week of January 23rd.

Week of January 23^rd.

This week the students continued to write book reviews of books in their series and we wrote a movie review.  For the movie review, we looked at a few movie trailers and read some reviews.  The students “convinced” me to use the same rubric for writing the movie reviews as we did for the book reviews.  The students had a lot of fun writing about the movies they saw, sharing parts they liked with others who saw the same movie, and recommending movies to friends who had not seen the movie yet.

For the next part of this entry, I am writing a reflection of my Action Research so far based on some prompting questions given to me by my facilitators for my Masters program.

Step 1: Review the following questions:

•  How do you communicate your action research with your student and their parents?  I have been communicating my AR with students simply by sharing our process together and telling my students why we are creating the rubrics together; to help them become better writers and to help them think about how they can determine their own quality of work to assess their own learning.

•  How do you communicate your action research to your administration?  I would like to communicate my action research more with my administration and share what I’ve been working on.  So far, I have only shared my initial idea at the beginning of the year.  In my mind this is tricky for several reasons but, I will think about how I can communicate my work.

•  What do you hope is the outcome of your action research?  I hope students will be more aware of their own learning process; using student-created rubrics for learning.

•  How do you plan to sustain what you have started?  I have done a lot of groundwork in research and in coming up with examples for good and poor writing.  I know that I will be able to continue this process with students in the future and even improve on what I’ve begun.

•  Who or what has been the most helpful resource for your work?  The student-created rubric model, my districts writing continuum and curriculum, my schools literacy specialist, and my students themselves has been the most helpful resource for my work.

•  How do you involve your learners in action research planning?  I involve them as we discuss criteria for writing and as they give feedback on the rubrics.  I plan according to where they are and what they are saying, and where I want to take them in writing.

•  How do you see your action research impacting your teaching?  I am learning how to involve students in their own learning and they are becoming teachers of writing themselves.  I am beginning to learn how to teach in more ways with the student’s involvement.

•  How do you see your action research impacting your students' learning?  My students are learning how to assess their own work, they are more involved in their learning, and they are having fun looking for what matters in writing and it has carried over to other subjects.

•  What evidence do you have that supports your action research?

•  What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started your inquiry process?  I wish I had known more about some of the specific needs of my students and I wish I knew the second grade writing curriculum my district was using.