' Critical Friends'
Last week (27.11.14) a few colleagues and I attended a fantastic inservice at Marist Brothers on implementing PBL (Project Based Learning) across all classrooms in Secondary and Primary schools.
One strategy I took away from this inservice is 'Critical Friends' - It is one that we as colleagues use during staff development days providing feedback about our pedagogy, and has been widely researched to have a successful impact on students learning, in particular on editing/revising writing.
Below is a short video on the TeachingChannel about implementing the strategy in the classroom.
My Guided/Model Writing group used this strategy in today's session (2.12.14). Students had completed their draft copy of their news article and were ready to start revising.
The first step of this strategy is for a student to pick a critical friend.
Students need to use a timer of some sort ( in this case my students used an ipad ) and sit down in a quiet place. The first student (writer) who is being reviewed sets the timer for 3 minutes. He/she has 3 minutes to talk about their piece of writing.
Whilst the writer is speaking, the critical friend is listening and jotting down 'I wonder' questions about his/her partner's piece of writing.
Once the 3 minutes is up, the critical friend has 1 minutes to voice his/her 'I wonder' questions whilst the writer is listening.
Once the 'I wonder' questions are asked, the writer answers them.
In this case, I have not uploaded the rolls in reverse because I think by now we get the gist ;). When both students have critically evaluated/reviewed each others piece of writing, they then spend some time editing grammar, punctuation and spelling.
When done correctly, students gain a lot from this strategy. Remember, when being introduced for the first time, this needs to be explicitly taught with clear expectations.
It might be a good idea to ask the following questions after explaining the strategy.
- I wonder why the critical friend needs to be quiet and listen whilst the writer talks?
- I wonder why it is important for the writer to remain silent when the critical friend is talking?
- I wonder why it is so important for students to start their feedback questions with 'I wonder'?
Newspaper Article Templates
Below are a few links to some really great newspaper article templates.
http://resources.sparklebox.me.uk/501-999/sb547.pdf
http://www.worddraw.com/index.html
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/englishD9.htm
Literacy Rotations:
My Colleagues and I have tried to make our Literacy Guided Reading Rotations as effective as possible, so students aren't just completing boring worksheets.
Below are a few activities, students complete during rotations.
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| Blue Box Comprehension Box: This activity is great for students to work independently and focus on reading and comprehension skills. Once completed a card, students work up the ladder moving to the next colour. |
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| One of the spelling activities students complete is the 'spelling keyboard game'. Students pair up and with another peer and choose their spelling group (A, B, C) - they collect their spelling group box and take a keyboard each. Students take a word each and type it on the keyboard. Students have the opportunity to either do this at their own pace, or time themselves to see how long it takes to type all of their spelling words. An easy and effective task. |
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| Students participate in Reading Eggs on the Ipads. Students have an opportunity to use earphones/headphones to block out the noise for concentration. Easy and effective task, and great for creating in-dependancy among students in reading and comprehending the task when answering questions in the quiz. |
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| Readers Theatre is a dramatic presentation of a written work in a script form. Readers read from a script and reading parts are divided among the readers. No costumes or materials are needed and the scripts are not meant to be memorised by students. The focus is on reading the text with expression and fluency as well as using gestures. This activity is great for comprehending the text and making meaning/reference from text to world. |
Narrative Writing:
Below are few scaffolds, posters and rubrics for Narrative Writing from TeachersPayTeachers.
NarrativeWritingStepbyStepPosters _1_.pdf NarrativeStoryStarterCards.pdf NarrativeWritingPromptsFREEBIE.pdf NarrativeWritingPostersFreebie.pdf NarrativeWritingBrainstormingPosterSet.pdf NarrativeWritingResource.pdf NarrativeWritingRequirements.doc
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