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

I'm still hanging in...

If anybody ever suggests working full time whilst trying to study full time, the only correct response should be to laugh. Don't do it! I've been doing it for nearly two weeks and I'm insanely tired. Still reasonably productive, but overwhelmingly tired. *sigh* Thank goodness for today's inter-school professional development day that allow the part of my brain necessary for monitoring and engaging with 27 children to switch off for a few hours! (Don't slam me: I fully intend to engage with the adults at the PD day... They just aren't as 'needy' as most kiddos!) Double bonus when I don't need to be there until 1.5hrs after I usually arrive at school! Anyway, I've been wanting to blog about some of the challenges and successes I've experienced since starting this contract but you know... Tired.

I thought, however, that I'd take a few minutes out of that extra 1.5hrs this morning to share a photo. It represents a big 'win' for me with this class. It's a super challenging class behaviourally and I spent a large part of the first week trying to establish a class culture that was safe enough to enable us to move forward into meaningful learning. It was hard. Very hard. Probably the hardest I've ever found a class, but you know me: it's my kinda class!  We've come a VERY long way in a VERY short time and I'm so proud of the progress we've all made. I'll share more about it later, when I'm not so tired, or feeling stressed about final essays, case studies and whatnot for uni.

NF Text Features Anchor Chart by Markeeta Roe is licensed under a
  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work here.

This week we've been reviewing non-fiction text features so that next week we can dive right into learning about top level text structures.  We're also learning about Ancient Greece so I've used a simple NF text about that as our 'mentor' text. After much discussion, a super simple anchor chart was created. There are no other student (or teacher) created anchor charts in the classroom, so I wasn't sure how this would be received. I shouldn't have worried: they LOVED it. Our next bite of the cherry saw every single student referring to it at least once, and many of them thanking me.  I love the way anchor charts reinforce learning and encoding. Yay!

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 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

Sharing in Isolation?

For all that teaching is a high social role, it is not without its fair share of isolation. Perhaps more than its fair share? We spend most of our working hours surrounded by the young people who inspire us to become teachers, which is as it should be. For many teachers these hours are bookended by solitary periods of planning and marking, and punctuated by mad dashes to the bathroom or photocopier; not much by way of meaningful adult interaction; not much time to share our practice and encourage each other's growth.

It's the lack of sharing and encouragement that, I think, is particularly troublesome.  I know a lot of teachers who shrug their shoulders and say 'it is what it is' at this point but, as you know by now, I'm not that kinda teacher.

This morning I spent a number of hours at a Reflect Growth meet up where one of the the goals is always to try to address this very issue.  Under the wise guidance of Selena Woodward (she'll laugh at that description) we talked quite broadly about our teaching practices and then had the pleasure of listening to Chantelle Morrison talk about the innovative and student-lead process she used to set up her classroom this year. Following this we spent some time individually reflecting on big picture goals we want to strive for this term and perhaps more importantly sharing those goals. I was quite humbled to sit next to Chantelle who shared with me that she wants to work on her use and understanding of anchor charts. She asked me about them because she remembered hearing me talk about them. It was reaffirming that my experience could be used to encourage someone else. (I'm not 100% convinced she was encouraged but let's just leave it there shall we?)

I wondered, at the time, if everyone else found the act of sharing our goals confronting? And why did I find it so? Last year I shared my goal of developing my understanding and skills using working walls, and with the sure knowledge that I was going to share my growth in a public presentation. The act of sharing meant that I felt compelled encouraged to work towards my goal and gave me a sense of accountability. And you know what? I loved it. What was different this morning? I don't know.

We eventually used a (new to me) web based tool called canvaniser to build a plan around our goals using some of the language of 'lean change'. And again, we had the option to share this plan as we made it or within our virtual Reflect Growth forum. The idea of sharing our goals is to garner support, share ideas and encourage each other.

Created using https://imgflip.com

Notice the common themes here? You got it: sharing and encouraging.  Whilst I've been really blessed to have worked with some amazing people with whom I've shared and offered/received a lot of encouragement there is nothing quite like the coming together of teachers with the explicit goal of doing it.  The ways of achieving this sort of network are endless and I encourage all teachers to seek out a group, a friend or even online network that works well for them.

I feel renewed - and considerably less isolated - after spending the morning sharing with other teachers.  (I wonder if I'd feel even more renewed if I'd taken advantage of the free massages from KindaKneady that were on offer this morning?)

(Incidentally: my goals are around sharing learning goals and working with students to develop success criteria and learning more about the pedagogies that make stations/carousels successful in a rigorous classroom. If you would be willing to talk with me about these things I'd LOVE to hear from you. If you live locally, I know a really great coffee shop...)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning
Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Anchor Charts

Toward the end of last year I was exceptionally lucky to have our Deputy Principal/Literacy Guru Miss Sally (@sslattery22) come into our learning space to observe and coach my reading teaching.  She observed my teaching, and modelled a range of strategies she uses. It was a brilliant experience, although I will admit that the first couple of times I was quite anxious - it reminded me of being observed by my university supervisor while I was a pre-service teacher!

As part of the feedback process, Miss Sally asked about the lack of literacy anchor charts in our learning space. Until that point in the year, I hadn't made many anchor charts at all.  The way we'd set up the space wasn't particularly conducive to displaying them NOR was I overly confident in making them for some reason.

The first point was relatively easy to overcome: we were in the habit of changing up our learning space quite regularly so we went ahead and set up some areas to display anchor charts. The second was a bit more of a personal challenge but in keeping with our class belief in the power of a positive mindset I grit my teeth and gave it a go. And whaddayaknow? Each anchor chart was better than the last and I grew to quite enjoy the process.

This year has seen more anchor charts grace our boards, wall and cupboards.  We've all benefitted from them more than I ever imagined. I often see one kiddo or another standing at an anchor chart checking their thinking, or referring to them verbally during class discussions. Many photos have been taken on iPads and emailed to parents. I've printed copies of a few to have glued into books.  I'm making sure I take shots of them all so that when they are rotated off the walls to make room for others I can still refer kiddos to them.

There's still LOADS of room for improvement in my chart creation and I want to have more of them made by the kiddos but I'm pleased to have come this far and am excited about the next steps on the journey.

So Miss Sally... Thank you.

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know 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 6 Engage in professional learning