Literacy Term 1

Here is a very short presentation I gave today, along with talks by the other MITA recipients, at the Learning and Change conference (19/3)

TIMETABLE

I have timetabled the Literacy block into 1/2 the class having independent writing sessions all week while they other half have guided writing lessons. Then alternatively those who have had guided writing do independent reading for the week while the other 1/2 do guided lessons with me. The children were enthusiastic about having the freedom to spend the week working on whatever project they wished. However after the first week of this there was mixed success . Some had little to share by the end of the week, due to not not managing their time well. The difficulties come with having disruptions to the timetable so that the time they have allocated ends up not being enough.

Week 7 Revisions

I persevered with how I had organised the timetable and kept with sharing the tasks on Friday but moved to them sharing them the following Friday. This meant that they had 1 week of in class time allowed but then could keep working on it to finish it in their own time the following week. I'm finding that there are actually several groups who are choosing to keep working through their lunchtimes even on the week where they are getting in class time. They are enjoying the freedom of creating their own projects so much that they want to continue. This also helps address the worry I had that I wasn't actually allowing them enough time to complete a quality product.

This week I have made 1 other change to the timetabling in that I have allowed a time at the beginning of each morning with me for those independent groups to reflect on where they are at and offer suggestions. I found that this was a good idea to address the need to give some feedback, where particularly in the planning and script writing stage they needed some tips and suggestions to help raise the quality.

The tasks produced to date have been quite diverse. After the first week I had thought that perhaps I needed to give some direction to avoid having groups ending up with little to show. However I am now glad I didn't head down that track. The variety in content is quite refreshing. It leads to good discussions about purpose, audience and message. We have had projects about a variety of sports, a project that highlight THe Point England Way, narrative movies, information slideshows about a student's former hometown in Australia, and pieces about online games.

I had thought also that I should insist that each student have coverage over the types of genres/purposes they create but have decided against this also. I think if students want to create a similar second movie or project to their first then they will be learning from their mistakes and trying to improve on what they have already done will be a very valid and valuable exercise. If they continue to do this all the better for them. They will be becoming an expert in a particular type of product. However my hunch is that students will naturally want to experiment with different genres when they become inspired by what others have done.

I will continue to find good examples of movies, animations, documentaries, music videos etc which will hopefully push the students to try and create something great!