Percy's Complication

To round out last year, my colleague and I cranked out a unit of learning based on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief. We covered a ridiculous amount of ground in the last couple of weeks, and the kids loved it.  Who am I kidding? I loved it.

So, when I found out that the history topic my current class needed to learn about was Ancient Greece, I could feel Percy tapping me on the shoulder. I quickly bought the ebook for my iPad and set to work planning.

The learning outcomes for this unit are quite different (and the kiddos are brand new to me) so our learning is, of course, very different. One thing I was super keen to keep though was a narrative project. The basic premise: choose an Ancient Greek god and write a narrative with the demigod child of that god as the protagonist. The god must be involved in either the complication or the resolution somehow.

And therein lay the problem or the complication.  I discovered pretty quickly that the class needed a review of narrative structure. (Ha! See what I did there? Oh dear, I'm laughing at my own jokes. That's sad.)

I gave out sticky notes and we used everyone's contribution to co-construct a shared understanding.

Plot Mountain Anchor Chart by Markeeta Roeis licensed under a 
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Plot Mountain Anchor Chart Introduction Detail  

by Markeeta Roe is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Plot Mountain Anchor Chart Series of Events Detail

by Markeeta Roe is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Plot Mountain Anchor Chart Characters Detail 

by Markeeta Roe is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Again, the anchor chart has been a great scaffolding tool for many of the kiddos. They've also been working with a graphic organiser I created to mirror the chart. I've built the organiser into the project's assessment rubric and conferred during this pre-writing stage to offer 'feedforward' (rather than 'feedback').  As fate would have it, I happened to read a blog post (that you can read here) about this very idea over the weekend.

“Avoiding Masterchef style feedback” a new post about feedback and critique https://t.co/XiwiUE9pjc

— Tom Barrett (@tombarrett) June 13, 2016

@tombarrett Great piece. Highlights -for me- the importance of giving feedback at sts' pre-writing point. Need to do more of this. Thanks!

— Markeeta RoePhillips (@MarkeetaRP) June 13, 2016

It was rather affirming to read, and a timely reminder to keep it up.

I'll update as the narratives take shape. I can't wait to see how the kiddos incorporate their inquiries into Ancient Greece into their narratives.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers:

Standard 1 Know the students and how they learn

Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it

Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Mentor Sentences - Part II

Remember my mentor sentence from yesterday?

I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.

As promised: I asked my students if they would share some of their sentences. Not everyone was keen but here are some from the those who were:

I have abandoned the bloody shackles of prison and moped the land on long-forgotten charms. (Gab)
I have killed the anger inside of me and brought the best on I could be. (Jaz)
I have travelled the adventurous ocean of Atlantica and swam the darkest reefs with my sharp brown  spear. (Tiahnee)
I have sung the beautiful music of Australia and performed on bright-shimmering stages. (Sara)
I have surfed the light-hearted waves of shores and swum the waters on giggling-golden beaches. (Tayla)
I have left the tight hold of worlds and escaped the Earth on small-angel wings. (Avril)
I have caught the beautiful birds of Adelaide and brushed the clouds with the softest-white feathers. (Kyra)
I have driven the dry roads of Australia and jumped the jetty on sandy-wet beaches. (Nikita)
I have stomped the monster on Pandora and jumped off the castles on mountains. (Corey)
I have run the muddy track of Mount Magnificent and jumped the finish line on quivering legs.  (Riley) 
I have spun the sticky webs of spider and wrapped the flies on joyful webs. (Blaed)

I'm impressed. I hope their parents (with whom I've also shared this blog post) are too!

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 3.7 Engage parents/carers in the educative process 
Standard 5.5 Report on student achievement
Standard 7.3 Engage with parents/carers

Writer's Notebook

Do you use a writer's notebook?  I'll be honest, I don't.  Yet.   Today, a colleague (Melissa Thiele) and I were lucky enough to attend a workshop entitled The Writer as Collector - Using a Writer's Notebook presented by Alan J Wright in collaboration with the Australian Literacy Educator's Association, and this is about to change.

I've been reading about, and wanting to use, writer's notebooks for quite some time now. Intrigued and inspired by the concept since first hearing of them, I've never taken the plunge because I've also been a bit confused.  How do they fit? I mean, REALLY fit without 'taking away' from all the other cogs in the wheel of our literacy block? 

