Nerds Unite! Practical Planning Checklists for Grade 4 ELA
True confession: I love reorganizing outcomes into charts and lists.
NERD! I know…sigh.
When I dove deep into the grade 4 outcomes and illustrative outcomes, I discovered some interesting possibilities for teaching and learning.
I can’t tell a lie. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and cranky trying to create new ways of looking at outcomes. All the cutting and pasting and honestly thinking…is this a colossal waste of time?
Why can’t I relax in the summer like a normal person?
Yet, I find myself pursuing these ideas to the end.
Can we all agree?
Teaching is getting harder.
How can I make planning EASIER? For YOU? For ME?
Easier means that outcomes are in a form that matches what you have set up in your classroom. For this reorganization marathon, I wanted to make lists to support – the writer’s notebook, the reader response notebook, fiction/nonfiction reading and writing workshops, word study, spelling and revision.
But guess what?
I found some unexpected things.
I found outcomes that have amazing connections to technology, student interests and socio-emotional learning.
Presenting! There are a ton of presentation outcomes. We don’t spend enough time teaching kids how to present. These outcomes can support the content areas. In LA, poetry cafe, book talks and reader’s theatre are big possibilities.
Visuals! Many outcomes are about using visuals effectively in presentations and student work. Visual literacy is a term you can look up to support this area of learning. Technology has many apps to support these outcomes.
Author’s Craft! This outcome below, implies author studies, illustrator stories, storytelling studies and film studies.
- Discuss a variety of oral, print or other media texts by the same author, illustrator, storyteller or filmmaker (2.2)
and this…
- identify how specific techniques are used to affect viewer perceptions in media texts (2.3) Terms: long shot (setting),close-up (dialogue),cut/fade (change of setting),voice-over (narration)
Film studies! That’s fun! Not only can students learn film techniques but they can create their own examples. Connected to these outcomes are comic book/cartoon studies and grade 4 ART outcomes.
Feedback! Noticeable were several outcomes that addressed self-assessment, feedback, critique and group work. This is an area we all need to do a better job with. These outcomes have strong ties to socio-emotional learning.
Nonfiction! Yes, we need to teach story writing but nonfiction (reading/writing) needs, in some ways, more attention in the grade 4 classroom.
I will share with you the messy doc. This one includes all the outcomes with illustrative examples. This was the step before the checklists but might be helpful for you.
This is the tidy one – checklist format.
Let me know what you think!
Until Next Time,
Coach Clark
