ASSIGNMENT SIX: DVD Reflection- Included in your text is a DVD containing video clips of Regie’s conferences with writers in the classroom. There is a detailed commentary accompanying the DVD on page 336 of her text. Please watch the DVD and then look at her teaching notes beginning on page 336 (Regie suggests just watching without notes first so that you don’t miss what she and the students are doing.) After both watching and reading her notes, write your reflection and please post a copy of your DVD Reflection to the blog.
*NOTE: If you experience problems playing the DVD please refer to the Writing Essentials companion website at www.heinemann.com/writingessentials for directions for playing the DVD. Look in the upper right hand corner for the link.
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Assignment Six- Alana Ollerenshaw
ReplyDeleteHow can I begin to express how happy I am that Regie’s book came with a DVD! I enjoyed being able to watch Regie conduct writing conferences. I love how each child during whole class share sat in the author’s chair and got recognition from the class. Regie is so good about celebrating each child by starting off with praise and allowing the kids to read their own work. Then she gently moves into giving suggestions and creating those teachable moments. The idea of writing down ideas/spellings on sticky notes first is a great idea, instead of directly on the child’s paper. This way the child still has ownership of their work and their paper is respected in a way. It is good practice for the kids to use a carat to place the sentence into their writing. I also liked how Regie taught AlexSandra to use a carat and where her sentence would go in their one on one conference. I taught the carat to my first graders last week when we were editing our shared writing and then carats started appearing on their personal writing pieces as well! It was pretty amazing to me how many different areas Regie is able to address in one conference!
I am not sure I like how Regie conducted the editing conference with Derek. Although she was encouraging, I know many students in my class who would have felt uncomfortable if I had had them correct spelling mistakes in front of the class. Maybe I could take an unknown student’s paper and have the kids edit it and write the correct letters (what they know) on a white board, fix it and then tell everyone they can never misspell the word again. I don’t know at this point, I will need to think more about this…..and talk to my team.
Writing Essentials, DVD, Assignment #6
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed watching Regie teach. I was so surprised to see how simple the first 4 ‘celebration conferences’ were. They were very positive. Regie did a couple of very simple mini lessons within them. Regie said her goals were joy and success. She did that. Every child was gleaming.
Regie sounded as though it is negative that Garrett writes mostly about soccer. Isn’t her point that children should be writing about what they enjoy and what matters to them? Yet, I recognize that Garrett wrote a very funny and heart-felt poem about his red hair.
The 2 teaching conferences Regie did were quite simple also. She encouraged Derek right away about coming up with a title later. She ties the mini lessons in with celebrating the author’s work. I was glad to see that she had Derek tell the rest of his story while she wrote it down in his words. I thought it was bold how she stated a few times “we do not want to go on forever”. I'm not sure what I think of her restating this to him. I love the sticky notes! I have taught my Kindergartner how to use carats now.
I like how she took the writings home the night before to see who would read in the author’s chair. I liked that every time the author shares, he is in the author’s chair.
I noticed that Regie has AlexSandra correcting several things on her paper. This takes more patience on the teacher's part. I also noticed that Regie restates that the writing needs to be clear to the reader.
Regie wrote in her book that she nudged Derek during the spelling lesson. Like Alana, I thought it was quite intimidating. I kept thinking about how I would have felt as a child. I would NOT have liked that. I agree with you Alana, maybe using an anonymous writing or the teacher’s writings would be better. Regie made Derek do so many corrections.
I like the concept that once a child has figured out how a word is spelled, that he is responsible to spell that word correctly in the future. Regie is quite firm about this agreement. I'm not sure how I would track or remember what each child knows. I enjoyed the mini lessons on “ou” and “ow”.
My 4th grader watched Derek’s spelling lesson out of curiosity. After a while, he stated, “probably all the other kids are getting bored”. Later when Regie asked a question and no one responded, my child stated “see, no one was paying attention”. I agreed with him, though we were at disadvantage with the glare on the overhead machine. This teaches me that we can’t go on too long as teachers. Maybe we need more interaction with the rest of the class.
