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From Ellin
Keene--- I was lucky during our recent Regional Meetings. I wandered among the school teams, reading over your shoulders, watching you construct, using the framework, plans for instruction in your own and colleagues' classrooms. The plan from Scranton Elementary in Cleveland caught my eye and I asked Anne to tell us a bit about the plan and provide a progress report for us in this newsletter. Heartfelt thanks to Anne and her colleagues at Scranton. I so hope we'll have more plans to share in May and beyond. . . |
As I began planning for the rest of the third quarter, I knew I wanted to continue focusing on the deep comprehension strategy of questioning. Many of my first graders have begun to question and wonder about what I read to them, but are they using this strategy when they read independently? That was still my concern. So I knew I needed to pursue questioning a little further in my guided reading groups. In small groups, students will be encouraged to question before, during and after reading. Questioning will be reinforced when I record their questions on sticky notes and add them to a chart. I was also concerned about giving my students enough guidance using context clues. I was not sure whether I had modeled this enough; because from my observation, I knew they did not have it mastered yet. They were still stumbling over what to do when they hit an unknown word, especially one that they could not sound out. After examining the framework and my district's standards, I decided to focus my surface level instruction on using grammar and structure of text to predict new words. During our crafting sessions over the next few weeks, I will focus on context clues to predict new words. During small groups, I will observe whether or not the students are predicting unknown words using context clues. Next, I knew I had to continue the writing process since we were planning to publish short stories. When I looked at the framework, I found the deep writing intention: children learn that revision will mean adjusting parts of their writing to communicate meaning more clearly. So then I chose the surface writing intention: use a range of punctuation including periods and question marks to demark sentence boundaries. Since we were still focusing on questioning in reading, I decided it would be appropriate to emphasize correct punctuation in writing. Furthermore, I have observed in my students' writing that they often forget to mark the end of sentences. Therefore, the writing and reading intentions seemed to go hand in hand. Since surface strategies are best taught at the moment they are needed, publishing our own books is an appropriate time to teach ending punctuation marks. As I completed the planning protocol, I carefully considered the area of the form titled Physical Space Changes. I considered ways to better organize our classroom. I decided our book corner needed a face-lift. It's time for book frenzy. Furthermore, I have observed that our writing center is not functioning as well as it should. I need to stock the writing center with small booklets in which they can practice writing a book before our books are published. I will also demonstrate ways to use these new materials. The protocol form brought to my attention the resource of parents. The writing center may be an opportunity to include more parents in our classroom. I will invite parents to help in our classroom writing center, including assisting individual students. Parents who cannot volunteer in the classroom can help out by making small books for the writing center. CORNERSTONE PLANNING PROTOCOL Quarter
3 Quarterly
Teaching Intentions (taken from the Teaching Intentions layer
of the Cornerstone Framework) Deep Reading
- Schematic - ask questions and use them to better understand text Deep Writing -_Children learn that revision will mean adjusting parts of their writing to communicate meaning more clearly. They learn that revision includes adding, deleting and reorganizing information based on their purpose and audience. Surface Reading - use grammar and structure of the text to predict new words; read with fluency; use common blends in order to build and pronounce words Surface Writing- understand the features of a sentence and expect sentences to make sense (coherence) and BE ACCURATE (agreement) ; make collections of important words of personal interest and significant words related to particular areas of study. Speaking/Listening- ask relevant, penetrating questions of others Living
Language Deep Structure Intentions - Book Frenzy; Surface Structure Intentions - ensure that the tools a writer needs are available and how to use them Resource
People: Community Resources/people________________________________ for (purpose)__________________________________________ Experiences
Planned (speakers, activities, student products/presentations): Physical
Space Changes (changes in configuration of tables/desks, location/accessibility
of books, placement of materials, placement of easel/chart paper) Some beginning thoughts about Crafting Sessions this quarter-Stress the importance of using different strategies to learn new words. Recall different strategies we have learned already. Students may recall using picture clues, beginning letters, looking for know words within new words. Today we will learn how to read unknown words by paying attention to the context of the sentence around the new word. Model for students how to skip the unknown word, read on and go back to determine the unknown word based on the words we do know. What makes sense in that sentence? Communication
Planning (email, phone, letter, conversation): |
