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.
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.
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