A student creating her own success criteria in her independent book

I discovered a studious child in my class who created their own success criteria chart in their independent writing book ... so cute...I was blown away she was transferring what she does in her guided into her independent.  She highlighted her successes as well... so proud.

Student Led Conferences Term 2 Week 10

We had two afternoons of Student Led Conferences in week 10.  The students were in charge of showing their parents their learning. Each student really enjoyed showing their work to their parents.

There was a range of equipment out on the benches for students to demonstrate lessons to their parents.  The class had written a list of possible things to show their parents and they had made their own little plan of what they were going to demonstrate.

Some children showed their parents the karakia and himene, the weather in te reo Maori and English which are all part of a 'Helpers' job in the mornings.

Some children made their parents solve maths problems they created for them to do on the little white boards.

What's after Identifying your own Next Step - Recrafting

 

Using the Child's identified Next Steps to Re-craft their writing:

This child self assessed her writing by highlighting her successes within her story. She then set her Next Step which was to write a question. So instead of leaving it there she is now required to re-craft her writing by including her Next Step into her current story - by adding a question.

 

"Will I drown?"

Here is her question she inserted into her story after several minutes of rereading her story and looking at her picture plan, plus probing from the teacher to think how her characters are feeling at the beginning, middle and end of her story. What could your characters be thinking?

She had to put a degree of thought into this process and finally came up with her question.

 

Where to from here? / What next?

This is the first session of re-crafting I have done with this writing group.  I will definitely implement this into my programme as it seems to tidy up the Next Step process and the children can see a means to an end of why even identify their next step.

 

Handwriting and Next Steps

Question: Can my students evaluate their handwriting by identifying their next steps?

My class already assess their own work by using a highlighter to identify their best letter that meets the criteria of:
1. correct starting point
2. touching the top line
3. touching the bottom line
4. correct formation

First Attempt: I asked my class today to write down their next step in handwriting and most of them were able to do this.  The ones that struggled were the ones who thought their work was faultless.  So then they brought me their books and I could help them out in identifying what they needed to work on next.

Next Step: I would definitely add this to our handwriting programme, perhaps those that can't find anything to work on could ask a peer to help assess their next step.

Reading Inquiry - Student Agency

After reflecting upon my video recording of my reading lesson and looking at the student feedback sheet. A gap I would like to address is Student Agency - how are they contributing to the lesson?

*  Will letting children choose their story from a Junior / School Journal address Student agency? If the group all chose a different story will I still be able to get them to achieve the WALT when addressing multi-text reading within one group?

 

I started my first Student selected story today.  I was surprised at the choice that was made - Hinemoa and Tutanekai. They chose this story because they did it for the end of year production last year.  My WALT was 'prediction' and changing their thinking if their prediction is not correct. However only one could make a prediction as she did not know the story. So I changed my WALT to understanding unknown words by using the picture, using the sentences / clues around that word to help us work it out.  They were all excited about being able to read this story (except one who wanted to read the non-fiction text).
 

My next step: to try multi-text reading (to keep all the group excited about reading)

 

Writing and next steps

Inquiry: Can the children select their next step in writing?

 

Last week I decided I would like children to take notice of their co-constructed success criteria  and to identify their next learning step.
 

How will I go about this?

When they are finished their story children will highlight which success criteria they have included into their writing. The one that is left un-highlighted will become their next step.

2/9/15

How's it going? ... Great!! Children are able to tell me what their next step is and write it into their books.

The children write NS (stands for Next step) then they write down what they missed out of their story according to their success criteria. This photo shows their WALT and Co-constructed Success Criteria on the right of the picture, this child has highlighted the aspects they have included in their story and has chosen to focus on question marks and conjunctions next time. 

 

 

Next Step: do they apply their next step into their next lot of writing or do I get them to add a sentence to that same story to address their next step? 


25/09/15
Here is one way I addressed - What to do with my Next Step:
This example of work shows a 3 sequential picture plan of Maui and the Stars. The WALT was to retell a Maori Legend. I found that most of the class had not used time connectives in their last recount and their Next Steps that they identified was to write time connectives....Hence their challenge in this piece of writing was to use the time connectives that they had pre-selected and recorded on their plan.

 Pre-selected time connectives: First / Next / Finally
It worked as I could say throughout the lesson have you included what is in your plan? and most children could say yes and if not they quickly inserted the time connector.
 

Mixing Ability Writing Groups:

25/8/15

Will mixing ability groups for writing improve writing  ideas (quality) and/or improve student’s self-esteem towards writing?

 

I would like to find out if mixing my writing groups instead of streaming the groups will help with stimulating more ideas to those that need it.  All groups can help co-construct success criteria.  They are able to use a highlighter to mark which success criteria they have included in their writing and they can instantly see what their next step is in regards to that story. Hence they are able to tell me their next step or record this into their books.

 

However, I find that my 2 lower groups struggle to generate ideas and group/peer conversations (student discourse) doesn't flow as well as the more able groups.

 

 2/9/15
I have started mixing my groups - in actual fact I am trialling 2 groups at a time - one of lower ability and the other of  higher ability. So I haven't mixed the individual groups as yet just joined them together (small steps for me).  This is going well so far!!! Lots of sharing of ideas. One higher ability child was in awe of a lower ability boy as he had written more than him after 3 minutes
.
What went well: no one was stuck for an idea when they came to write down their ideas.

Next Step: Will mix my 4 groups for real now and try it out week one Term 4... just finding taking 2 groups at a time too big.