Teacher Background Reading |
RESOURCESElectronic
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Collection of digital photosTake lots of digital photos during the camp, making sure that each child features in many of them. These photos will be used for prewriting activities and in the final published writing sample. Take small group photos as well as individual close-ups. Students should each be able to find one photo to use in their published writing. Print out and display selected camp photos. Blutack photos to a whiteboard or painted or laminated surface so that they can be easily accessed for later activities. Display AreaSet aside a prominent place in the classroom to build up a progressive display. Set up a display area of activity charts, word lists and writing models to use as the unit progresses, eg. What did we say about time words yesterday? What other verbs could you use to describe that movement? What did we say personal voice was? How has this writer started their writing? Let's refresh our memory about the assessment criteria. If your display area is near to the blackboard ledge this could be used to display close at hand, the original copies of the writing models used in the close reading sessions, eg. from The Journals' of Young Peoples' Writing. Mark other appropriate examples of personal recounts that you find in School Journals, Ready to Read texts, and commercial reading texts with sticky notes for students to pick up and read as well, eg. at SSR times. Expose the students to lots of personal recount models during the unit, not just those that you use for close reading. Ideally this should be near to the teaching station and in clear view of the students, for reference to and reflecting on during teaching sessions and independent student writing times. Camp ChatTogether brainstorm and list all the 'fun and memorable' activities at camp, eg. kayaking, abseiling, river swimming, night walking... The teacher records these on pre-cut rectangles of coloured paper as the students suggest them. Blutack them onto the teaching whiteboard as you go. In a sharing circle let each child name their favourite activity and in one sentence tell why. Feelings ChartsCut up the coloured paper you wrote the camp activities on into three or four pieces each, (depending on group sizes). Group the class into small groups by giving out one piece to each student. Students match up their activity to find their group, then collect an A3 piece of paper and glue stick the activity pieces to the middle of the paper making up their word.
Each group now brainstorms and records their feelings associated with the activity all around it using the
feelings_chart (RTF 147KB)
. What did you feel before, during and after you did this activity? Role PlayRole-play, acting out some of the feelings listed on the charts, eg. scared. Let several students perform a challenging camp activity in role, eg. abseiling. Talk about what to look for, eg. When someone is scared how do they stand? How do their eyes look? How do they breathe? "His eyes grew larger and larger and he clenched his fists until the knuckles turned a yellowy-white. Suddenly he sucked in gulps of air..." Record some on the whiteboard, modelling writing in detail. Write some of these up later and display as models of detailed writing to describe feelings and actions. Encourage the students to describe the feeling by describing the facial expressions and non-verbal language, without actually naming the feeling. Relate this to writing, and talk about how a writer can give clues and leave the reader to work it out for himself or herself. We don't need to make everything obvious in writing - it helps to build pictures in the reader's head, as well as atmosphere and mood and suspense, allowing the reader to interpret the writing themselves. Encourage the Show, Don't Tell writer's craft. Bus StopModel this activity on one of the charts before you begin. Choose six or seven camp activities from those named in the 'Camp Chat'. Write one at the top of each bus_stop_chart (RTF 11KB) in the blank row. Place these around the classroom. Group the students using a different grouping strategy: A Variety of Ways to Group Children for Activity Work These are fun ways of grouping children, (or asking them to contribute to a class discussion), focusing on the topic of study at the same time as re-energizing them with some physical movement around the room. They can be used at anytime, but are a good way to introduce a new activity or to break up long periods of work with some movement.
Also see more ideas on P. 99 Top Tools for Social Science Teachers. Each group adds different types of words to the list as they go. Examples of words to add to the bus stop charts:
Return to the class group and ask each group to share their charts. Draw attention to any quality descriptions. Ask questions that encourage attention to detail, eg. What feeling do you think these words might be telling us? How was this person feeling? How do we know? Did they name the feeling? What words did they use? Can the way a person moves tell us how they are feeling? How would you be moving if you were feeling like this? What would your facial expressions be if you felt like this? Thinking BubblesIn this activity students will explore the concept of inner monologue. Use the digital photos already on display. Each student selects one photo that they feature in. Model how to write inner monologue in the thinking bubble. Student then write their thoughts, 'the talking they did in their head', in a thought_bubble (RTF 119KB) . The thought bubbles can be photocopied, or created on a computer by inserting a digital photo into publishing software. Display these beside the photos in the class display area, so that they will be available for reference later when writing personal recounts. |
Published on: 06 Apr 2009
