Weeks of February 6th through February 29th

The weeks of February 6^th through February 29^th.

We started and finished the unit for the month of February, which was: Writing adapted Fairytales, Folktales, and Fables.  To kick off this unit we spent several days reading, investigating, and charting what we learned about Folklore.  Then, we began working on writing our own versions of classic tales and finally we made up our own stories.  I began the unit defining Fairytales, Folktales, and Fables.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the previous week, we started to investigate these types of books and charted what we noticed about how they began and ended, the characters, the settings, the plots, good vs. evil and who always wins, elements of magic, etc.  We were able to find patterns in these stories and list them, which will help the students when they begin to write their own versions.  The following week we were ready to talk about what should matter in our Fairytales.  For this unit I did not want to just give the students examples, I wanted the students to come up with their own ideas based on what they learned from our investigation of Folklore.  I wanted to take them through the whole thought process of what it takes to write a fairytale and in creating the rubric.  In order to do this, the students would have to research (which we did in our investigation), discuss and chart what they learned, determine the quality criteria (what should go into writing) of their own Fairytales, and determine what would count to get a four, three, two, one.

When I started this process with my students I wanted them to know, learn and understand the whole process.  My teaching points were directed so they would know what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they are going to show what they have learned.  My teaching points were: Writers think about what they want to write.  Writers research many types of writing to help them gain knowledge of the genre.  Writers determine from research what makes good writing and poor writing, decide the criteria (what will count), and list the criteria.  Writers plan and decide what they want to put into their writing to make their writing great and they can make a rubric to use that will help them write with quality.  Writers write their story from their heart and organize their writing based on the criteria they gleaned was important.  Writers reread their story and make revisions based on the rubric.  Writers share their writing with others to get another perspective and feedback based on the rubric.  Writers revise and edit their writing.  Writers share the changes they’ve made and get more feedback.  Writers write a final copy and can publish their writing.

We went through this process together for the remaining of the month.  It was a great experience to share this whole process with the students and to see how eager they were to come to our Writer’s Workshop each day and write and share their stories with each other.  From this experience and process, I learned that when my students were able to investigate, discover, inquire, create, decide, have choices, work together, compare, analyze, celebrate, etc. they were more engaged, self-motivated, and had joy in their learning.

In my last post I stated that I had new data from my students that I needed to analyze.  I have finished analyzing that data and the results have shown me that most of my students have made gains this year based on the Writing Continuum and most of my students have more of positive outlook on their writing based on the Writing Survey I gave to my students.  What the data does or doesn’t show is, the positivity in their eagerness, self-motivation, engagement, and joy that my students came with to Writer’s Workshop each day.

Results:

Week of January 30th.

Week of January 30^th.

I wanted to celebrate the students hard work they have been doing in their reading and writing unit this month.  In reading, the students have been reading series books.  They have been getting to know their characters and finding patterns in how the characters act.  They have also found patterns in they way the series go.  In writing, they have been writing reviews of food, books, and movies. 

During our Reader’s workshop on Monday, I told the students we would be celebrating our hard work in reading and writing by sharing a poster of our books in our series with the other second grade classes.  I told them we would work on the posters during reading and writing today and tomorrow (Tuesday) and share our posters at the end of the day Tuesday.  I shared an example of a poster I made so they could see the criteria they needed to include on their poster.  The students saw that I included a review of one of the books in my series, a list of other books in the series, a list of the characters in the books with pictures of the characters, a list of the patterns I found in each of the books, and a final recommendation of the series I read.  The students asked questions about the criteria and asked if they could add things to their poster if they wanted like; information about each character, and if they found something that happened in the series that was surprising to them (something that happened that was out of character or out of the pattern); the students took great notes during their reading so, they really had a lot of information.  I told them the criteria on my example is what they would need to get a 3 and anything else they could add would make their poster a 4.

The students worked like busy ants storing food for the winter and by Tuesday at the end of the day they were excited to share their poster with the other second grade classes.  After our sharing, we came back to our classroom and toasted with juice and ate cookies.

The next day we started our new writing unit.  The unit for the month of February is: Writing adapted Fairytales, Folktales, and Fables.  To kick off this unit we are spending several days reading and charting our findings then, we will begin working on writing our own versions of classic tales and finally we will make up our own stories.  I began the unit defining Fairytales, Folktales, and Fables.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week, we started to investigate these types of books and charted what we noticed about how they began and ended, the characters, the settings, the plots, good vs. evil and who always wins, elements of magic, etc.  We were able to find patterns in these stories and list them, which will help the students when they begin to write their own versions. 

