Sitting in...

Today I had the chance to sit in on a middle years Grade 6 English class. It was great to observe a younger class and reflect on the differences between middle and high school. I must admit that I am always pleasantly surprised as these opportunities to observe seem to be matching up with my readings of the week. This week  I read an article by Mary Macken-Horarik, "Exploring the requirements of critical school literacy". In the article the author argues strongly for the need to for critical literacy to also consider  the challenge of developing those linguistic skills necessary for students to read the text in order to  gain a critical understanding of the relationships and conceptual meanings to be found within it.

And that is what I observed - the teacher teaching those skills and scaffolding the writing process from description - analyzing - essay format. Differentiated learning was in evidence with three different tasks according to the needs of the student. Students had been given modeled examples to support their own writing. They also had support with Step Up to Writing Handy Pages booklet.The teacher focused the groups at the beginning and throughout the session reminding the students of what their tasks were asking of them - to think about 'transition words in the texts, and in their own writing,  and what was needed in developing Introductions. The teacher also spent the lesson clarifying and elaborating with individual students regarding these aspects of their writing - both student having to clarify and elaborate on their work, or their teacher commenting.

The importance of outlining again was evident (seen in other classes). Students were required to complete outline notes before commencing their typed drafts. It gave the students the necessary organised format to begin their writing.

It is this explicit instruction in building up the skills involved in writing essays that will lead these students to be able to analyse and critique them.

It was a great lesson!