As I travel around schools I am asked about independent and how independent writing should be. There are many different interpretations of 'independent' writing in schools which has been demonstrated on our Facebook and Twitter pages this week. The range is terrifying. I have spoke to teachers where no independent writing takes place, although staff think what they are delivering is independent writing. I have also spoken to teachers in schools in which independent writing is forced upon children at regular intervals whether they can do it or not! I looked for governmental guidelines and found the following on the assessment guidelines from 2014. (Tap to englarge) It clearly states what independent writing is and how there must be evidence of it in order to give a level or an assessment. It doesn't clearly explain though what independent writing actually is. One phrase I often here is 'Independent at the point of writing.' This is often used when teachers build up to a piece of writing and then tell the children to complete an extended piece based upon their learning, the phrase 'Hot writing' seems to becoming more and more prevalent too. However, if some schools are asking children to only write cold pieces for assessment and other schools are allowing teachers to have a lot of input immediately prior to the writing outcome are the children all on a level playing field? The question is perhaps then how do we teach skills and then assess them afterwards? The answer maybe is a gap, a gap between the taught skills and then assessing them. The length of this gap depends on the age of the child.
I would love to hear your views on this, please share them in the comments below.
Many Thanks Rob
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Past and Present
I had poor experiences of art whilst at secondary school. If your drawing wasn’t up to scratch you were branded a failure (or made to feel like one!) That was fine though – it was only art – you only had to do it until the end of year 8. Fast-forward 9 years and I was sitting in a warm classroom on Avenue Campus, University of Northampton muddling through a BA Primary Ed with QTS, within which I had 12 hours of lectures for each of the foundation subjects. It was during one of these lectures that I said to my lecturer. “I hate art!” I expanded (obviously) to offer my opinion on art, specifically modern art, which most 5 year olds could match ability wise! The art at university wasn’t all about drawing though it was more about stories. Stories in the images and the stories behind the images. I may have not liked art – but I loved stories! Rose, my lecturer, took me on a journey – both literal and metaphorical – through art. We visited Tate Britain and Tate Modern and I found out that behind every great picture there was a story, either about what the painting contained, about the method used to paint it or about the painter themselves. That was it I was hooked. A bit like how I got hooked on poetry whilst studying for my A Levels. Especially the metaphysical poets like John Donne. The Flea got me – read through that poem as an 18 year old rugby playing lad and it has little meaning. It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; These two lines don’t suggest love to an adolescent mind BUT read it again when a great teacher telling you what everything means and it becomes a great story. A man lay in bed with his lover, he points out a flea and tells her that what she is denying him is happening inside the flea. Their bloods are ‘mingled.’ At this point his lover tries to kill the flea and he tries to persuade her not to but she does. Even after this cruel act he turns the event into his favour, once again trying to persuade her to sleep with him. This was exactly the effect that visiting the London galleries with an expert had on me. I remember ‘Second Version of Triptych 1944’ by Francis Bacon, pictured.
All of the above are good stories and even Van Gogh’s ear slicing tale pales into insignificance if the stories about my favourite artists are to be believed.
The stories told about The Pre Raphaelite brotherhood are legendary, many of the group lived in London, in and among the gin dens and brothels that plagued the city in that era. Many of their relatives, friends and neighbours acted as models for their pictures. In Millais’ ‘Christ in the house of his parents’ we see, according to Charles Dickens, an ugly Mary, based on Millais’ sister in law – other critics of the day call the characters in the painting ‘alcoholics and slum-dwellers’ I think this makes me like them even more!
So I was caught in a toss-up between two pictures: ‘The Awakening Conscience’ by Holman Hunt and ‘Past and Present’ by Augustus Egg.
Egg wins - I love his 'Past and Present' triptych and the narrative behind it. Rather than tell you the story behind the image I am going to ask you to see if you can find in the three paintings the symbols which tell the story behind the triptych entitled Past and Present. Each image has its own title too. ‘Misfortune,’ ‘Despair’ and ‘Prayer’ Here we see a family ripped apart due to a mother’s infidelity. Past and Present
Click an image to enlarge
In the images can you see the following? · The object which reveals her infidelity to him? · The object which shows she was trapped in a loveless marriage? · Three references to the biblical story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden? · Whose portrait hangs below the image entitled ‘The Fall’ and whose hangs below the image entitled ‘Abandoned?’ · Which of the three images are the past and which are the present? · What can we see which sybolises the woman’s impending departure? · Who is looking at the moon? What are they thinking? · Is there any proof that she actually committed adultery? · How can we tell the two shoulder paintings depict the same moment in time? I would love to read other interpretations too! Please think about the answers before looking them up on Wikipedia and we can discuss them during #PaintingsTalk Join us on Tuesday for #PaintingsTalk from 8pm. Just search #PaintingsTalk on twitter and jump in! During the long summer holiday it is inevitable that children will lose some of the learning they
acquired over the course of the previous year at school, and they will get out of the habit of studying. This doesn’t have to be the case though. While it is important for students to have a relaxing and enjoyable break from school there are certain activities that can be built into the daily routine to ensure students don’t become too rusty over the summer. Here we suggest 5 ways to help prevent loss of learning over the summer holidays: Reading should be an important part of a child’s daily routine during the summer holidays. Time should be set aside each day for children to read by themselves, or with an adult if they require help. If it is done at the same time each day, such as for an hour after lunch or after the evening meal, children will know what to expect. Teachers will be able to advise parents on suitable books for their child’s reading level. Regular trips to the local library will ensure there is always fresh reading matter to hand and a librarian can help with book selection if necessary. Just as with reading, maths can be incorporated into the daily summer holiday routine too. If children get into the habit of solving a few maths problems each day they won’t lose the maths skills they’ve built up over the year. In the morning, such as after breakfast, might be a good time to work on a couple of maths problems, so those who don’t enjoy maths aren’t dreading it all day. Parents shouldn’t allow children to dwell on them or get too stressed about them. Again, teachers should advise parents on where the student is struggling and these areas can be focused on over the course of the summer, in a fun way if possible so the child can see the enjoyment in maths. Creative Writing Time The summer holidays are a great time to work on a child’s writing skills. Holidays and day trips provide great subject matter for children to write about. A trip to a museum, for example, can fuel a child’s imagination and provide inspiration for numerous creative writing projects. Writing a short paragraph a day, or a paragraph a week, depending on the age and writing level of the child, should be achievable. Parents can allow children a certain amount of freedom when it comes to subject matter and style of writing, to allow them as much creative input as possible. Good projects for the summer would be writing a diary of a holiday, creating a magazine or writing a story. Identify a Child’s Needs Teachers are well aware of the areas of weakness of particular students. Parents should liaise with their children’s teachers before the end of term to identify which subjects should be focused on during the summer holidays. Their end of year report will also highlight areas for improvement. By concentrating on these during the holidays a child can start the autumn term feeling more confident and capable, and they may even have caught up with their peers to some extent. At the very least they will not have fallen behind any further. Use a Private Tutor To really ensure a child keeps up the momentum with their learning parents could consider hiring a private tutor. The summer holidays are a good time for private tuition as it allows the previous year’s learning to be consolidated and it enables students to prepare for the autumn term, whether they have exams to focus on or they need to catch up with their peers before term starts. A private tutor is able to target learning around those areas of weakness. Fleet Tutors have a large network of experienced tutors across the UK who are available to work with students over the summer holidays. Whether a student needs help preparing for an exam, such as the 11+, or simply needs to gain confidence and skills in a particular subject Fleet Tutors will find the right tutor to ensure a successful outcome. Together, together, together everyone Together, together, come on lets have some fun Together, were there for each other every time Together together come on lets do this right - Taken from 'High School Musical' Whenever I visit a school I ask how many teachers are in twitter and use it for professional purposes. The answers are usually the same - very few! Of course there are exceptions when almost all teachers use it and even when classes have their own twitter accounts for sharing ideas, good practise and celebrating childrens' work and achievements. When I ask why staff are not on twitter they usually say that they do not have the time. Which I can understand as it can become addictive. It is interesting to see that mant of the staff have Facebook though they usually only use it for personal reasons rather than professional. Twitter is amazing and filled with so many people sharing ideas, research and practice. There are also many Facebook pages being created for the sharing and discussion of ideas and resources. I use a short animation to illustrate the usefulness of social media to teachers. It's smarter to travel in groups This is a Belgian Bus advert and the text at the end says it is smarter to travel in groups. Teaching is like this ice floe and the more teachers we can get onto the ice, the better chance we have against the predators. Depending on where you work this may be SLT, Ofsted or other external pressures. Twitter and Facebook can are filled with experts that you can speak to at your own leisure, from classroom practitioners, authors, ofsted inspectors, head teachers, scientists researchers and many more. Get twittering and facebookering. I was going to add a list of #tweachers here but I wouldn't like to list them here and offend some people by missing them out. If you have twitter please leave your twitter handle in the comments section so people can add you. Thanks Rob @redgierob Some facebook pages that may be of interest: Literacy Shed https://www.facebook.com/litshed Maths Shed https://www.facebook.com/mathshed Resources ideas and stress relief https://www.facebook.com/groups/2367182833/ Reading for pleasure https://www.facebook.com/groups/1544272119166812/
Debra Myhill, Professor at the University of Exeter has extensively researched methods of teaching Grammar. To paraphrase her work If children have fun when learning grammar then they will be better at it.
Profession Myhill states "Grammar can be taught in ways which go beyond simply knowing terms and categories, towards encouraging pupils to love playing with grammar and language. "If teachers take this approach, the evidence suggests pupils' writing will improve." Ultimately this is why we all teach pupils - in order for them to improve. I like to take her suggestion of 'playing' literally and incorporate the use of LEGO into my teaching of grammar. In aprevious blog I outlined how Lego could be used to teach prepositions. In this blog we are looking at mood phrases or adverbs of manner using the small heads of minifigures.
5. Once the children have created their sentences allow them to use a thesaurus to find more powerful alternatives for their feeling word. If they are using the card versions you may want them to record them on the back of the card for future reference.
Demonstrate sentence constructions using the mood words or preposition of manner. e.g. The man opened his present happily. The man happily opened his present. Happily, the man opened his present. You could share an image (LEGO boxes or catalogues are perfect) with the pupils or allow them to create their own setting showing various lego men. They can then write a short narrative detailing how the different characters are feeling.
For example: Slyly, the wizard cackled as he watched the Dragon steal the gold.
Determined, the knight tried to storm the tower. Filled with anger and fury the knights unleashed their catapult.
As usual comments most welcome.
Rob
Book blasting
Heard of App Smashing? Just in case you haven’t it is ‘the process of using multiple apps in conjunction with one another to complete a final task.’ Perhaps then you have heard of the music mash up? Again the dictionary definition ‘a recording that combines vocal and instrumental tracks from two or more recordings.’ So these are tech answers to something teachers have probably been doing for decades. I have decided to call this ‘Book Blasting,’ using multiple books to inspire pupils to come up with a final outcome. I have decided on the following ‘rules’ in order to create the ultimate ‘book blasts.’ 1) It should be 3 or more books 2) Linked by theme/character/setting etc 3) There should be a range of genre including fiction and non-fiction. 4) They should inspire a range of writing activities. In short there should be a diverse range of books. Here is one of my examples. The three books I have chosen are: · ‘Flanimals’ by Ricky Gervais · ‘The Land of Never Believe’ by Norman Messenger · ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’ by Lewis Carroll If we start with ‘Flanimals’ we can see a range of creatures such as the ‘Grundit’ who “staggers around half-witted and grumpy, trying to start trouble.” The ‘Blungling’ who “hamble-springs around happily caring for its young. It’s not so happy when it has to watch the adult Mernimbler rip its baby’s head off.” As you can see; lots of made up creatures names along with illustrations of each creature. The descriptions include further nonsense words for description such as ‘gruntloid’ and ‘sproodling’ The students could draw their own creatures and develop descriptions for them using strange nonsense words, they could create a nonsense word class dictionary in order for there to be some commonality of language. This is where our second book of the ‘Book Blast’ comes in. ‘The Land of Never Believe’ is a wonderful book which is set out like a children’s encyclopaedia with hand drawn plates. However it is completely made up. Examples of creatures from The Land of Never Believe are ‘The Fisher Bird’ “Disguised as fish, these sleek, clever birds sit quietly in a menacing row, waiting to strike, which they do with phenomenal speed” ‘The Lurking Otter’ is another made up creature which “pretends to be a rock as it waits for passing fish.” Mr Messenger had an enormous fright when he sat on one. The students could create their own “Land of Never Believe” in order to house the new creatures that they came up with when looking at ‘Flanimals.’ The book could then inspire some explanation and ‘Non-chronological report’ writing where the children add many more details to their creatures such as habitat, feeding habits etc. This then leads onto the third book. ‘Through the looking glass and what Alice saw there’ by Lewis Carroll written in 1872. I will only use ‘The Jabberwocky,’ poem from the text as it links to the previous two, it has a number of strange creatures contained within its verses, the ‘frumious bandersnatch’ and the ‘slithy toves.’ But these pale into insignificance when compared to ‘The Jabberwocky.’ “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” These lines are the warning that the young hero is given. Teachers can analyse the poem with their class and the strange creatures that the students have invented can then be incorporated into their own poems. Following the creation of their poems the students can create a narrative which tells the story of the young boy looking for and overcoming the Jabberwocky, a retelling could be developed by the students creating their own narratives containing their own scary creature. Perhaps this would take a whole half term to create and in my classroom I would definitely be using some visual stimuli alongside but you can see how finding these three very different texts your lessons could ‘Blast off’ Enjoy ‘Book Blasting’ I would love to hear of any ideas you have for a ‘book blast’ #bookblast Thanks Rob “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekov talking about the use of a well know literary device called ‘Show, don’t tell’ and more recently ‘Show, not tell.’ This method which has many proponents in the world of literature is not a new phenomenon. Ernest Hemingway opens his novel ‘To have and have not’ written in 1937 with the following lines: You know how it is there early in the morning in Havana with the bums still asleep against the walls of the buildings; before even the ice wagons come by with ice for the bars? Here Hemingway is painting a picture of early morning in Cuba, he could have easily written ‘One very early morning…’ some writers may argue that these examples are still ‘telling’ although somewhat elaborately. Calling it ‘Show, not tell though does simplify it for our students and is a great way of getting them to use vivid description. Evan Marshall from http://themarshallplan.net/ says: Don’t just write “The subway station was shabby.” Write: “Near the edge of the platform, a man with knotted hair held out a Dixie cup to no one in particular, calling, ‘Spare some change? Spare some change?’ Swirls of iridescent orange graffiti covered the Canal Street sign. The whole place smelled of urine and potato chips.” Perhaps both are telling but one is telling in much more detail. The latter has much more detail and drama. I use film widely in my teaching and I use film to demonstrate this technique. The following two extracts are from a music video called 'Titanium' by David Guetta.
These two excerpts are from one of my favourite films on The Literacy Shed, called 'Catch a Lot.'
There are many other examples in the films on www.literacyshed.com and I may follow this blog up with them if people think it is useful. Thanks for reading and I hope you leave a comment. Rob I have recently been talking to teachers who are exasperated at the fact their children don't seem to know how to write a sentence. In particular, they don't know where to put capital letters and full stops. It doesn't seem to be a KS1 phenomenon, I have witnessed it in KS2 also, talking to frustrated teachers in Y3 led me to ask the following question on twitter and facebook: How do you teach what a sentence is? I received a huge amount of responses. Many people were just clicking follow so that they could see what other people came up with. The responses ranged from ‘I tell them to read the writing and when they breathe that is the end of a sentence’ to ‘the children say a sentence and when they listen to it back they know it is a sentence so they put in a capital letter and a full stop.’ I thought that responses like these didn’t really tell me how sentences were taught. Not really satisfactory answers. It took quite a while until someone actually came up with a technical response such as ‘I teach the subject + predicate’ there were also a smattering of ‘subject + verb’ responses. Some teachers said they taught it by having a zero tolerance response, which is difficult agree with. Punishing children for something they obviously don’t understand and many teachers seem to have a problem with. The problem is that there is no simple answer or rule. How do we explain to pupils that a short utterance like ‘Stop!’ is a sentence as this slightly longer example: ‘Labradors, Golden retrievers, spaniels and beagles are all dogs who can be trained to retrieve the spoils of game hunting.’ Traditionally we have taught children rules about sentences: · Sentences always contain a verb, · It always starts with a capital letter and ends in a full stop, (or either ! ?) · It ‘sounds’ complete or ‘finished’ There are problems with all these. “How about bacon and egg?” doesn’t have a verb does it? The complete or finished rule is rather vague, the answers ‘Manchester United,’ ‘Sometimes’ etc would be seen as fragments by many and not sentences. So should we teach these rules? Yes, probably, but make sure that they can explain why certain sentences don’t fit into the pattern. Sometimes it will actually be for grammatical effect. As teachers we need to make sure we use the technical language needed to explain this, for example Phrase, sentence and verb. Perhaps the definition of a sentence is: A word string that includes one or more clauses which expresses a statement, question or exclamation. It may or may not include a verb but it usually will. We need to ensure that this is not just left to chance. Yes children do speak in sentences and use them often from the time they learn to speak coherently, however, we still need to point out exactly what they contain and how they can be formed in different ways. We can’t expect that because sentences are the basic building blocks of writing, that they are taught early on and then forgotten about. This seems to happen in some schools. It seems to be expected that children can write sentences by Christmas in Y2 and those that can’t are labelled lazy and are punished accordingly. Perhaps they have not understood exactly what constitutes a sentence, perhaps they have not been taught it rigorously enough. We need to ensure that we are teaching sentence construction from the point that we begin to teach children to write, but then don’t stop. Carry on! Keep on teaching them how to construct sentences effectively and accurately until they become masters of it. I have included some activities that may help. Those which were contributed by members of the Literacy Shed Facebook community (www.facebook.com/litshed) or the followers of my twitter @redgierob have been credited accordingly. Teaching activities and aids. I have seen a golden punctuation pen used, for children who ‘forget’ where punctuation should go, they change to gold pens in order to remember with a physical prompt. This is similar to traffic light punctuation. Green capital letter to start and a red full stop to stop. Alana Mead contributed the following ‘I teach that one sentence=one idea. Then when the comma splice, etc, I talk about "Is this a new idea?" etc. I then move on to show how two similar ideas can be joined with a connective instead of using a full stop. This has worked so far!’ Kyla Casey says An oldy but a goody...read something out and get them to listen for the short breaths (a comma) or longer breaths (a full stop) and clap on the full stops. Then get them to do it with each other’s work in pairs. Deborah Jane recommends ‘Lots of practise at 'does this string of words make sense?' If so, give it a capital letter and full stop, if not then make it make sense then give it a capital and full stop. Perhaps use as a daily warm up till they get it?’ You can view the rest of the FACEBOOK THREAD here From twitter @ThisisLiamM Go back to only writing simplest sentences. Each one on a new line. Subject, verb, full stop. Then build back up… @kvnmcl I start in EYFS. The dog barks. Who is barking? What is it doing? Mixed up, barks dog the . rearrange to make a sentence. @teacherstaples reminded us that it ‘Must be taught alongside reading too. Draw attentions to FS in reading. Exaggerated pauses at full stops when reading aloud helps too. Hope blog proves useful, comments are welcome! Apologies for grammatical and spelling errors! Rob I have seen lots of people using Lego recently in lessons as story starters, in fact, we had Lego at one of our conferences and they will be delivering a workshop at our Lincoln Conference in March. I like the story starter packs and I have been trying to get my hands on some but the school budget won't allow it. I was playing with my little boy and his (our) Lego recently and wondering how else it could be used rather than just as creating settings to enact stories in. I thought about which lessons are often most boring; often but not always are those grammar lessons where you need to introduce a new concept. I have been thinking about which concepts Lego could be particularly useful for and thought of prepositions. A friend of mine taught a lesson recently in which she asked a single child to sit on a chair, stand behind a chair etc to introduce the term preposition. One child was pretty much active at a time and this was a problem, yes all children could take part at once and you could play some games like Simon Says. If we were to use characters sitting on and standing behind something then we would have prepositions in context of a narrative. This is where the Lego figures come in. They are not cheap to buy new but can be picked up cheaply on eBay. So this is what I thought lets get some Lego figures and additional props and then see if children can come up with their own prepositions once the concept had been explained. Below you can see in, on and behind. In, on and behind can be developed into clauses. in the house, on the ice and behind the robber. The children can develop these into sentences. The boy was in the house. The girl was on the ice. The policeman was behind the robber. Below (that is a preposition too) we have 3 more Near to the car, between the fences and infront of the barrier. We can perhaps develop these into a short narrative that the children can come up with themselves. For example; The police man