My Inquiry at the End of Term 1

At the end of term one, as I was sifting through my inquiry, I made notes of the major changes/ inputs that I have made this term to improve writing of my students. So what  have been the major focuses-

1. Vocabulary - I introduced new vocabulary every time we wrote. This was very carefully built on the existing knowledge of the children so it they could hold on to their new learning. This vocabulary is carefully chosen so that it is on the edge which will enhance their language potential.

2. Moving away from WALTs - I no longer talk about WALTs and Success criteria as these push children to focus only on one aspect of Writing. Instead I have started using a check list that guides students to make sure that they have followed the norms of writing.

3. Supporting children to use newly learnt words in various contexts - I do this by reminding, reiterating and encouraging them to use new words in their oral and written language.

4. Oral Paragraphs - Encouraging children to talk about things, situations and topic in detail. this has helped in moving them away from single word or a simple sentence descriptions to meatly, juices detailed explanations and descriptions. This has also helped in developing paragraph capability where they are required to express well developed ideas.

5. A clear understanding of topics that drives the expression of language - I develop field knowledge and talk about the real purpose of writing and who the audience would be. This encourages children to write in detail about a given topic.

Noticing and investigating for effective internal evaluation

It is the beginning of the year and I am finding out where my students are in their Reading, Writing or Maths. I am on the noticing phase of the evaluation cycle given below.

Initial testing results in Maths showed

The graph above shows that more than 50% of students were below or well below in Maths. I also noticed that these students were the ones who were very disengaged during Maths times as well.
I had no clue why they did not like doing Maths and so I collected some student voice.
This was mainly based on their past experiences in their previous classes.

I asked them if they liked Maths and if no why? 
These were their reasons -

7 out 10 said that they did not like it
7 out of 10 said they find it hard.
It's always a catching up with their peers and it seemed that they knew very little.
They were kind of scared that they might not understand and get into trouble for that.
because they were shy to ask if you went wrong.

When I asked the similar question of my Stage E5 and 6 students they said that-

Maths was like a good challenge
When I go to the shops they could count the money to give to the shopkeeper.
because it's fun.

What does this mean for me as a teacher? because I need to tip the way the majority of students respond to Maths learning. So here is my plan-

• Talk to the class and tell them that Maths is no ghost.
• Tell them that anyone can do Maths
• Support them and show them that I care when they get stuck.
• Slow down when they do nor understand.
• Celebrate when they accomplish.

COA - Lesson 12: Analysing writing

The purpose of this lesson was to encourage students to write narratives that will captivate the reader's interest. To do this I wanted them to analyse samples of writings using a rubric. The process allowed them to have a look at how teachers would be marking samples. It also gave them an insight into what they usually miss doing when writing as they were not aware of the progressions in the rubric. Now when having looked at the rubric, most of them have set a higher goal for themselves and are trying to achieve it.

The lesson is done in 2 sessions. Session 1 is on how good planning leads to good writing. The focus is mainly on collaborating ideas to give more depth to writing. The second session is on using a rubric to analyse writing.

Click here to view this lesson.

My Reflections

Through this lesson I have tried to extend students’ writing by encouraging them to write captivating stories for their audience. Till now most students in my class have been writing narratives without much detail. One of the reasons why I do not see the trend changing is because I need to focus more on vocabulary that children need for their writing. An attempt has been made to collaborate so that students get more ideas of each other to write a detailed narrative. I have also tried to extend them by using dialogue in their narratives.

At the end of the lesson, some students used the dialogue and some forgot, so I reminded them to use the dialogue they had written in their plans.

My students still need a lot of practice to fluently use appropriate dialogue in the correct place, in their writings. At present, they are randomly inserting dialogue anywhere they please. So I will read them books during Teacher read time. The purpose will be to draw their attention to how the author uses dialogue to enhance meaning. I would do this through a strategy known as 'think aloud'.

The second part of the lesson mainly captures their understanding of how to use the rubric and be able to analyse and give feedback to their buddies and themselves. To begin with, students have used three elements of the rubric. These are:

• Captivating audience’s interest
• Punctuation
• Character and setting.

I was pretty pleased with the group of students who had their  first attempt at analysing a piece of writing written by one of their classmates. I did not disclose the name of the student whose writing I had used for the purpose of moderation.

It was interesting to see how they collaborated and discussed with each other when moderating the sample. They all decided on a mark and gave reasons on why they think that mark should be given. This was a moment when I felt very successful as a teacher. I was proud of them. This exercise has also given me an indication that some of my students are ready for further extension.