Writing about Writing

My notes from Staff Meeting with RT Lit ... some notes and some inspiration.  Never give up!

• What does a successful writer look like:

• Importance of building vocabulary, they can’t describe something if they don’t have the vocabulary, can’t compare and contrast.

• Can’t catergorise and group
• They struggle when they do not have vocabulary
• Work on language play, involves a session where there is lots of talk, eg: artefact, picture, video, the children are asked to notice something.  From there they share what they notice,, and decide what needs to be grown, where teacher introduces vocabulary  or seeding ideas and language.  Growing sentences: modelled different groups.

• Talk about the sentence we are going to use, then it will help with students with their writing.

• Use prompts, give them descriptive words, and some words that will prompt them with words that they know.  Share their best words.  Give a sentence pattern.  Eg: An Olympian is …….. And they ….. ……… because …….

What matters to you? Write about what matters to you and not the teacher.

Use video clips, and get the students to watch and see what they think

Spark the ideas

• Eg: This reminds me of a time when ….
• Wonder what medals are made of:  get students to write about it ...write from the motivation (reacting to it yourself) not about the motivation.  Making a connection in some way.  Let go of the product and look at the behaviours.

Scrumps: using senses, when you are describing the artifact

Reflecting on Reflecting

Term 3 has had a rocky start, but now that things are getting into routine again, I find that I am no longer back at square one any more.  What hit me in particular was Week 2, where I have never come across so many obstacles and testing of my reasons behind teaching.  In order to be where I am now, I reflect back and understand that I needed to go through that rough patch to truly test myself, not only as a teacher, but as a nurturer, particularly those who are being nurtured.  I hope this makes sense, but it's really quite hard to actually type it out and express it into words that make sense.

I look back and consider how lucky I am to have these little learners who are at school everyday, to learn something new, and to pass on their new found knowledge to whoever is listening to their stories.

Term 3

This is what we have been doing for Project Energize.  Take a look, photos may change without notice.