The publishing unit, Motteler's Authors, was a huge success! The objectives designed for the unit were met, the pre-assessment and post-assessment proved valuable, and the books actually got published! This was a long journey with unexpected difficulties along the way. As a class, we remained positive and hopeful and pressed through the challenges together.
For the pre-assessment, I decided to have the students enter a local writing contest for the local paper. The task was to write a spooky story (up to two pages in length). We briefly went through the writing process in order to provide guidance, brainstormed different story starters and ideas, and then they generated their own ideas and put them down on paper. This assignment gave me the exact information I needed to assess what instruction I needed to provide to bring organization to their writing. Based on the information I gathered from their spooky story writing, I needed to provide instruction on sentence structure, adjectives, subject/verb agreement, proper use of pronouns, and the writing process.
As I introduced the unit, the students were very excited and asked me every day if they were going to do writing because they were so excited about it. I went into teaching this unit not having much experience in grouping students, but was able to work closely with my CT to know how to group my students appropriately in such a way that their learning experience would be optimal. The students worked very well in small groups and in pairs. I implemented a grouping technique called clock buddies. The students all picked a partner for 12:00, someone different for 3:00, then 6:00, and finally 9:00. This does not mean that they work with that partner at that time; however, I would call out 3:00 buddies and they would work with that particular partner. This was another way to ensure the students got a wide range of feedback on their work.
I am very pleased with the process of this unit. I learned how to communicate effectively with a publishing Website in order to get the best product for my students and parents. The parents were very involved with their child's learning, which is a very important aspect. From the post-assessment, it is obvious that the students enjoyed learning about the writing process and were amazed at how much they learned and got accomplished.
For the pre-assessment, I decided to have the students enter a local writing contest for the local paper. The task was to write a spooky story (up to two pages in length). We briefly went through the writing process in order to provide guidance, brainstormed different story starters and ideas, and then they generated their own ideas and put them down on paper. This assignment gave me the exact information I needed to assess what instruction I needed to provide to bring organization to their writing. Based on the information I gathered from their spooky story writing, I needed to provide instruction on sentence structure, adjectives, subject/verb agreement, proper use of pronouns, and the writing process.
As I introduced the unit, the students were very excited and asked me every day if they were going to do writing because they were so excited about it. I went into teaching this unit not having much experience in grouping students, but was able to work closely with my CT to know how to group my students appropriately in such a way that their learning experience would be optimal. The students worked very well in small groups and in pairs. I implemented a grouping technique called clock buddies. The students all picked a partner for 12:00, someone different for 3:00, then 6:00, and finally 9:00. This does not mean that they work with that partner at that time; however, I would call out 3:00 buddies and they would work with that particular partner. This was another way to ensure the students got a wide range of feedback on their work.
I am very pleased with the process of this unit. I learned how to communicate effectively with a publishing Website in order to get the best product for my students and parents. The parents were very involved with their child's learning, which is a very important aspect. From the post-assessment, it is obvious that the students enjoyed learning about the writing process and were amazed at how much they learned and got accomplished.
