T Shaped Literacy Unit 2 - Characterisation...

This term our T shaped literacy unit focused on characterisation in texts. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups. I lead the last unit so this time around Dianne took the lead. After creating our unit we remembered or more able students shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. To rectify this we made the decision that I would take a small group characterisation unit that ran alongside Dianne's unit. To keep this entirely separate we used different texts for each group although our learning intentions were the same. Dianne used the text 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and I used 'Wolves' in children's literature. As Dianne had a much larger group she was supported by our TA Linda.

Like last time we began by introducing the word characterisation so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. To help our students and ourselves strengthen our connections to this focus we used the excerpt from the text 'Beans' that Aaron shared with us in our PD sessions. These activities can be found on here on slides 98 - 106. Both Dianne and I then front loaded our groups with vocabulary they would be needing to make sense of the learning. This can be found here on slides 11 - 22

We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation again this time around as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded.  My group had an individual response DLO as it was a much smaller group. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. The purpose of the response DLO is to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

Having the reference slides was a huge help as this allowed for ongoing rewindable learning opportunities to occur. What I found was that this was actually a challenge to navigate past so I created a slide that worked along the lines of a contents page. This was a tweak mid unit as I found myself scrolling for days to find the slide I was currently working on.

 

The Wolves unit focused on the way author's influence the perception we have of wolves as readers. In most children's literature the character of the wolf is more often than not portrayed in a negative light. As we explored these texts we found a number of similarities between the words used to describe their appearance (eg: big eyes, sharp teeth) and the illustrations even though the authors and illustrators in each text were different people. My students then filled tables that reflected their first impressions and synthesised their findings across the range of texts we were exploring. We incorporated learning from our Mood and Atmosphere unit to allow for consolidation and transference of learning. Each text we unpacked had the same follow up activities so again that allowed opportunities for connections to be strengthened. My Wolves unit took on a critical literacy approach so we compared texts that showed the wolf character from both perspectives. In place of sharing the activities created I have chosen this time to highlight the student's work via their blog links and a collaborative DLO. Not everything we did was blogged as not everything was a 'create' task. 

Character Story Response - This was a collaborative task that incorporated shared ideas and rich discussion opportunities.

Wolf Character Analysis - The Three Pigs - This was a collaborative task that involved a co-constructed questionnaire, individual data collation followed rich discussion opportunities when the data was analysed. What I like about this post is the fact the students have widened their audience by including a google form to help them gather a wider range of data from their global audience. This will make for interesting comparisons if we get any responses.

First Impressions of Character Analysis  - An individual task that showcased individual connections made to the learning. The students were free to adapt their DLO layouts but again have chosen to use the layout and colours I chose in the response DLO. You will see from reading these that strong connections were made.

For our final task I asked the students to use their learning of mood, atmosphere, sensory imagery and characterisation to describe a wolf from a text of their choice that we had read and unpacked. The examples below reflect how these students perceive the wolf character they chose to describe.

Santana's Description

David's Description

Chisa's Description

Bella's Description

Farzana's Description

This was another powerful unit of learning. I spent the first week setting my students up using  Aesop's, Wolf in Sheep's clothing text. Upon reflection modelling and co-constructing responses alongside my students that week enabled them to continue to work independently when I was off work sick for two weeks. Although there were teachers present in the classroom, I chose not to let this learning fall away because I wasn't there. I wasn't up to Google Meets so we made use of emails and the comments tool for feedback, questions to be asked and guidance to be given. I'm very aware of the affordances that learning in a digital environment offered us in this version of distance learning and am so grateful that we took the time to set ourselves up for success as this allowed us to keep this learning going.

Click here to find Dianne's blog and her reflection of her T shaped Characterisation unit.

T Shaped Literacy Unit 1 - Mood and Atmosphere...

This is my reflection of our first T shaped literacy unit that focused on the mood and emotions in a text. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups, except for our two 'top' groups. We kept these groups separate as we wanted to see how they would rise to the challenges set. This group of students have shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. This proved to be an excellent decision as it not only allowed the two groups to realise their full potential, but saw other students who would normally take a more passive role, stepping up. 

