Current Events with a difference...

During our Manaiakalani shared staff meeting a few weeks ago I listened to a number of teachers sharing the ways they cover current events in their classrooms. This sparked my curiosity as my current approach has been to encourage my learners to explore the provocation by unpacking the content, looking at the information from both perspectives before forming an opinion based on fact. What I am aware of though, is when you complete this type of task you walk away and often never refer to it again. 

Teacher inquiry challenges you to look closely at your own practice. If what you are doing is 'missing the mark' or has become 'stale' then you need to get creative and find ways to adapt what you are doing to help your learners make stronger connections to the learning. I still wanted my learners to be able to talk about what was happening in the world, both nationally and internationally so I merged a few ideas I saw others doing and came up with a new approach.

I needed to make sure everyone understood the difference between national and international news so we began by unpacking these words. We then revisited author's purpose to consolidate that understanding before looking at the different reasons why a news editor would decide to run or print a story. These included timeliness, magnitude, oddity and emotive to name a few. (Idea sourced from here) This was a fantastic opportunity to gift and explore new vocabulary.

 

I then asked my learners to find a partner and set them the challenge of finding an example of each of these types of stories using national news that they read, watched or listened to. Once they had found an example they would need to talk about their reasons they felt it was best suited to the chosen category, then plot where it took place on a google map. The only written component of this task was to include the title of the news item or article and the exact location it took place in the map pin. 

This was a huge success and was something that could be achieved by all my learners, regardless of ability level. We stopped periodically throughout the lesson to share our news items and justify why these were chosen. I found that throughout these lessons I was continually modelling and reinforcing the use of the vocabulary in context.  

All completed tasks were posted on our blogs. Here is one example of the learning from Mele and Marieta. To see the interactive map you will need to follow the link to Mele and Marieta's blogs.

We repeated the challenge the following week with international current events. What impressed me was the retention of vocabulary and level of understanding behind the reasons news items are run and printed. Here is Alex, Jack, Joseph, Julian and Aung Naing's international current events map. These boys joined forces and had rich and deep conversations as they tried to persuade each other to come to a shared reasoning for their selections. To see the interactive map you will need to follow the link to Alex's blog.

Throughout this learning opportunity all my learners were on task and actively engaged. They were all eager to share their examples, with responses evolving to include a short summary of the content. I'm so glad that I took the time to adapt and change the way we explore current events in LS2!

Making informed opinions:

A few weeks ago I asked the question 'Are pigeons special or pests?' to my learners. Immediately I was bombarded with a variety of opinions but was met with a wall of silence when I asked them how they knew these facts. I followed the suggestions of ways to strengthen connections and accelerate the learning made by Woolf Fisher to provide a scaffolding text, a complimentary text, a challenge text and a self selected text.

The DLOs below are examples of the learning that took place as we unpacked the information. Did we get everything right? In short, no but I do know places I can make changes next time. I found this an exciting process to follow as I could see very quickly where connections had been made and where the gaps were. My learners loved the collaboration and the tasks that followed each text.

It was really interesting to observe reactions to the challenge texts. I had introduced the topic by promoting the idea that pigeons post was an important part of our history. This resulted in a lot of animated discussion about how that was possible because in their words 'most letters would be as big as the pigeons!' After reading, watching and listening to texts that explained the vital role pigeons played in message delivery I caused major confusion by introducing text that explained that pigeons were pests. I think the fact we all found hard to believe was that in the 17th century pigeon guano (droppings) was heavily guarded as it was seen as a highly sought after ingredient in the making of gunpowder! We used this as the comparison point for the opinions of many people today who are now aware of the damage the acidity in the guano can do to buildings and other structures.

Our guided sessions were focused around synthesisng facts across and between texts. We still have work to do in this area, but as everything has a 'use by' date, I chose to move on. The groups below both chose to reflect their final informed opinions in different ways. One choosing to record soundbites on vocaroo, and the other group filmed their responses. If you would like to use any of the ideas we explored all our learning is visible on our class site.