Lets get the ball rolling....

Let me just start by saying that the writing unit my students will be doing for a large portion of this research is my absolute favorite unit we do in 1st grade!!


Since returning from Winter Break we have entered the world of reading and writing informational text. We have spent this time learning about text features and characteristics of non-fiction texts. Starting this week the students are starting to get their hands wet with actually writing informational texts. Our final project in first grade at Eagle Academy is an animal book. The students are assigned animals that they research using both the internet and books and then write their own informational book about it. It is a very long and drawn out writing project because both the research and the organization of the books are very supported by me as the teacher. However, I have never seen a writing project that the students own as much as they do this one.


Prior to starting our animal books we have decided as a school that we will try our hand at "on demand" writing at all grade levels. The on demand writing prompt for 1st grade is an informational text prompt. The students will independently write about something they are an expert about and what they can teach the other students about. They will then be given 30-45 minutes to completely write their informational text. I think that this writing piece will really help me to see which students are going to be in my collaboration group and which ones will be in my technology group. I will likely be including information from this on demand prompt in my data section of my paper.


Question: I am trying to decide what I think is best for my collaboration group and would love some feedback. The plan is that every student would be researching a different animal because we have on-level non-fiction books about enough animals to do it this way. However, if my collaboration group involves a reluctant/struggling writer being placed with a stronger writer should they research the same animal? I definitely see some pros and cons to doing it this way. My concern is that if the students are doing the same animal the struggling/reluctant writer may just copy what the stronger writer is doing. Another possibility is for the collaboration group I could have them collaborating with an instructional assistant instead of another student. This would enable them to be able to each do their own animals and have very guided instruction from an adult. I'm not sure that providing an instructional assistant as their collaborator will help move them toward becoming independent writers.


Any and all feedback is welcome! :)

Interest survey and getting parents to return paperwork!!

Disclaimer:

For the sake of this blog I will be referring to my school as Eagle Academy and all students will be referred to using pseudonyms. Their pseudonyms will be revealed throughout the blog as their data is discussed.

After a crazy week or so of snow days and delays due to weather I hope that things are looking up and this research can get underway! I have now gotten all consent forms sent home (but still waiting on a couple to trickle back in), had all students sign the assent form, and given the Writing Interest Survey to all students in the class. I chose to have every student in my class do these three things so that I can include any of them in my final research.


I would love to offer you the results of my Writing Interest Survey but in the hustle and bustle of leaving my classroom today I left them sitting on my desk. Tomorrow I will post an update that discusses the information I learned about my students. One student's responses to the survey did catch my eye while I circulated the room and left me feeling very interested about how he will do throughout the course of my research. I will refer to this student as Parker. Parker is one of my special needs students but is cognitively very high performing. I consider him a "reluctant writer" because any time a writing assignment is assigned he clams up and presents himself as a behavior problem. He gets "angry" and claims that he is "bored" to try and avoid completing the work. On the writing survey you would think that Parker loved writing. He said that he thinks there should be more writing time in school, he said he enjoys writing in his free time, etc. I will post a picture of Parker's responses along with my update tomorrow. I have a feeling I will be keeping a close eye on how this process impacts him.......fingers crossed we see some improved behavior and some AMAZING writing!

Ready, Set, Go....

Well research is off to a VERY slow start. I was able to send consent forms home last week and those were trickling back in daily. I sent them home with all of the students in the class. That way all students could be used in the final research. At my school it also ensures that the parents who talk about school won't question why their child was included in this research but another child wasn't. 

My plan for Tuesday was to send home consent forms with any student who was still missing theirs. Mother Nature had different plans for this week though. Tuesday, Wednesday and now tomorrow are all snow days. Hopefully we will be returning to school on Friday and I can get the consent forms sent home then.

Next week I want to give my "student writing attitude survey". I plan to give this to all students so I can compare the attitudes of on/above level writers and struggling writers.

I will post again soon....that is if we ever return to school!

A snapshot of my classroom: context and the problem

The classroom context

I teach what I have labeled as a very challenging and special class. :)
It is a collaborative special education classroom. My class has five identified special education students (these are a mixture of behavioral and academic classifications) and several students who are being monitored for possible referral. These students are each demanding of my time and I am the only certified teacher in there for the majority of my Writer’s Workshop. Almost all of the students in my classroom can orally tell a story with many details. A handful of the students in the classroom who can orally express their thoughts and stories cannot independently write them down on paper. Each student's struggle with writing is shown in a different way but they all are most confident when they orally tell their story and I write it down for them to then copy.

As a classroom teacher with twenty-one students sitting down and writing five or six students’ stories each day is not a possibility. If these same students demand and get my attention daily, the other students in the classroom will not flourish as young writers. Developing strong writers in the early grades is so critical because of the strong relationship between reading and writing.

The problem

The demands of my students led me to ask this question daily....

What strategies will help struggling writers to become expressive independent writers?

What is the plan?

I plan to use two different strategies with my struggling writers. They will be divided into two different groups.
Group 1 will focus on using technology. They will be using a voice recording app on the Ipad to record them orally telling the story. They will then replay their recording while they independently complete their writing.
Group 2 will be collaborative partnerships. This will be two students (1 reluctant/struggling writer and 1 on/above-level writer) who will work collaboratively but will each produce their own individual writing piece. The struggling/reluctant students in these partnerships are ones who require significant one-on-one support while writing.

Now lets give this thing a go......