This morning I found the answer: they don't take away from the other cogs. They have the power to replace many of them. Yes please, sign me up.

Alan's presentation was a well structured collection of stories, which was fitting considering the title of the workshop, and the intended learning.  Through his own memoir like tales and anecdotes from students and teachers with whom he's worked, Alan was able to share his passion for living the writer's life and carefully placed his writer's notebooks at the very heart of it. As participants we lapped it up, following him from spiders under corrugated iron to the aisles of K-Mart all while he demonstrated the value of writer's notebooks. All while he demonstrated how he lives the writer's life. And for me that was the central message: as a teacher of writing I need to be a writer.  

And so, I stopped at Officeworks on the way home. I have two potential books. My mind is already 'rehearsing' the first marks I'll make in my notebook. I'm excited!

Is it silly that I so love the look of the top
book that I don't want to cover it?
 It reminds me of my childhood pen pal.

Not just for myself though. As much as I love writing and look forward to growing as a writer personally, I am excited to share this tool with my class.  Not yet though.  As new (or potential) notebook users we discussed the 'how' of bringing notebooks into our learning spaces. There seem to be two main streams of thought: teacher as 'expert': developing a degree of comfort and familiarity with the process first and then using the teacher's notebook as a tool before students begin OR teacher as 'co-learner' alongside the students. Knowing myself and my students, I want to spend some time living with my own notebook before taking it into our learning space. 

Even before I introduce the notebooks to the kiddos there are so many simple and practical ideas I took from today that I can start using straight away.  Here are a couple:

• Presenting a beautiful/powerful sentence and asking how the author has used punctuation (or sentence structure etc.) to create that beauty/power. Can we use punctuation (or sentence structure etc.) the same way? What can we learn from the way the author has used punctuation (or sentence structure etc.)?
• Taking a piece of writing and replacing the 50c verbs with $5 verbs. E.g. Replace fall with plummet.
• Presenting a short passage of quality writing as a model and having a go at writing a piece in that shape/style/voice.

I have LOTS more to say about this workshop but not today; need to let it percolate a little first. I will share my progress with my notebook and, when it happens, my kiddos' notebooks. Who knows, they may even let me share some of their writing?

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 2 Know the content and how to teacher it
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning 

Quick Writes

Today I heard something that made my heart sing. I had asked the kiddos to get out their writing books because we were going to do a quick write. One of my very reluctant writers responded with

"Oh yeah, I love quick writes!"

Without a drop of sarcasm.  Oh yeah indeed!  He went on to write nearly half a page in ten minutes. That might not seem like a lot, but for him it's a massive improvement. And the pride on his face was spine tingling.

Our quick writes play an important part in our writing block. I provide a prompt (such as 'the door slammed...'), and occasionally some sort of parameter (such narrative), set the timer and say GO. Ten minutes later I say STOP and depending on whatever else we've got going on during our writing block we may swap with a critical friend or just move on.

There are multiple purposes and benefits of quick writes. For the kiddos:  improving stamina and creative fluency; regular chances to practise being a critical friend; playing with different styles without committing to a lengthy piece; and as it turns out a great sense of success because ten minutes is long enough for confident writers to get stuck into it and short enough for less confident writers to get something on the page without being overwhelmed.

For me: during the ten minutes I roam the room and observe physical writing practices (I'm amazed at the range of pen grips of my kiddos!); reading the responses allows me to see 'raw' writing giving me a wealth of information on which to based specific feedback and give NSLs; and lots of giggles.

The topics are sometimes serious and sometimes silly. The results are always interesting.  Check out  these gems:

"I sit in a lonely room with only a vase on a table." 

"Some creepy sicko had created a vase of death."  

"The vase's pattern was quite intricate, made up of runes and symbols and drawings depicting a beautiful planet." 

"What took so long?" [the character had claimed he needed to go to the toilet but was gone for 30 minutes] "Because I drank lots of water I needed a really long wee." 

"My heart was beating out of my chest." 

"Roses - red as blood." 

"He was very picky - he wanted the taste of human flesh in his teeth."

I'm always happy to take suggestions for future topics.  (It's a bit like #28daysofwriting really... In MANY ways.)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 5 Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning