EDRG 604 - Blog #10 Homework

EDRG #604 – Blog #10 – HOMEWORK

What is meaningful homework?

·      Has an academic purpose

·      Efficiency (not too time consuming/needs to show evidence of learning)

·      Ownership – individualized/customized/offer different learning style options

·      Competence – students know they can complete it and time based

·      Aesthetic Appel – easy to read as well as thought provoking

What are my intended homework objectives?

·      Practice, preparation, extension

·      Nonacademic objectives: 1-learning responsibility 2-managing time 3-developing study habits 4-developing stamina to finish a task

·      Enhances achievement by extending learning beyond the school day

How will I offer feedback?

·      Embed instructive comments, pointing out omissions, and asking for explanations of thinking

·      Return homework in a timely manner

·      Make feedback another part of the learning process by providing explicit and informative feedback

·      Give students time to try again and get it right

·      Ask students to provide feedback to other students

·      Use rubrics so that students can compare their learning

How will I connect technology to homework?

·      Edmodo – a kind of “facebook” for kids where they can respond to questions posed by me or by other students (especially good for book clubs)

·      Khan Academy – a great place for students to practice math skills and to watch videos on any math concept imaginable.

EDRG 604 - Blog #9

Blog #9 Non-Fiction & Fiction

Non Fiction Text Features

Table of Contents

Diagrams

Captions

Glossary

Index

Real photographs

Headings/bold print

Maps

Organized around a specific topic or idea

Opportunity to learn new facts

Information that is true

The main purpose of expository text is to inform or describe. Authors who write expository texts research the topic to gain information. The information is organized in a logical and interesting manner using various expository text structures.

What specific features will support students learning English?

Which features will be challenging?

1. explicit instruction on how expository text is structured.
2. models of "what good readers do" to get information from expository text.
3. opportunities for practice so that ELLs can identify and interact with the text
4. opportunities for peer interaction with the content of the text in order to increase comprehension.
5. Margin bookmark: One way to allow students to practice making notes is by using margin bookmarks. Prepare scratch paper "bookmark" strips that fit in the crease of the textbook and within the margin of the print, or that can be attached to the outside margin using a paperclip. Students can use these bookmarks to make notes in the margin. Give them specific tasks such as, "Write the definition of one of the bold words in your own words," or "Write one fact, one question, and one thing that is important for you to remember." Provide examples so that students see how they can interact effectively with expository text.
6. Define the important information: As evidenced by those textbooks full of highlighting I mentioned at the beginning of the article, if a student doesn't know what's important, then everything is important. I like to have the students do an activity I call "Pack the Suitcase" so that they can start identifying the most important information in the text. In order to do this activity, give the students a short text (no more than two paragraphs) and a small envelope with a picture of a suitcase drawn or glued on it. Pass out pieces of scrap paper and tell students that they need to:

1. review the text
2. write "an important point" on each piece of paper
3. "pack" them in their suitcase.

Students can use as many or as few pieces of paper as they want. When the students are finished, tell them they are going on a trip but that they packed too much — they must look in their suitcase and take out half of their items. Students will really have to decide which items (points) are most important to bring on the trip. Finally, have students "travel" to the other side of the room and sit with a partner and "unpack" the suitcases. See if they have the same points, and discuss any differences and how they identified what was important in the article.

7.    Vocabulary taught by visual aids, diagrams, word cards, student friendly definitions, word games

Fiction Text Features

Characters/setting/plot

Chapters

Problem/solution

Figurative language – similes, metaphors, idioms, personification

Narrative: The main purpose of narrative text is to tell a story. Narrative text has beginning, middle and end, characters, plot or conflict, and setting. Usually, narrative texts are written from the author's imagination.

What specific features will support students learning English?

