The first group helped me put together a few ideas that we have discussed throughout the institute. I liked the idea of using "Shrinklits" as alternative way to teach summarizing. I would share a few Shrinklits with students as examples, and then ask them to create their own Shrinklits given the content we were learning. Mentor texts help inform student writing! They also made me think about the place of writing workshops in my classroom. What would they look like in a Social Studies classroom? Should I go all in, or use some hybrid form of the writing workshop?
I also got a great take away from the last group to present today. The article my group read on Writing to Learn and Meta-Analysis convinced me that I need to stress student reflection after giving writing to learn strategies. The article goes into great detail about the importance of focusing on the process students use to write rather than focusing on the writing itself. Learners are then free to focus on why they made choices about there writing, and how to improve based on those choices.
Kenny, you hit on some really BIG and important ideas in your blog post. Ones that surely will take time to reflect on and consider.
ReplyDelete1. Mentor texts are key to helping students write. Katie Wood Ray (author of pedagogy books) reads mentor texts when she is asked to write book forwards and for specific magazines so she knows what her writing should "look like".
2. Deciding how much to bite off when you return to your classroom is always a personal choice. A social studies workshop, hmmm? What a about a writing workshop time within the social studies class?
3.Reflection - I'm all about it.
We will miss you on Wednesday and Thursday.