Jillian, Noel, Gabi

• Everyone comes to the group with fresh ideas to get the ball rolling
• Remind team members that this is a focus on the students.
• A commitment to meeting deadlines.
• Check in before and after session meetings (what are we bringing to the table that day).
• Take care of each other as humans so that we can do the best kind of work.
• Welcome productive feedback/pushes/questions.
• Set Sundays or whatever day works as a catch up day to make sure that we do not fall behind from week to week.
• When it’s time to come together to work, we are there to work (value the time of your team members)
• Our group will take intentional pauses after conflict to reflect and reset.

• Give space to those who need it.

Session 2 Agenda Link: Norming & Identifying a Problem of Practice

Session 3 Agenda Link: Study Phase - Knowing Our Students & Identifying an Equity Theme

Session 4 Agenda Link: Study Phase - PDSA Cycle 1

Session 5 Agenda Link: Study Phase - PDSA Cycle 2

Session 6 Agenda Link: Study Phase - Content Understanding Goal & Lesson Hypothesis

Session 7 Agenda Link: Study Phase - Studying the Curriculum

Lesson Date:

Instructor(s):

Grade Level:

10/25/22

Noel Gikling

4th

Building Student Self Efficacy Through Sensory Details

By fostering student commitment to success and aptitude in self reflection, we will increase academic safety, writing stamina, and authentic expression through recruitment of student interest, self regulation skills, and student autonomy.

As first-year fourth grade teachers every member of our team has noticed that our students respond negatively to in-class writing assignments. We plan to rethink how we introduce these lessons by playing on our students strengths and providing scaffolds that will build confidence and increase output.  

•  For students to develop their self-efficacy, there needed to be scaffolding strategies in place from the adult in charge. It became apparent that students benefited from structures that broke down the process of writing into smaller pieces. It was a way for all students to access writing and see that writing is not just about sentence structure with a strict format.
• In ‘I wish we could make books all day!’ an observational study of kindergarten children during Writing Workshop, Snyders (2013) concludes that that student teacher conferences provide students with the chance to celebrate who they are and what they have done well (Snyders, 2013)
• As Borque, Snyders, and Chambre discuss scaffolding in writing, Zumbrunn et al. (2019), discusses writing self efficacy (WSE) as it relates to student writing motivation, self regulation and success directly. Their study resulted in a suggestion that educators need to gauge student self efficacy using three dimensions;

1. Self efficacy for student ideation- student beliefs about their ability to produce and elaborate on ideas
2. Self efficacy for writing conventions- student beliefs about their ability to follow commonly accepted rules and standards for writing.
3. Self efficacy for writing self regulation- student beliefs about their ability to manage emotions and frustrations that writers often encounter.

Fostering self efficacy in students through quick writes, a positive writing culture in the classroom, and the building of writing skills.

• Low-stakes writing is “a way for students to practice reflecting, experimenting, and expressing thoughts on paper in a way that is not subject to outside evaluation, criticism, or even suggestions (Bourque 2017). As stated above, low-stakes writing relieves students from the pressure of feeling like their writing has to fit a specific structure or format and ultimately just write the ideas that come to mind.
• Driessens & Parr (2019) agree with Borque that quick writes support students to grapple with their thoughts and ideate with less interruption than a high stakes writing assignment. However, they add a critical perspective as they studied the use of quick writes in critical literacy. They argue that quick writes as a low stakes task invites students to become more active thinkers, help them to consider multiple viewpoints, and critically think about real world issues.
• Snyders (2013) offers a way to provide a positive writing culture in the classroom through their mention of student teacher interactions that do not involve rubrics or grades. In their journal, they discuss the benefit of student teacher conferences, sharing time, and daily exchanges with other students. This provides a chance for students to celebrate who they are as writers, creating a positive writing culture.

Prior learning standards that unit builds on

Learning standards for this unit

Later standards for which this unit is a foundation

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.D

Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.4.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Students will be taking a closer look at their creative stories to add sensory details.

This unit begins with students being introduced to quick writes through a low-stakes prompt. They will be asked to write a response to the prompt for a total of 20 minutes. Students will then share using an open mic protocol where their classmates and teacher will provide celebrations for their writing. Later in the unit, students will be given a new prompt that is directed toward creative writing (write a story using these three words: goblin, pizza, and blue). Similarly, they will be asked to create a story and share through an open mic protocol where they will be given an opportunity to celebrate one another. They will also receive feedback from two peers on what to consider next. Using a mentor text, Fry Bread, students will take a closer look at sensory details and why it’s important in story-writing. Through the mentor text, students will edit their own stories to add more sensory details (sight, touch, scent, feel, hear). Through this process, students will see the importance of the writing process and hopefully view writing in a more positive light.  

Lesson

Learning goal(s) and tasks

1

PDSA Cycle 1

Lesson Goal: Implement positive writing culture into our classroom community.
Task: Introduce our first quick write of the year and implement an ‘open mic’ protocol where students celebrate their peers.

2

PDSA Cycle 2

Lesson Goal: Implement positive writing culture into our classroom community through the incorporation of an authentic audience, and community feedback.
Task: Students will engage in a twenty minute quick write and share their writing with their classmates afterwards. Classmates will have the opportunity to share constructive feedback and celebrations.

3

Mentor Text

Lesson Goal: Through storytelling, students will have access to an exemplary text that uses sensory details.
Task: Introduce a mentor text, read aloud (Fry Bread), for students to see what sensory details do to writing. Students will notice and wonder about the details used in the story through turn-and-talks and whole-class discussions.

4*

Research Lesson

Lesson Goal: Students understand that incorporating new writing techniques, such as sensory details, will support them in their writing growth and can yield confidence in their writing through a short narrative.

Task: Students will take a closer look at their previous writing (blue, goblin, pizza) using revision strips to add sensory details to their writing. Sensory details will include explicit teaching around the 5 senses.

5

Post-

Research lesson

Lesson Goal: Students understand the significance of adding sensory details to their stories to create visuals in their readers’ mind. Students will be in the final step of the writing process where they are making the final revisions and sharing their story with peers.
Task: Students will use their revision strips to type their story and continue adding more sensory details to their typed document. Students will share their new stories with their classmates for celebrations only using the open mic protocol again.

Students understand that incorporating new writing techniques, such as sensory details, will support them in their writing growth and can yield confidence in their writing through a short narrative.

During the lesson the team will make observations of the focal students when they…

• share their ideas (whole class and partner)
• Ask questions (whole class and partner)
• Action throughout the lesson (movement in the room, during lesson and independent work)

After the lesson and activity, students will be asked to respond to an exit ticket through Google Forms. These statements include:

• I can make my writing better.
• I can add details to my writing.

• I like writing.
• I am a writer.
• I can move past my struggles when writing gets hard.

Using the scale of:

Agree, Not Sure, Disagree

Data questions, what was the goal?

-surrounded self efficacy, were the students willing to take risks? Keep a growth mindset?

-visual observations were to take in everything the student was doing and saying

-Should have done a before exit ticket

-we could have used more support on the data side of things before we delivered the lesson

-What do you plan to do with this data? We know we will plan better down the road. We’d love to see what they might have done if they had the chance to edit their stories and add sensory details.

We could have the kids write their stories and add more details.

Celebrations from Rochelle: loved the lesson, sounds engaging and fun! Would like to use the lesson for her first graders.

Amanda loved the sticky notes

How did you come up with the data questions and what were they supposed to measure? Took them from an online page about writing efficacy.