Which features will be challenging

·      Carefully select leveled text

·      Choose books with realistic characters

·      Readable/convincing text

·      High interest to reader

·      High interest/lower vocabulary

·      Compelling storyline

·      Topics and issues readers can make personal emotional connections

·      Supportive formatting includes illustrations

·      Straightforward plot (avoiding flashbacks, time shifts, changes in point of view)

·      Simple sentence structure

·      Effective characterization so reader “cares” what happens to the characters

·      Predictable resolution

Additional Information for both Non Fiction & Fiction

Students should be able to build from their native language, not be forced to ignore their native language.

Encourage students to read as widely as possible so that they can be exposed to a greater quantity and variety of words.

Partner read with strong readers. 

         When I think of my few ELL students, I can’t help but think of Sachal who is my lowest reader.  Right now, he is working with a group of boys who are obsessed with World War II.  They are researching and creating a video.  Whenever there is free work time, they beg me to let them work on their project.  Sachal has several World War II books checked out from the library and is willing to do the difficult work in order to make meaning.  One of the other boys working on the project is probably my highest reader and the two of them are often seen pouring over books and discussing information.  This project models naturally all of the suggestions listed above and happened without my suggestion.  This example supports the theory that if students are interested they will do whatever it takes to make meaning. 

Blog Entry #8 sheltered literacy lesson

Blog Entry #8 video clip of a sheltered literacy lesson

After watching Isabella Yurkovetsky teach a second time, it became even more evident to me that she has passion for her students and refuses to accept low-level performance from any of her students.  I like how she connected her pushing students to physical therapy and how she said, “you have to be a little bit tough and I know it hurts, but you gotta do it.”  The three important components that made her classroom so successful were creating community, making connections and teachable moments.  She demonstrated many of the sheltering techniques through her lesson.  Listed below are some examples.

I noticed the teacher used visuals when she was reviewing the rules as well as body movement when the kids practiced the rule of raising right hands for permission to speak.
Another example of sheltering her instruction was when she took the opportunity to give a brief preposition lesson and had the students actively engaged by standing up and repeating the sort of chant with her.

Another example of sheltering her lesson was her spontaneous preposition lesson.  I love how she had the kids all stand up and repeat the chant and the word clarification of on and in.  The students seemed very engaged in this portion of the lesson.  She was a master at adding meaningful vocabulary through the example of describing the spoon and pushing for explicit word choice.

She used body movement and pantomime in her rocking chair example as the students were listening and following along in their books.  She made no assumptions that they would know the meaning of rocking chair so she made sure there was clear understanding of that portion of the story.

I also noticed her quick conversations with the Russian boy about the Aloe Vera plant and how she honored his home language.  Her body language demonstrated to the kids that what they had to say was important and valued.

I loved, loved, loved the origami spinners and how she incorporated them into learning.  She obviously is very in tune with her kids and knows when she’s “got” them.  She was willing to put herself in the place of a learner in the room and let the kids teach her.  What a great example for her students.

I did not hear any idiomatic expressions but rather short simple statements with lots of clear expression and articulation.

Lastly, I appreciated how she told her own story of coming to the United States at 15 and feeling like she didn’t have a voice because of the language barrier.  It is obvious that she appreciates her students and makes no assumptions that they are not smart because they need support in learning English.

What a fabulous example of great teaching!

EDRG 604 - Blog #7 running records

Blog #7 running records

         According to the running records guru, Marie M. Clay, running records capture what young readers say and do while reading short, continuous text.  Running records taken at regular intervals can plot a path of progress.  What’s most important for the teacher to note is how the student monitors, solves words, and self-corrects.  This information can then be used to plan instruction for a particular student, a small group with similar needs, or the class as a whole.

