Educator Cross-Share
Lisa Levin
The Challenge:
What challenge or need were you responding to?
My students were comfortable in my classroom. They were so comfortable, in fact, that they relaxed and let me do the majority of the talking. I would ask a question and they would wait for the one or two students who participated to respond. Their writing was minimal and mostly in Spanish.
What were you curious about experimenting with?
I was looking for a way to encourage more independence in both their speaking and writing. I saw a brilliant technique being used in a SLIFE classroom at the Blackstone and was curious if it would encourage more participation within my class.
What I Tried
I tried these things/steps
Prior to the visit I had given them sentence frames to fill in using graphic organizers that we completed together. This worked well and I was happy with the outcome. But as the year continued, my expectations grew. This is when I had the opportunity to visit the SLIFE classroom at the Blackstone.
I tried these things/steps
I created sentence frames and a word bank of traits that described the characters in the unit we were studying. Together we placed the word cards in the sentence frames and practiced reading the complete sentences as a class. Eventually, the students were able to create sentences independently and write them in their notebooks.
I expected that…
And what actually happened was…
The students would be able to create, read and write the sentences. They referred to the displayed words often and took pride in using them correctly.
The students were transferring what they’d learned to their SLA class. They were applying the words that we were using in their work.
They were also using their knowledge of the prefix “un” in “unkind” to comprehend other words with the same prefix.
Early impact
So with my students, I started to notice a shift...
*New unit
*New word bank, color coded to match sentence frames
*Loads of oral practice, physically moving words
*Integrated Lotta Lara questioning (video)
What I/We Learned
Key ingredients: What made this work?
# 1 building the word bank together
#2 encouraging errors
#3 ongoing feedback
Next steps...
I want to keep: Experiment with:
…using the frames, changing them as the unit changes. I will continue adding to our ever growing word bank.
…attaching realistic images with each body part and verb. I would like to incorporate more independent writing work where the students need to rely on the word bank.