are given opportunities to write and create. In the morning, students are able to write and engage in critical thinking about texts. However, during this time I have only seen students creating based on their own lives. This time does not seem to meet the objectives described in Book Club Plus (Writing into, through, out of). However, the students are focusing on “what good writers do”. This does not seem to parallel the model from BCP, which seemingly focuses on writing in conjunction with reading.

“Language and literacy skills are learned through socially interactive settings that allow children to play with language”. In the classroom the students are often part of the discussions. Whether it is teacher led, student led, whole class or small group, there is frequent discussions happening in the classroom. These discussions occur in language arts, mathematics, social studies and science. Some discussions however are more meaningful than others. Though in my opinion, I feel the students should be given a greater chance to really articulate what may be going through their minds and more opportunities to investigate and construct their own knowledge, just as the Book Club Plus framework explains.

Overall, I believe that there are several avenues in which the Book Club Plus framework articulates that are also apparent in my own classroom. However, I feel that my classroom does not integrate all avenues into themes that would create a cohesive literacy instruction. Rather my classroom touches on all aspects that are covered throughout Book Club Plus but are not easily connected. Book Club Plus seemed to integrate all literacy instruction into themes that would be present throughout all the avenues.