Analysis
I based this analasys on three writing samples from Annie. The first was written in response to a prompt and it looks like a final draft. The prompt was to tell the audience a few things about herself. She thougt we should know three things. She likes reading a lot, she likes to work when it is quiet and she loves school very much. I also used the spelling inventory for further analysis and planning her next lesson.
One of the other samples was an informal outline for an essay and was titled: We need playground equent (equipment). The other was a very rough, probably initital draft of a Bed to Bed Story.
Ownership and Meaning of the Piece
In Annie's writing about her love of reading, she gave us a few details about how and why she enjoys it very much. From this I could tell she was excited about it because she said she can picture a movie when she reads. That brought me into her world and and I started to picture her actually reading like that, which hooked me right away. Another visual for the reader was that she likes to eat an apple sometimes before reading, which showed ownerhip of her story because she appears to have somewhat of a routine when reading. This brought meaning to her writing and made it believable to me and showed that she was speaking from her heart. She likes to read long books and likes Charter Books because they are really fun. She explaied that she likes to work and works better when it is quiet. She loves school too. Annie shared that she likes to read ahead of the class and doesn't want to stop when reading time is over. This heightened my interest in her story becasue she was so enthusiastic and could see that she is a motivated reader and motivated to write about how and why she enjoys it.
While working through this assignment, I realized that we need to see more writing samples. At first I analyzed her paper on her love of reading, but I realized that it has been revised and finished, so it would be more productive to help her work on the letter to the principal to convince him that they need more playground equipment. Based on the Error Guide, we need to work on spelling, in particular digraphs and blends. Annie is an intermediate reader based on the Reading and Writing Stages handout, but her writing is more in the transitional stage and this is where I plan to help her. The 6=1 Trait Writing Scoring Continuum tells me that she is developing: her strengths and need for revision are about equal; about half-way home.
Six traits Assessment
I think her organization in her final story about reading is strong (5). The indtoduction is inviting and she writes thoughtful transitions. Pacing is well controlled. I think her word choice is in the area of a three. The language is functional and it is easy to figure out her meaning on a general level but mostly uses everyday words. She uses accmplish, but spells it wrong. She tries to spice things up by using "nooooooo" to convey feeling. She displayed a somewhat limited vocabulary. The other writing pieces were very different and I wasn't sure how to use these three pieces together to make a lesson plan because they are all from different stages in the writing process. After reviewing the six-traits of Annie's final version of her love of reading story, I realized that the other two writing samples would probably be more useful in planning the next step for improving her writing. The rough draft and the outline have more spelling and transitional and organizational problems that I could draw on. I will have to develop those more for my final analysis of her writing.
Spelling
Ammie's final draft had only a few spelling errors, but the error guide for elementary spelling inventory showed she is in the middle stages of digraphs and blends and the long vowel patterns. This is where I plan to start with as a focus for her lesson plan.
Lesson Plan
Objectives:
The student will be able to use a graphic organizer to identify main events in chronological order as a pre-writing strategy.
The student will be able to use the organizer to effectively structure facts and details in her writing.
Standards:
EALR 1. The student understands and uses a writing process. Component: 1.1 Prewrites to generate ideas and plan writing. Component 1.1.1 Applies more than one strategy for generating ideas and plannign writing.
Materials:
Paper, pencil, more writing samples (for later).
Instructional Strategies:
I will ask Annie about the reasons she thinks they need new playground equipment and work with her to find out more details about why. We will work together to revise her draft and work on transitions.
Assessment:
I will see how much help she needs in revising her draft and work with her onn the 6-Traits Analysis Organizer.
It sounds like Annie has a number of things that you could work on based on the three pieces of writing that you have reviewed. I think your plan to work on her story about new playground equipment is a good choice since it is in the pre-writing stage.
ReplyDeleteOne thought is to consider two separate conferences/lessons for ideas and details. Getting Annie to use a graphic organizer about "new playground equipment", might turn into a story focused on the narrower idea of "a new climbing wall" or similar. Once she has two or three ideas about why the climbing wall would be a great addition to the playground with the connections between them, she could focus on adding details.
My master teacher just did a simple "mini lesson" on elaboration and "tell me more" to my whole class. Students simply folded a piece of paper down the middle and started with the prompt "what is the best type of animal to have as a pet?" After they responded with a topic sentence, they listed questions that their audience might have on the left and answers (the details) on the right. It involved some partner talk and really seemed to get the details flowing with the questioning strategy.
Susan
It's interesting that you chose to base your lesson plan on using a graphic organizer. This sounds like a great way to scaffold your student's learning about Ideas based on her apparent knowledge of Organization. Make sure, in the lesson plan, you stick with the trait of Organization, though. It looks like you have plans to also include elements of the other traits in this lesson; but, it may be overwhelming and/or confusing for your student to learn all of these at the same time.
ReplyDeleteEven though you and your partner used different writing samples, it looks like both of you were able to draw very similar conclusions about your student's writing strengths and areas for improvement.
In your spelling section, it would be interesting to see some samples of misspelled words. Are there any patterns that you noticed about your student's spelling that might help you determine the next step in her spelling development?
In your analysis you mentioned that your students writing was well organized, but that her word choice was functional but not very creative. Is that right?
ReplyDeleteDo you think that having a writing conference with her to work on inclusion of lively verbs and more interesting vocbulary might be of use to her? In my main placement, we have been using mentor texts (books that can be used to show how the author accomplished the skill that you are trying to emphasize)to help students see different ways of forming sentences and using words to help create lively visual images. Maybe a writing conference to help brainstorm descriptors?