making learning visible

My inquiry has shifted to how can I show these students their learning in a meaningful way?

Using a recorded survey back in January I found that:

• They all know that our purpose is to improve their written English.
• They all have learned our 5 point sentence rubric.
• They all appreciated the small group support to work on editing their writing
• None of them remember taking the CELDT test and have little or no understanding of
what it is and why they take it.
• Most of them couldn’t define a sentence.

We’ve spent months on sentence writing but I’ve neglected to teach them the meaning of the word or concept of a sentence. And they also need to really understand the difference between a simple and complex sentence. The CELDT rubric requires a complex sentence to get the highest score. A simple grammatically correct sentence is still only a 2 on a 0-3 rubric.

So since then we have spent more time understanding what we’re doing. We’ve written simple sentences and transformed them into complex ones. We have a growing chart of ways we know to write complex sentences. It maybe time to do another survey and see if I’ve really taught what a sentence is. I’ve had individual conferences with each one going over their CELDT scores.

My small team members have given me several good ideas to make the learning visible and concrete. We have added another row of boxes on the writing rubric so that each student can score their own writing and then compare their score to mine.

writing about science

Working with science content to teach writing is proving to be challenging. It takes more time both in my preparation and in teaching the class. I check in with the science teacher to learn the weekly content of the 5th grade science class and then plan the appropriate language structures to match the science lesson. On Monday I front load the weekly science content information to the students, focusing on new vocabulary. On Tuesday I teach language structures using everyday vocabulary to practice the new forms. On Wednesday we write the language structures with the science vocabulary. On Thursday we edit and rework our writing or practice with language games. I find I’m spending more time teaching and reviewing the science than teaching writing.