Karen Pedersen: building comprehension through writing

[Karen Pedersen]

Hello Everyone:

 

I currently am an instructional coach and professional development coordinator for Yerington Intermediate School.  Yerington Intermediate School is a small, rural school located 85 miles south east of Reno.  This school has a diverse population of 367 students in grades 5th-8th.   We currently have a 48% free and reduced lunch population, 18% ELL sub population, 25% of our students qualify for modified testing,  20% Native American population, a large Hispanic population.  Because Yerington is a farming community we also have a migrant program on campus.   In addition, we have a large percentage of transient students.  The economy has been particularly difficult on many of our families as evidenced by a decrease of almost 100 students in the past three years as families become unemployed and must move near family and potentional employment.  

The instructional coach position is an honor as I am in my colleagues' classrooms every day and have had the privilege of being a "second set of eyes" in many different instructional settings for the past three years.    Due to cut backs, our instructional coach position will not be funded next year, and I have accepted a position in the 5th grade.  One of the great things about 5th grade is that I will have a self contained classroom that I can integrate content and reinforce reading and writing across the curriculum and throughout the day.   For the summer institute demonstration, I will be checking with one of my 5th grade teachers to see if I can "borrow" her students to get writing sample and data collection.    With the 5th grade class I am considering borrowing, many of the students are reluctant readers.  There is also a high number of boys, and the boys are very reluctant writers.  Many of the students are isolated from the world outside the valley walls and lack  back ground knowledge and prior experience when it comes to much of the 5th grade content.  

 

As I was driving home today, I really got to thinking about my potentional "question" for my "idea"   Since my initial interview with Kim, I really felt like I wanted to somehow work on building better revisors.  With the years I have been teaching writing, I have come to realize that kids get what I call "writing fatigue".  By the time they get to the revision stage, they seem to just copy what they have and call it good.

So, one of the most important stages in the writing process becomes a "fizzle" as kids "fatigue".  I have also come to realize that when I "interview" with my writers and ask them to read their rough draft to me, they end up saying much more to me than what is actually written.  When I comment on that by saying, "Wow, what you just said to me is very clear.  As the listener I can really see what you are saying, but I noticed you don't have that written down.  Can you go back to your seat and revise your writing so that it is just as clear as what you just told me?" 

Well, the kids head back to their desk and seem to forget what it is they wanted to write.  So,

My question is, "What strategies can I incorporate in my instructional design to build motivation and energy for the revision  stage of writing?" 

 

BUT, THE MORE I GOT TO THINKING, THE MORE MY IDEA CHANGED.  So,

now I am also considering:  "How can I use writing to build comprehension in other content areas?"

This came to me as I was thinking about my future 5th grade class.  So many of the students in Yerington just don't get out much.  Their world is this valley, and, as you all might notice, there really are not many cultural experiences that can support building a schematic or providing experiences in this geographic area.    As I thought some more I reflected on ways that writing might be able to support comprehension across the curriculum.  So, if I could figure out a way to expand the KWL chart as a pre reading and incorporated a "picture to writing" model, would students grasp the content by internalizing it through illustration and writing more than they would if they just read and then wrote about what they read?

So, what I am thinking is this: 

    1.  "picture to writing" pre-reading

     2. reading

      3.  journal writing about understanding.

    

 

At this point I am pondering the two. 

Let me know what you think? 

 

 

[Nicole Marvin]

You have to great ideas here. Even at the high school level students are so sick of their writing by the time they reach the revision phase, a very vital part of the writing process, they tend to burn out. Finding ways to inspire students to revise their work would be beneficial for all students.

What I am curious about is how the lack of cultural experience in Yerington and your "picture to writing" would work together. If they are reading more about other cultures, do you think they will be more inspired to write?

[Melissa LiCon]

Hi Karen:

I think I understand what you are hoping to focus on - you want to increase student comprehension (of content area reading, right?) through writing, and you recognize that the lack of background knowledge poses a challenge to your students in both reading and writing. (Do I have that right?) I was just reading a chapter in Stephanie Harvey's book called Strategies that Work that may relate to what you're thinking about here. The chapter is on how to use what she calls Topic Studies to build interest and background knowledge. The teacher models the process first, with a content-area topic that is teacher-chosen. Once students know the process, it can be used in student-choice (of topic) research and exploration. The first phase, "Activate, Explore and Build Background Knowledge", looks like this: students move about the class, responding to large chart paper posters around the classroom. The central topic might be "weather." Some charts have newspaper articles on hurricanes and tornado events. Other charts have primary source photographs on the topic, quotes and personal stories, poems or song lyrics, other relevant material. The kids write comments, thoughts and questions about the topic on each poster, responding to the content. Kids are encouraged to formulate questions they have, and write them on the chart paper. They can also think about descriptive language and write that, list words they encounter that they need to find out more about, connect the content to their own experience and comment about that. They are also talking with each other as they do this. Personally, I always enjoy this kind of activity; I never tire of it, and I like to think that I am not really lacking in overall background knowledge myself... This could be a great pre-writing activity for your fifth graders, especially in response to a content-area topic.

[Melissa LiCon]

Hi again Karen:

This activity I was just describing is kind of like a whole-class "KWL" on chart paper, done in small groups, instead of individually. Another idea I saw a teacher doing involved the same idea, except instead of putting content-related material on chart paper, the teacher put it on regular sized paper, with different photos, quotes, articles on each page, but all on the same topic. Each student responded to the content on their page for a minute or two, then exchanged papers with another student, then added to what the first student had written about the content. She called this activity "table texting." I thought it was a pretty cool way to get students involved in a written dialogue about a concept.