The other part of this entry is supposed to focus on recent data.  I have recently collected data from another Writing On Demand (WOD) sample, which again, a WOD is when students are asked to write a personal narrative small moment story with a scripted prompt and no direct pre-teaching.  These WOD’s are scored by me using a continuum and sent to my district to try and determine the effectiveness of our writing curriculum.  I used this data initially as part of my base-line data.  Although I have this writing sample from my students, I have not been able to analyze all of it yet.  I should be able to post my analysis of the data on my next entry.

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.

Week of January 16th.

Week of January 16^th.

Last week our writing work focused on writing reviews.  We specifically focused on writing food reviews.  This week we continued to write reviews with a focus on books.  In our reading unit this month, we are learning about book series.  We are learning that in book series there are patterns.  Characters may act a certain way in the series, and there are certain ways the books start and end, etc. 

In beginning to think about how to write book reviews, I had the students look at some book reviews written by adults and by other students.  As we looked at the reviews, we made a list of what the students noticed about each of the reviews.  We were able to find patterns in the reviews and determine what we wanted the reviews to include.  From our study of book reviews, we determined that we liked when the review had an opening statement about the book, the review told a summary of the book, the review gave an opinion of the book and why, and the review had a recommendation to a specific audience.  After we made the list, we looked at the criteria and the rubric we made for our food review and we compared that to our list for book reviews.  We noted similarities and differences between the two and started to change our rubric accordingly. 

The next day I gave them some examples of reviews I wrote to determine the criteria, scoring, and why.  Again we followed the process and the students were able to pick out the 4 and 1 and express why.  We discussed the 2 and 3 in more detail.

The students are becoming more aware of the process and they are beginning to see that good writing has certain qualities like; neatness, being thoughtful, using the writer’s feelings, making meaningful word choices, and using detail to support the writer’s thoughts and feelings.

The next day I had the new rubric ready for them to review.

Trait and Criteria	1 = NO!	2 = No But!	3 = Yes But!	4 = YES!
Concept of Writing/craft: Students will: write reviews using their own thoughts, feelings, and “spicy” words to a specific audience	Has no opening statement. (I like this book). Does not write a summary. Does not have sentences supporting what you thought. Does not have a recommendation.	Has no opening statement but, may tell only what you are reviewing. Writes a brief summary but, is missing the beginning, middle, or end. Has only one sentence supporting what you thought. May or may not have spicy words. Has a recommendation but is not written to an audience and is not telling why you should or should not read the book.	Has an opening statement telling what you are reviewing and what you thought about it. Writes a brief summary of the beginning, middle, or end. Has two sentences supporting what you thought using spicy words. Has a recommendation but may be missing whom it is written for or why you should or should not read the book.	Has an opening statement telling what you are reviewing and what you thought about it using spicy words. Writes a brief summary of the beginning, middle, and end using detail from the book. Has three or more sentences supporting what you thought using spicy words. Has a recommendation to a specific audience telling why you should or should not read the book using spicy words.

The students were eager to write about the books they have been reading in their series books and they were excited to share their thoughts, feelings, and recommendations with their Critical Friend. 

While I was conferring with students, I noticed the students were giving more of a total recall of the book verses a brief summary, so we stopped and reviewed the difference of a total recall and a brief summary.  I wrote down what they noticed on chart paper, so they could refer to it as they wrote.

Week of January 9th. New Year and New Rubric.

Week of January 9^th.

This week we are continuing to review, remodel, and revisit.  I have remodeled routines, reviewed expectations, and revisited our Hopes and Dreams.  I shared my Hope and Dream with my students, which is: to help every student to learn to their full potential and to have every student enjoy coming to school every day.

This week during writing we are writing reviews.  We will focus on writing reviews of books, movies, and food.  For our rubric this week, I want the students to think about how they can write good reviews; remembering the criteria from the latest rubric and adding criteria that focuses on their thoughts, feelings, word choice, and audience.

