Camp, Thrills, Spills and Chills

TEACHER Denise Farr

YEAR	LEVEL	DURATION
5-8	3-4	3 weeks

Achievement Objective Being Assessed	Learning Outcomes
Poetic Writing	Write a detailed personal recount, taking risks in the selection of vocabulary, sentence structure and punctuation to enhance the writing.
Processes
Exploring Language	Explore, identify and discuss the choices made by writers in personal recount models, using and adapting some of these features and ideas effectively in their own writing.
Thinking Critically	Relate and compare the ideas and other points of view in personal recount models to their own camp experiences.
Supporting Achievement Objective	Learning Outcomes
Interpersonal Speaking and Listening	Talk clearly in small groups about camp experiences. Interact with others in group/class discussions.
Close Reading	Read closely, identifying specific language features of a personal recount, and discuss how they contribute to the meaning of the text.
Presenting	Use verbal and visual features to communicate a personal experience by telling an anecdote and using computer and digital camera technology.

Introduction

This unit is based on a shared class experience, a recent class camp. This is an authentic and meaningful context that will help writers make a strong personal connection, and to write a recount with a strong sense of personal voice. It could easily be adapted to other authentic contexts that the students may have shared.

TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Select and adapt these learning activities to best meet the needs of your students, and to fit the time available:

FOLLOW UP

Use many of these activities again and again when your students are writing personal recounts. You certainly will not do all of these activities every time, but over the course of a year these are the types of activities that lead to the production of quality writing in your classroom.

ASSESSMENT

Assessment Task

Publish their personal recount of a camp experience that has been drafted, edited and proofread with peer and teacher interaction. Use the computer to present their work, with an appropriate word processing software. Select fonts, colours, and borders appropriately. Use bold, size and the italics lettering features to add meaning, emphasis and effect. Insert a digital photo taken at camp. These photos should be made readily available on the classroom computers for students. Make two copies of the published writing, one for their portfolio to sit alongside their self_assessment_portfolio (RTF 244KB) , and one to put in a class clear-file of camp writing available in the classroom for students to read.

Sharing and Presenting Published Work:

Sharing

Class Book: Each student puts one copy of their published writing into a class clear-file. Let a couple of students make a cover page for the clear-file. As students add their writing to the clear-file, record the title and author on the contents page in the front. This book is made freely available for students to read in the classroom.
Reader's Feedback: Each student puts one copy of the Reader's Feedback form in the class clear-file beside their writing. This is organised so that their writing is on the left hand side of an open spread, and a copy of the Reader's Feedback is placed beside it on the right hand side. Students are encouraged to read the writing and to provide feedback for the writer on the form provided.

Author's Chair: Set up an 'author's chair' in your classroom, in the writing or reading centre, or near the teaching station. Make it special in some way, eg. decorate it, paint it, label it, choose a different chair to a normal classroom chair. A light outdoor plastic chair is cheap and easy to move around the class. Students can sit on this when they want to share their writing with someone else, a small group or the class. This could happen spontaneously in reading or writing times, or at set times of the day, eg. after play or lunch, at the end of the day when you might have some parents in the audience too.

Presenting

Children share their writing with others in the school and community, eg.

School Assembly - photocopy the published writing onto an overhead projector transparency to share at the school assembly or use a digital projector if you are lucky enough to have one!
School Newsletter - include some in the school newsletter. This is valuable feedback for all those parents who so willingly participated in the school camp, and good school P.R! In lots of communities these newsletters are read by a much wider audience than the immediate school families.
Local newspaper - send some in to the local newspaper along with a few photos on a floppy disk. As well as making your students real published authors, it is also a good school marketing strategy
Email Grandparents - let students send their writing by email (or print a copy and post), to grandparents or parents, brothers or sisters not living with them. Computer published work can easily be copied and pasted into an email programme or attached to an email and sent anywhere in the world at the click of the mouse!
School Display - Make a camp display near the school office for visitors and parents to see.
Journal of Young People's Writing - keep some to send in next time there is a request for student's writing from Learning Media.
Writing Competitions - keep an eye out for these and be sure to send in some of your student's writing.

Self Assessment: Reflecting on the completed writing process

Students complete the form and place this alongside their published writing in their portfolio. This could be done independently or with younger children and those with reading difficulties work through this step by step with a group, reading and revising each criteria as you go. Let the children then make their decision and tick it themselves. (Awareness of the features of good writing is more important than 100% accuracy with the placement of their ticks at this stage. The aim is to empower children with the knowledge of how to become "writers" and how to improve their own writing.) This same form could be used as a teacher assessment instead with minor alterations.

