On October 15th, I taught my first lesson in
writing that was centered on a district-made checklist that was created to help
the students keep them accountable in their own writing process. The checklist
when I began planning my lesson was very advanced in the wording and I knew
that my students would not be able to understand what it was asking of them.
For example, one part of the checklist asked if they had referred to any mentor
texts. I knew that this would be hard for my students. I tried to explain it in
a kid friendly way the best I could, because I was unsure if I could change the
checklist since the district had created it. I then created a worksheet for my
students to set two goals for their writing based off of what they had not yet
completed in their writing piece and taped those goals to the inside pocket of
their writing folder to hold them accountable. The purpose of this lesson was
to help my students see that writing is a process and that in their own lives
beyond their third grade year they will not be able to produce a great piece of
writing without going thru the revision stages. I also wanted them to see how
real authors don’t just create great pieces of writing without taking a lot of
time to make sure it is the best it can be without error.
This lesson
went really well. The only thing that was difficult for my students was
navigating through the checklist on their own and understanding what kind of
goals they could set for themselves. After circulating around the room and
clarifying student questions about the checklist, I found that the majority of
my students were really grasping the purpose of the checklist and created some
really good achievable goals for their writing pieces. There were about five of
my students that really did not understand what I meant by writing achievable
goals for their writing piece based off of the checklist. For example, one of
my students wrote, “I want to be a good reader in the fourth grade,” which was
completely off-task and showed that he was completely confused. This was
however, one of my students who had to be redirected in my lesson, because he
was not paying attention.
After
sitting back down again and rethinking the events that transpired in my lesson,
I thought that those students who were having a difficult time with the lesson
may not have seen the value in the checklist because the first half of the
checklist was already completed, and they may have felt that it was redundant.
This may have caused them to feel like they had already completed everything on
the checklist and began to zone out during my lesson or just checked all of the
boxes on the list and then felt that there was nothing more they needed to do.
Many of my students at this point still did not grasp that there was more to
writing than just writing a first draft. They did not understand that their
pieces were not perfected, and this may have clouded their understanding of why
we were doing this activity and how these goals would help them.
The
students helped me see that a lot of them really understood how to objectively
look through their stories and identify steps that they have not completed and
knew how to use the checklist to create great goals for themselves. After this
lesson I feel that my students are really beginning to grasp what it means to
monitor their own progress. Through this lesson I realized that my students
already knew that in writing they can’t publish a story without going through
the process of editing and revising, but they just are not sure of all of the
areas that need to be worked with before they can publish. Many of my students before
going through this checklist had already started the revising process on their
own, and it helped me to see that they just need a little extra guidance in
what to focus on while editing.
After the
lesson, I had my students leave their goals out on their table with their
writing folder. I then walked around the room, read their goals, taped the
goals of students who had good achievable goals to their inside pocket of their
folder, and then tucked in their checklists into the folder pocket. I will begin
my next lesson by addressing misconceptions that I saw and also discussed with
the students that before moving onto the next stage the students had to write
their two goals and show them to me. I also followed up with the students to
discuss with them how to change their goals. I have constantly throughout my
lessons referred back to their goals and discussed as we do each step to cross
their goals off if they have worked on and completed one of their goals to help
them see how they are keeping themselves accountable.
If I were
to re-teach this lesson again I would change the checklist to make it more
understandable for my students. I also would probably change the checklist to
just pertain to the editing/revising stage of the process. For instance, the
first half of the checklist were things that the students did at the very
beginning of the writing process, so it was kind of redundant. This I feel
would help my students focus on their writing process at the stage they were
at. I also would change the way I presented the lesson. There was a lot of
explanation with this lesson, so I would probably have the students discuss
with me what each step of the checklist meant to them. I also would explain
more through modeling rather than explaining the checklist and then on top of
that model the process. My kids were somewhat checked out while I was just
going over the checklist, but were completely in tune when I was using my own
story to illustrate what they were to do. This way I can help model for them
rather than explaining and modeling, which will save me in time because I also
went over in my time. This would help my students understand the lesson and
would help them improve in their own skill without boring them or overwhelming
them.
Through
this lesson I learned a lot already about my students’ writing and how to use that
knowledge to help me when I conference with my students individually. The goals
written and their progress checklist help me to have a base in my conferencing
to help me monitor their progress. I also learned from this lesson the
importance in allowing students to set their own goals and decide what they
need to work on. Not only does it help me to encourage my students, but it gets
them more invested in making improvements, because it is more meaningful. I
definitely need more practice with helping my students set achievable goals and
learning how to use those goals to guide my conferencing. I also would like to
learn and develop skills for conducting on-going informal conferences.
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