Today I went into Room 10 to see how they do their writing. It reminded me of using language experience to inspire writers who often struggle to know where to start or what to write. It is something I used a lot last year but haven't used so far this year.
The class went outside to stand in the wind. Coming back to class it was great to see them using their notebooks, once again reminding me that I need to incorporate these notebooks more throughout topic and writing to get the key points and provide students with a base to then work from. One group stayed on the mat and worked with Gwynneth. They had the extra assistance of the experience and then a great illustration of what happens when it is windy, once again providing them with the stimulus of what to write.
Having a number of hands-on boys within my class, language experience is something I can see working well with this group of lower writers as well as extending the more able writers. I could use this idea of wind and then revisit the idea of language expereince looking at similies using popcorn which is an easy one to look at describing it looking like a sheeps body or sounding like fireworks exploding.
For me this lesson highlighted that the kids don't have to write a lot during writing time but focus on writing well and adding depth to their writing. This is an area I am working on with a lot of my writers and this was a great lesson to stretch sentences out and make them more interesting with the verbs.
Where to next?
In my class I have a number of posters along the wall that talk about nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. I am going to make it a goal of mine to introduce one of these posters a week and to then do some work around what it is quickly for 5-10minutes a day. This way students should be able to identify these in the books they are reading and develop them in their own writing.
Key questions for me now would be.
-How frequently can you incorporate language experience with it still being effective?
-What are some effective language experiences to target boys and lower writers?
Looking at narrative. I thought a good way to incorporate language experience was through building up a character. So I gathered up all of my pirate costume pieces from the fancy dress box and took them to school. I put each item in a big black rubbish bag and got the kids to get their note taking notebooks out and to feel the objects inside. They had to write down key words which described the object and then guess what the item was. Once they had all done this, I got them back down on the mat to guess what was inside each bag and as they guessed correctly I put the item on, to build up a character. Using the language they had used in their notebooks I encouraged them to write a character description about me. This did work well but others did get a little carried away with the whole dress up idea. For some of my lower writers and readers this experience was really valuable and it was great to see them having fun with it, describing my stripy pants as rainbows.
ReplyDeleteKey questions;
So I guess my question for next time is how do I get them to play in that they experience it for themselves but then switch into that writing mode and not continue to 'play?'
Next Steps.
For my more able writers it is now a matter of really encouraging them to include the descriptive notes they took and put this into their writing. Not leaving all of that wonderful detail out when it comes to writing in full sentences.
Perhaps showing the students how to take notes and uses these is something that I need to actually teach them how to do.