Self Reflection

Students complete the form. This could also be placed in their portfolio. Model how to complete this by writing sample responses on an enlarged A3 form with the students at the teaching station. Demonstrate detailed and specific answers that give reasons for their ideas. Do no accept generic answers, eg. "I want you to notice that my writing was good." Expect students to identify what was good and why, eg. "I want you to notice that I used this simile... because I thought that it would help the reader to make a picture in their mind like the one I had when I was thinking about it.

Formative Assessment Tasks

Peer Assessment: Oral Anecdote

Share the assessment criteria on the peer_assessment_oral (RTF 39KB) with the class before the activity (enlarge to A3 chart size on the photocopier).
Discuss, role-play and practice any unfamiliar criteria before the activity begins.
Each student in the group tells an anecdote about a personally significant and challenging camp experience to a small group. (Group the children using one of the grouping strategies.)
One student tells an anecdote, while the other group members listen.
Assess each student, one at a time, using the group assessment form following (not during), the telling of the anecdote. Students are to focus on the speaker and not the assessment form to be completed at this stage.
The whole group discusses the assessment criteria together and fills out the assessment form.
All members then sign the assessment form.
The next student now tells their anecdote, continuing in this way until all members of the group have had their turn.

Self Assessment: Checking my recount as I write...

Display an A3 size copy of the assessment form near the teaching centre. This can then be referred to during the modelling, shared writing, conferencing and sharing times with the students throughout the writing unit, so that all students are familiar with the criteria and writing language before they begin independent writing of their own personal recount.
Give each student his or her own copy of the form: self_assessment (RTF 93KB) at the beginning of the independent writing time. This needs to be glued into their draft writing books alongside their writing, eg. the form is on the left page and they write on the right page.
Talk explicitly about the criteria, "thinking out aloud" throughout the unit, eg. "I can see why Jack has ticked ... on his checklist, as he put this ... in his writing. Well done Jack"
Encourage and praise students for checking their self-assessment form as they go.
Some days have a class session "checking our progress" at the end of the writing time, where all students bring their writing books to the mat area and share their progress with reference to their checklists.
Monitor their progress, with roving observations as they write and by taking in student books to check later, noting individual children's' progress, and establishing an overview of the class' progress. Taking in books allows for quiet uninterrupted teacher reflection and during this time the teacher can use a sticky note pad to record future teaching points for the whole class and /or individuals. These notes can then be stuck to the teacher's workplan or on the teaching station as a reminder for the next day's writing session.

Guided Self Assessment: Reworking my recount with my teacher

Take this activity when most students are well on the way with writing their personal recounts.
Students bring their writing books, a highlighter and a pen to record on the activity form, to the mat or have these ready at their desk.
Give each student a copy of the form: reworking (RTF 30KB) .
Together the teacher and students work their way through this form, taking time to discuss, locate, record and share each aspect of their writing. This may take more than one writing session.
This activity is designed to help students focus more on the deeper features of their own writing, guiding and scaffolding them in the editing process, before finishing with a brief proof reading check.
It will help them to reflect on ways that they may improve their own writing.
After the form is completed it can be glued into their books, and used in the next writing session to edit their own work independently.

Peer Assessment: Editing and proof-reading

This is the final self-check when the student has finished draft writing their recount.
Partner students (with teacher guidance), as they finish their draft writing.
Share their recounts, first reading them aloud to each other, to entertain and inform.
Next focus closely on one of the student's written recounts at a time, together completing the peer assessment form, checking for editing and proofreading.
This will guide focused discussion about their writing and highlight any areas that still need editing or correcting before publication of their work on the computer.

Summative Assessment Tasks: Published Writing

Publish a personal recount of a camp experience that has been drafted, edited and proofread with peer and teacher interaction.

Use the computer to present their work, with appropriate word processing software.

Select fonts, colours, and borders appropriately.
Use bold, size and the italics lettering features to add meaning, emphasis and effect.
Insert a digital photo taken at camp, (not clip art). These photos should be made readily available on the classroom computers for students.
Make two copies of the published writing, one for their portfolio to sit alongside their self assessment, and one to put in a class clear-file of camp writing available in the classroom for students to read.

Share the assessment criteria with the students throughout the writing process.

Published on: 01 Apr 2009

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