It's been hectic time at school recently because the Christmas holiday is approaching and everything needs to be done before it begins...
I attended a course by Tiger Leap Foundation about formative assessment (rubrics and portfolios etc) and I can say that I got some really good ideas and links from there. But I'll talk about that sometime soon.
Today, I actually wanted to say a few words about the Literature Circles. You probably remember the lesson we had not really prepared for in Boone and therefore couldn't try out how it would work. At that time we were supposed to learn about the Literature Circles...
Well, I did try it now.
One of the lesson plans I submitted to IREX was the one about "My Papa's Waltz" - a literature lesson. We read the poem, we listened to an interpretation (a song) by a young guy on Youtube and then I gave them all numbers from 1-5 (they asked whether these are the grades for that lesson - haha!). All 1's, 2's etc. had to form a group together - so I got about 6 groups. They had to start distributing roles and working on the poem together and the homework was to work on their role.
Literary circle roles - I gave them this page to help them decide their roles and remember what they had to do.
Next lesson: I gave the orginal groups some time to work together (about 5-7 min) and then grouped them according to their roles (illustrator, messenger etc.).
I attended a course by Tiger Leap Foundation about formative assessment (rubrics and portfolios etc) and I can say that I got some really good ideas and links from there. But I'll talk about that sometime soon.
Today, I actually wanted to say a few words about the Literature Circles. You probably remember the lesson we had not really prepared for in Boone and therefore couldn't try out how it would work. At that time we were supposed to learn about the Literature Circles...
Well, I did try it now.
One of the lesson plans I submitted to IREX was the one about "My Papa's Waltz" - a literature lesson. We read the poem, we listened to an interpretation (a song) by a young guy on Youtube and then I gave them all numbers from 1-5 (they asked whether these are the grades for that lesson - haha!). All 1's, 2's etc. had to form a group together - so I got about 6 groups. They had to start distributing roles and working on the poem together and the homework was to work on their role.
Literary circle roles - I gave them this page to help them decide their roles and remember what they had to do.
DISCUSSION LEADERS working hard
Next lesson: I gave the orginal groups some time to work together (about 5-7 min) and then grouped them according to their roles (illustrator, messenger etc.).
These are the CONNECTORS
They had once again about 7-10 minutes to decide on what they are going to talk about (with the help of some discussion questions).
The WORD WIZARDS
The work of the illustrators was OK for the first try I guess - you can see it here. At least we had something to discuss.
It seemed that we did have more fun doing that than any lecture could have provided. They are used to me lecturing about literature. Now they had to be involved. I'll have to check how much they know afterwards but it still felt good to do something new.
The students are NOT that different from the US students - so it can be done! They might need a bit more training as to group work and sharing responsibilities and so on but IT CAN BE DONE.
The timing in my lesson plan was seriously OFF - I expected it to be ready in 2x45 minutes but it will take me twice as long with my students.
Next time I'm going to talk about the Christmas Show that we are preparing for. Fun and stressful time...
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