Writing experience
This writing experience required a lot of set up, and some committed acting by myself. Prior to the learners arriving at school I set up the classroom ready for the experience, including taping coloured platforms to the floor and printing flags for each reading group.
The section of the classroom was closed off to the students with a sign containing very little explanation. When asked about it, I also gave very little explanation, therefore the learners began to speculate. This helped to create an illusion that something big and exciting was about to happen. During silent reading I set up a fake webcam on the tv and pretended to test it out on my computer, I also took a fake phone call about it. By the time I explained how the game was going to work with the webcam picking up the movement of the flapping arms, all my learners were 100% convinced of this events authenticity (despite being in reality 100% fake).
At the end of the experience when I explained I had tricked my learners, everyone (eventually) agreed that believing in the event had made it more exciting and fun. There were no hard feelings.
Leading the learning
The learning intention for this lesson was to stick to and follow a plan while writing. The idea behind this learning intention was to help learners write their own plans in the future. As many of my learners have been finding it difficult to structure full writing pieces. You can see in the video that I am expecting only one paragraph to be written at a time, and am putting timed pressure on each paragraph. This is to create an element of pressure that I believe is helping my learners (boys in particular) to stay motivated when writing - See my blog for more on this inquiry. I am also modelling and providing extra time to recraft each paragraph.
Reflection/ Next steps
This was the second writing session on this piece, and as you can see from the video the learners are still very engaged and motivated to write on the subject. What's interesting about this video compared with previous videos is that you can see the whole class, rather than the one group I usually film. This video does however, make it appear that there is quite a lot of noise happening while the learners are on the mat, and sounds like I as the teacher am doing quite a lot of shouting. This is actually a slight distortion due to the way the microphone is picking up the audio, and the location of the microphone at the back of the room. Overall this section of the lesson was still very successful, and most learners were happy to share their ideas.
Class Site Content
Reading Group Olympics
Walt: stick to and follow a plan while writing.
1. You will be doing an exciting writing experience with your teacher.
- You will need to follow all instructions by your teacher carefully.
2. Following the writing experience you will need to paticipate in a class discussion.
- Help contribute ideas towards a Vocabulary document. This will be used to help you write exciting sentences throughout your piece of writing.
3. Open the writing task. - Follow the plan and instructions on this doc.
- You will be writing each paragraph separately so please follow the instructions of your teacher.
4. Check with a buddy.
5. Share on your blog.