spotted someone looking suspicious near to the car. He ran infront of the barrier and between the fences to catch up with him. Fantasy Lego characters can be great for this too. We have the Wizard is on the bridge or crossing the bridge. The Wizard is above the Orc or the Orc is below the wizard. The Wizard is under the bridge. These can become a narrative in the Fantasy or Legend style like this: The old wizard strolled ACROSS his drawbridge towards the castle when he spotted an Orc in the moat BELOW him. He cast a spell, jupmed down into the moat and slayed the terrible creature. He waited UNDER the bridge to check that no more Orcs came. This could be developed by use of description, changing the order of the clauses and the preposition etc. One game you could play with a single Lego man between two people is a variation on battleships. One player using just a cube and a lego man creates a scene. e.g. Man behind the cube, on the cube, under the cube etc. Player B guesses the preposition child A creates aiming to guess it in under 5 goes to get a point. Swap and repeat. The possibilities are endless, but dependent on the Lego that is available. Perhaps you could ask children to bring in their Lego people but look after them very carefully. Please come back to see some more LEGO Grammar soon. Appreciate comments, even if they point out spelling and grammar errors (sorry I dashed this one off quickly) If you would like to respond in private rob@literacyshed.com Cheers Rob After seeing a tweet by @teachertoolkit and then reading Dr Debra Kidd's book * and joining in with and reading lots of discussion on here and on twitter about learning objectives or intentions recently. I have come to the conclusion that I am for sharing learning objectives so that children know what they are learning. However there are a few problems that I have with them. I have seen LO: I can tell the time. Then looked at the learning that has taken place within that lesson. The children had actually learned to tell the time at O'clock and 1/2 hour increments only. At the end of the lesson can the child tell the time? As stated in the learning intention? In my opinion no. I have seen arguments saything that it shows progress over time. So if the LO was 'I can tell the time' would it show progress if in lesson one they learned O'clock, lesson two in 15 minute intervals, lesson three in 5 min increments etc? I don't think so. Well you might say that the learning intention was too vague and should be: I can tell the time in 5 minute increments or as I have witnessed use a context. LO: I can tell the time. Context: 24hr clock notation. I can see how this is useful in class so that children know what they are learning. In English I see the same I can write a narrative opening. However if a child in Year 6 writes: 'Once upon a time there lived an alien called Zarg' for a narrative set in space will they be meeting the learning intention? Probably not. We need to make sure we are sharing success criteria with pupils. Then discuss and model responses to these success criteria so that children can achieve them, rather than making them copy down learning intentions which are often too vague or over complicated. On twitter a number of arguments for learning intentions copied into books was so that children could review the work that they had carried out. In my 10 years of teaching I don't think I have witnessed any primary school teachers reviewing work in books beyond the previous (occassionally the previous two) lessons so that surely can't be the reason, the pupils should remember what they learned in the previous session. Another argument for having LO in books is so SLT or other 'scrutineers' can see the learning that has taken place. By looking at an LO someone cannot tell what learning has taken place. They can tell what teaching has taken place but not the learning, for this to occur they need to take the time to look at the work in the books and see how well the pupils have grasped the concepts. They can link the date of the work with the LO in the planning in order to match the teaching intention with the learning that has taken place. In summary I can see the benefits of sharing concise and specific learning intentions with children along with success criteria, however I feel that copying them down in every lesson may be a waste of time in most situations. Especially in those practical lessons where pupils are forced to open their books, write the date and learning objective before closing their books and getting on with the practical activity. Your Comments are welcome! Happy New Year I have dashed off this blog at speed, please excuse spelling or grammatical errors or point them out in the comments. Rob *http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Notes-Dr-Debra-Kidd/dp/1781351317 |
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