         Both of my ELL students are on verge of exiting out of our school’s ESL program.   Mia is the weaker of the two.  I used the text from DRA2 titled, Trouble at the Beaver Pond Level 38.  The word count was 227 and she made only two errors – onto for into and long for lodge. This passage took her a long time to read (4:02).  The first word error (onto for into) tells me that Mia used both meaning and syntax.  What she didn’t do was look at the beginning letter and recognized this high frequency word.  Did it inhibit the meaning of the story?  If Mia went back and reread that section of the text, she would notice that the beaver began packing the mud “into” the dam and not “onto” the dam.  If she had some background knowledge of how beavers make dams she might not have made this error.  My teaching point for her would be to ask her to look again at the sentence.  My belief is that she would immediately self-correct.  I would ask her if the word she said changed the meaning of the sentence and I would listen for her to change her thinking about the difference between onto/into and probe further for her to give me other examples using those two words.

When thinking about her other error – long for lodge, I would say she made a meaning error because long does not make sense in the context of the sentence.  “The round, mud-covered roof of the long (lodge) rose above the water.” She used some visual cues because the beginning sounds are correct and they are both one-syllable words.  I would say to her, “you said long, does that make sense?”  Again, my instincts in working with her this year tell me that she would be able to self correct and then we could talk about the context within the sentence.  Mia is a budding actress and can pull off sounding like she understands everything she reads when on many occasions she does not.  My goal for her would be to continue to monitor her comprehension progress.

         Nour is also very close to exiting out of ESL.  He read the same passage at a much faster rate than Mia (2:05); however, he made a few more miscues than she did.  His first error was saying long for log.  He used visual cues in that he has said most of the letters correct.  Does he have any background knowledge of beaver dams?  Again, I’m not sure.   Inserting the word long for log doesn’t drastically change the meaning of the sentence.  (The mother beaver rested by the long (log) dam for a moment.  I would ask Nour to go back and reread the sentence to see if it was simply a “reading too quickly” error.  The next miscue he made was self-correcting div for dive.  Because he self corrected, I can assume he knows the silent e rule and that saying div probably didn’t sound correct to him both in that it is not a real word and that it doesn’t fit within the context of the sentence.  His next miscue was loge for lodge which he self corrected.  Again, I believe he used his visual cues and meaning and self corrected because his initial response did not make sense.  His last error was hind with a short i sound for hind (as in hind feet).  Because this word is a tricky word and is an exception to the rule, it is understandable that he might make this mistake.  My next teaching point for him would be to pull out some of those exception to the rule words for him to review.  I might ask Nour to reread the sentence to see if he could figure out the correct pronunciation using the context of the sentence.  There are enough clues in the sentence for him to figure out the hind means back feet.

I did not notice any features that reflect either Nour’s or Mia’s first language.  Both are proficient and I often forget that they are second language learners.  Sometimes their background knowledge is lacking as well as some of the deeper thinking in interpretation of stories. I’d forgotten how valuable taking the time to do running records can be for providing next steps in instruction for not only my ELL students, but for my mainstream struggling readers, too.  Always too much to do and not enough time.

Blog Entry #6 Learning vs. Acquisition

Blog Entry #6 Learning vs. Acquisition

When discussing learning vs. acquisition styles of learning it seems like one has to make a definitive stand on one side of the fence.   This reminds me of our last class where we  wrote a persuasive piece about authentic vs. formulaic writing.   Again, I find myself not able to commit to one side.  I strongly believe that the acquisition model is my “go-to” view, however, there are times when I would also use the learned approach.  I would not require students to look up words in the dictionary to write definitions for content area study but I would preteach some vocabulary words.  And, I might uses a variety of worksheets (D.L.I. for example) to teach parts of speech, i.e. adjectives, verbs, now, however, I would also extend that activity by having students identify words in their own writing or in books they are reading.   As I review my selections on p. 48 of our Essential Linguistics text, I find that there were several places where the choice included both learning and acquisition styles.  For example, make alphabet books on different topics. This is clearly a teacher directed activity, however, there is also the choice in topics.  Also, the phrase that says the teacher makes sure that students read only books that fit their level still offers choice. 