We began by introducing the words mood and atmosphere so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. These lessons were shared in an earlier post.

Our provocation that underpinned our learning was: ‘Man should die fighting hard like the struggling shark not tamely submitting like the lazy Tarakihi.’ Should the men of the native contingent have had the right to prove their mettle at the front?

I was responsible for creating and running this unit, with Dianne supporting me. We will be reversing the roles in the next unit. Doing it this way allowed Dianne to observe me and give me regular feedback, in addition to supporting the student learning. I chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. I do realise this looks like creativity was a bit stifled, and to some extent I agree. In the past when I have run T shaped units my groups have all naturally changed the look of their response DLOs, but this year they didn't. Perhaps because these students needed the scaffolding in place. The purpose of the response DLO was to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The master copy of the response DLO. Each group made a copy and used this as the place they recorded their thinking and added the links to their recorded learning conversations. Really useful additions to this DLO were the 'Questions we have' slide and the 'Vocabulary we don’t understand' slide. Discussing the content of these slides at the start of each lesson meant that we learnt with and from each other the whole way through. 

What has amazed me throughout this learning experience is the way my students have connected to the learning. I don't recall ever having asked them to look closely at the way the author uses mood and atmosphere in the text before, so this focus was completely new. Their understanding is reflected in the discussions that we chose to record on Screencastify and in their DLOs. 

One of the highlights of this unit for me was when a student who finds many aspects of reading a challenge called me over to his group and said, "Mrs Anderson we can't believe they had racial profiling back then.... The men of Te Hokowhitu-a-tu were overlooked because of the colour of their skin.... I can't believe that some people in England thought the Maori men wouldn't be safe if they had guns, that's just dumb!" I was so shocked by what he said I wrote it down as soon as we finished talking. This just proves the importance of helping our students make connections to the learning. His 'ah ha' moment set the tone for the rest of his learning. He confidently contributed to class and group discussions from then on, and on a number of occasions took on a leadership role in his group. Something he usually shies away from.

I'm excited to see how we can transfer this learning across our wider literacy program.

Mood and Emotions in Poetry and Art...

Last week Dianne and I introduced our learners to the way authors use words to evoke mood and emotions in poetry. We used ANZAC poems as this was both timely and sets us up for success in our upcoming unit. We began by asking our students to choose three emotions then match them to a colour before sharing their reasons for these colour choices with with their groups.

The challenge was to read each poem then respond to the questions below that were guided by feedback from Dr Aaron Wilson at our last PD session. We did the first poem together as a class. This was very much a guided teaching time. Our students then worked their way through the DLO below, choosing the order they read and responded to the poems in. 

• Use the highlighter tool to match a colour to the emotion or mood the words make your feel. 

• How did the poem make you feel?
• What words did the author use to make you feel a certain way?
• Did you want to feel this way?

Ours students were given the choice of who they worked with and were asked to share their thinking throughout the lesson with their peers. The time for talk allowed for ideas to be shared and gave our learners the opportunity to learn with and from each other.

The presentation below is the teaching DLO we used. 

Link to Presentation

To reinforce and strengthen connections to mood and emotion, Dianne took an art lesson that focused on Kadinsky's concentric circles. This encouraged our students to respond to the mood and emotions that listening to the instrumental music evoked. What amazes me is the difference in the colours chosen by each student. This makes me excited to see how our learners will respond to the tasks in the upcoming reading unit.

T-Shaped Literacy Intervention - Record of learning link 2022...

This year Dianne and I are taking part in a project run by Dr Aaron Wilson and Selena Meiklejohn-Whiu from the University of Auckland, to investigate the effects of a T shaped literacy intervention of Year 7/8 students' reading and writing of literary texts in subject English. 

As a record of my learning I have decided to create a post that will be updated as we move through the project. I will be sharing the resources I make for my class in additional posts. We are starting the intervention this week with a pretest to gather baseline data and paint a picture of where our class is starting this journey at. Following on from each session we will implementing the new learning in our class program.

Links to notes from our PD sessions:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

Session 6

Session 7

Session 8

Session 11

Session 12