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

In every classroom, there is always one student who finishes before everyone else, aptly named Mr. or Miss “I’m Done”.

Yet, they are not done, especially in a writing classroom.

These students are from three camps – the perfectionists, those lacking in spirit and those that don’t know what to fix.

When I say lacking in spirit, I mean that they are not motivated to look over their writing to make changes.

The perfectionist, also does not want to make changes because they are perfect.

Those who don’t know what to fix cannot make changes cause they have no idea what they would change.

These types of students cannot be changed over night.

Yet, the fix is the same for all three.

There needs to be an expectation stated in your room where students look over a criteria list and assess what their writing has and what it needs.

This needs to be modeled by teachers and rewarded.

Rewarding changes means that student work is shared often in the process of writing.

A student might share a revised beginning, a revised sentence, a reordering of ideas, revised dialogue or a revised ending.

All revision, edits, changes need to be celebrated in order to defeat the “one and done” approach.

Perhaps keep a record of individual changes in a document. This might provide the encouragement that they need.

Other ideas include a one column rubric, goal setting, breaking tasks down and comparing their current writing to past work.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it is also important to show students what you mean by adding details.

The reality is, in the writing classroom you are not done, you’ve only just begun.

Until Next Time,

Coach Clark