What struck me after doing this activity was the realization that there is a degree of comfort in learning/word recognition as it is more concrete and is easier to measure, however, when it comes right down to best practices, I can easily chose acquisition as the more long lasting learning of the two. 

After close examination of these two views and when planning lessons for my class, I will develop my activities using the acquisition lense knowing that the process is more important than the product.  

Blog Entry #2 Reflection on my writing experiences

Blog Entry #2 Reflection on my writing instruction experiences referencing learning/acquisition views

You’re asking me to go way back into my memory bank and recall my own writing experiences.  When I think back to the days at Calvary Lutheran Elementary School, I remember report writing most of all.  And. . .what I remember about that report writing is mostly copying word for word out of the World Book Encyclopedias.  I remember taking great care in making sure the words were spelling correctly and that my penmanship was letter perfect.  I’m sure my teachers used the learning way as their instruction model a  I’m sure it was the only model out there at the time.  Although the teacher did not expect nor want students to copy out of a textbook, I don’t remember any instruction on writing authentic responses. 

Junior high and high school writing instruction remains one big blur other than some social highlights here and there.  Chaos reigned at home and school gave me relief and a solid friendship base.  Writing instruction?  Nothing stands out other than more of the same from my elementary school days.  When reports were assigned, out came the World Book Encyclopedias and off I went.

College is where I began to develop a love of writing although it was still taught in a very traditional way. There was some of the “spillover” technique where we would read specific genres and then try our hand at imitating the particular style.  This was the first place where I “put myself out there” and took risks with writing and received positive feedback.  I remember one college professor commenting on my paper about my comma use.  He told me in very harsh words that I shouldn’t be making these kinds of errors on college level papers.  What he didn’t take into account was the fact that I never had a reason to pay any attention to commas until then.  He did, however, compliment me on my style and I ended up learning lots about the writing process from his class.     

Entry #5 Review of  2 children's books


Blog Entry #5 Review of 2 children’s books/cultural aspects

1) The first book I chose was, When I Was Young In The Mountains, by Cynthia Rylant.   This book describes an adult remembering the simple pleasures in country living.  The main issue for my ELL students, but also for most of my other students, would be background knowledge of living in the country and many vocabulary words that relate to that topic.  I might front load the class with a think-pair-share discussion of the following words and concepts pairing ELL students with students who might have some understanding of the following words:
coal mine
okra
johnny-house
swimming hole
pumping water from a well
baptism
cowbells
porch
Most of the words are accessible through context clues and the support of the illustrations, however, ELL students may not have any or enough background knowledge to truly understand the meaning of the specific vocabulary.

2) The second book I chose was, The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco.  It’s the story told so eloquently by Ms. Polacco of a homemade quilt and how it ties together the lives of four generations of an immigrant Jewish family, remaining a symbol of their enduring love and faith.  I use this book in my class every year as an example of the importance of family and also the uniqueness of certain mementos that are often passed from generation to generation.  Because this is the story of Russian immigrants coming to New York, there is lots of background related to the historical events of people coming to America.  It also contains many examples of Russian culture as well as Jewish culture.  I believe the story is one that children can relate to as most have heard stories from their parents and grandparents about their unique family history.

Again, I would frontload the students with vocabulary.  Here is a sampling of some possible words to discover together:

babushka
quilt
Sabbath
huppa
Jews

I like to use this book because it tells such a rich story of culture and the importance of family as well as traditions that many children may know much about.  It allows the opportunity for students from other countries to share traditions in their own families as well as my regular students to share theirs, too.

     In both books, I would make sure to make sure I included any and all words that are crucial to the understanding of the text.  I would also try and find multiple opportunities for these students to hear, say, read, and write any frequently used words from both texts.  I might have the students chose a couple of pages that were the easiest for them to read and have them practice fluency using those pages.   Since both books are picture books with artwork that purposefully supports the text, I might pull a small group of both my ELL students and my lower readers to reinforce the use of pictures to deepen understanding.