For the start of our lesson on Monday, I created examples of a food review, reviewing tacos from our school lunch.  I put the reviews on the smartboard, I read them to the class, we read them together, and I had the students take time to think about the examples.  Before the discussion, I told the students to think about which example sounded the best and why?  The “best” example I wrote for the four had a beginning statement stating what I was reviewing and what I thought about the tacos overall.  Then, I wrote three sentences with “spicy” words explaining why I thought the tacos were great.  Next, I wrote a sentence making a suggestion on how the tacos could even be improved.   Finally, I wrote a sentence to a specific audience (the students) recommending the tacos at Carver Elementary School.  The poorest example didn’t say exactly what I was reviewing, there was only one sentence saying I like the food, there was no reasons given why I liked the food, there was no suggestion, and there was no recommendation.  In the other two examples, one was a No But, and one was a Yes But, based on the beginning statement, supporting sentences with spicy words, the suggestion, and the recommendation.  The students were easily able to pick out the 4=Yes and the 1=No but, we had to dig deeper into the 2=No But and the 1=No to determine the “what counts” in the writing.  Our discussion on day the first day was going a little long for the students so, I let them write about their favorite food.  I told them while they write to list reasons why they like the food.

The next day we dove back into our discussion.  We looked at the examples again and had time to make determinations as to why we scored each example.  We listed the criteria under what counts and the next day I presented the rubric to the students.  The students agreed on the criteria for the rubric and they were excited to start using it to help them write their reviews.

Trait and Criteria	1 = NO!	2 = No But!	3 = Yes But!	4 = YES!
Concept of Writing/craft: Students will: write reviews using their own thoughts, feelings, and “spicy” words to a specific audience	Has no opening statement. (I like tacos). Does not have sentences supporting what you thought. Does not have a recommendation.	Has no opening statement but, may tell only what you are reviewing. Has only one sentence supporting what you thought. May or may not have spicy words. Has a recommendation but is not written to an audience and is not telling why you should or should not.	Has an opening statement telling what you are reviewing and what you thought about it. Has two sentences supporting what you thought using spicy words. Has a recommendation but may be missing whom it is written for or why you should or should not.	Has an opening statement telling what you are reviewing and what you thought about it using spicy words. Has three or more sentences supporting what you thought using spicy words. Has a recommendation to a specific audience telling why you should or should not…using spicy words.

In this rubric, we decided to leave out the suggestion in the scoring of our writing, because the students thought they might not have a suggestion if they liked everything about the food, book, or movie.  I told the students that would be okay, but I would like them to try and write a suggestion if they could think of a way to make the book, movie, or food better.

The third day is when they were able to use the new rubric.  During their writing they were checking the examples and using the rubric to see if their writing had the same criteria as in the Yes column.  While I was conferring with the students, I noticed that students were getting hung up on word choices.  I stopped the writing and had a mid-workshop conference to discuss “spicy” words again.  We looked at our list of words we could and did change into spicy words that we had come up with earlier this year.  We reviewed these words and brainstormed a list of words students were thinking about.  Then we thought about what word we could use for that word that would spice it up.

The next days the students were able to finish at least one review, score it, change it, and share it with their CF. The students were really thinking critically about their writing and the word choices they were making.  It was fun to see them working so intently.

Week of January 3rd. New Year and Refresh.

Week of January 3^rd, 2012.  It’s a new year and January is re-month at our school.  Re-month means we are revisiting our school wide expectations as well as our classroom expectations, routines and procedures, and our academic goals, which are our Hopes and Dreams for the second half of the year.  In the classroom during re-month I will reteach and remodel what it is supposed to look like, sound like, and feel like, when we are listening, have class discussions, working independently, working in groups, and working with partners. 

For this first week back after holiday break, I decided to start our new writing unit, which is, writing reviews and persuasive writing using the last rubric we created.  I decided to stay with the latest rubric this week because, I wanted the students to be focused on what we left off with in our Writer’s Workshop, and on the expectations during this time; remembering how it should look, sound, and feel when we have Writer’s Workshop. 

This week I remodeled the mini-lesson format and reviewed what the expectations are.  Then, we practiced.  I remodeled independent work time and partner work time and reviewed the expectations.  Then, we practice.  We discussed the latest rubric we created, reviewing “what counts” in our writing, how we can use the rubric to help us write better, and how we can use the rubric with our Critical Friend to give each other feedback on our writing.

I was really glad I took the time this week to review.  The students were excited to be back in school and see their friends and there was a lot of unfocused energy in the classroom.  The students needed time to have some fun together and share about their events and experiences over the break.  The time it took to review this week and re-channel their energy will hopefully pay off next week when we revisit our Hopes and Dreams and focus on everyone working together so, we can all reach our Hopes and Dreams.