Assignment 6
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I found the conferences informative and it was great to see Regie in action. The poems were great and Regie gave lots of very specific praise and pointed out so many great things about each child’s poem. During the personal “secrets” stories she was very direct with first pointing out what was working and celebrated those points but was then very specific about what was not. With Ervin she pointed out what was confusing and also made suggestions. He did not seem bothered at all that it was in front of other students and it seemed to be an effective conference with good teaching points for all. I was surprised that she chose to do a whole class share with Derek. It seemed like he was not even close to ready, and she had to push him quite a bit to give details. I felt she was a bit abrupt with him about his ending it and not going “on and on.” I think it was good for the other students to hear the questions she was asking, but felt bad for him. I will be trying the whole-class share, and am looking forward to having it be more meaningful but do not think I will use my really struggling writers….
I thought her one on once conference was interesting. What she was saying “Here’s where I got confused” and “Really this is about…”and doing - post it notes and showing Alexsandra where to cross out, made sense and would help her move forward with her story. I really like the idea of the post it notes.
I did not like the spelling conference. I thought it went on for too long and that Derek was really on the spot. I think it is ok to push a child to use what he has been taught, but I think she could have shown the students and the other teachers using a few students work, not just Derek. I have students that would be really uncomfortable if I put them on the spot like that. I will use spelling conferences but not exactly as she demonstrated.
Thanks Alana, Deanna, and Joyce for Assignment Six. It really is great to see Regie “in action” . Even though she’s probably making a ton of decisions as she’s working with the children, she makes it look so easy. You all seemed to get so much from being able to listen in on her work with kids, but I think we all agree that Derek’s whole class conference was a bit awkward and really too much (even Joyce’s son agrees ). Thanks for sharing!
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ReplyDeleteWhat I noticed first was the fact that most of the lessons involved the whole class. What a great way to hit more than one learner at a time.
The idea of just celebrating writing is something I have done a couple of times. I will pull students' writing that I think is interesting and share it. I need to make a better effort to celebrate more often.
As in previous chapters, I need to increase the standards that my students are held to. I like the hand shaking and agreement on the “you will never misspell this word again.” I have that problem with many common words in my classroom.
The last part I thought I would take away is the correcting of the piece with the student in front of the class. I have two autistic students and many ELD students that would benefit from this approach.
Hi Gary! I used the idea of the "hand shaking" agreement over misspelled words when I was teaching 4th grade, and it was very effective. They truly worked to ensure they weren't making the common spelling errors any longer.
ReplyDeleteDVD reflection: In listening to Regie’s introduction of the DVD she stresses the importance that conferences are bring the joy back to writing while teaching rigorous teaching. At first I didn’t see this happening in the whole group conferencing. It seemed more like a celebration/sharing section; however, as the DVD went on I could see how she was covertly teaching with support and positive praise. Another thing that I noticed while students were sharing was they were sharing edited “first thoughts” or rough drafts. At times this seemed to get in the way of their ability to share a complete thought. Maybe they were confused about what the correction had been or didn’t understand what the change had been. Which is better having student wait to share until at the end or have a revised addition or let them use their rough drafts? She gave each student a different compliment and allowed the audience to cheer at different points in conference. I really enjoyed seeing this. Telling every student “nice job” is not encouraging and flat in many ways. I’ve worked this year on finding different ways students want to be celebrated and have learned a long list of cheers from our wonderful 6th and 1st grade teachers. In Ervin’s conference I started to see the teaching while celebrating approach. She labeled parts of writing for him or why we have to re-read our work when editing, may be a review for everyone or it may be re-teaching. She also scaffold the editing with comments like “this is what I think”, but in the end letting the student decide what he or she wanted to keep or express. I also learned the importance of sticky notes, I’ve always wondered why 1st and 2nd grade teachers order so many sticky notes and now I understand why. During the spelling lesson with Derek in front of the class was exciting to watch. Not only was Regie right beside him the whole way, she was encouraging and expected more in his ability to correct words he had misspelled. In the book she gave a great visual of the steps she took in each conference and pinpointed what expectations there are for teachers during these 1:1 times.
ReplyDeleteGary I like that you noticed ways to support our special education and ELL students, they are the ones who struggle most with writing and editing. Its also interesting that we all paid close attention to the conferencing with Derek. The work and time needed to push him along, but I think its important for us all to take that time even in whole group with the students who need more and have the support of his class, really builds their community and allow peers to see other students learn.
Lindsay - thanks for your comments on Reggie's DVD. It was especially interesting that you had a slightly different view of the whole class shares, and Derek's in particular than many other course participants (even in our semesters). I think that you bring a slightly different point of view to the issue based on the needs of your students. It's really great to see her in action though isn't it? A picture is worth a thousand words :)
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