Blogging in room 208 today. Please have your blogs posted before the end of the period. Comments can be done any time before your next meeting (but don’t forget please!)
Here’s the link from yesterday for those of you who were interested.
Blogging in room 208 today. Please have your blogs posted before the end of the period. Comments can be done any time before your next meeting (but don’t forget please!)
Here’s the link from yesterday for those of you who were interested.
Learning Goals
We are learning to use oral communication skills and collaborative skills to share and build knowledge about a text.
Success Criteria
• I can demonstrate responsibility and accountability by completing my reading and preparing my notes and questions prior to our group meeting
• I can identify key ideas and questions that I want to pose to my group that help enhance my own understanding and the group’s understanding of a text
• I can listen effectively and respond to the ideas of others
• I can present my ideas clearly in an informal small group setting
• I can build on ideas from other group members by asking clarifying questions and making connections
1) Review your reflection sheets from last time, and reflect on which one of the success criteria is your goal for this week. Think about what specific steps you’ve already taken or can take to ensure you will meet that goal.
2) Review steps for literature circle meeting:
3) Today I’m going to give you sentence starters to help you build on ideas and respond to ideas using academic language. I want you to try to use some of these sentence starters in today’s discussion.
4) Remember, in order to participate in today’s meeting you must have your reader’s journal complete. If you don’t, please come and see me for an alternate assignment.
5) Once your meeting is done (if time permits) we’ll reconvene to discuss possible blog topics for tomorrow.
Okay so let’s take a few minutes to talk about our literature circle meetings and reader’s journals. I have reflection sheets that I want you to complete right now in preparation for next week. Lit circle reflection
I am concerned that a number of you didn’t a) submit reader’s journals and b) complete your reading. This is troubling for a number of reasons:
1) You won’t get feedback from me before your next set of journals are due
2) You let your group down by failing to meet the expectations and making it difficult to have a meaningful conversation about your book.
Next week if you are not prepared for your meeting (ie/ you don’t have your reader’s journals done and/or you haven’t read your entire novel chunk) you will be sitting out of the meeting and you will not get any marks for the meeting. Instead, you will be given a list of study guide questions to complete while your group meets.
Please have your blog posts completed and posted prior to next week’s meeting but be aware that your second blog post must be completed in class
Today is a blogging day. The goal of your blog is to synthesize the learning you’ve done in your reader’s journals and your literature circle discussion.
For this week I’ll let you decide what topic you want to write about. Choose something that sparked a lot of discussion in your group. It could be something you all agreed on or something that there was a lot of disagreement about. It could be something that you still have a lot of questions about. Whatever you choose to write about, you should attempt to draw some conclusions. It’s okay to change your mind about these conclusions, but in essence you are completing the “and so” part of the phrase “It says, I think, and so…”
Once your blog post is done, you’ll comment on at least two other blog posts. Remember, a good comment extends the conversation: Compliment, Comment, Question
Today we learned that if you don’t do your preparation for your literature circle meeting, there are real-world consequences: you let down your group members. We’ll talk about how to deal with this tomorrow.
We’re beginning our literature circle meetings today. It’s really important that we talk about what constitutes good oral communication skills since that’s one of your learning goals for this unit:
Learning Goal Success Criteria
We are learning to use oral communication skills and collaborative skills to share and build knowledge about a text. | · I can demonstrate responsibility and accountability by completing my reading and preparing my notes and questions prior to our group meeting
· I can identify key ideas and questions that I want to pose to my group that help enhance my own understanding and the group’s understanding of a text · I can listen effectively and respond to the ideas of others · I can present my ideas clearly in an informal small group setting · I can build on ideas from other group members by asking clarifying questions and making connections |
So let’s focus on what active listening looks like and then let’s talk about strategies for building on ideas and keeping the conversation going.
Then you can get into your meeting groups.
The process for a literature circle meeting is as follows:
1) Make sure you’ve got your questions and reader’s journal ready to go.
2) Get comfy, make sure you can see everyone’s face.
3) Start by clearing the air. Is there anything you need to get off your chest before you can dive into the discussion.
4) Take turns going around the circle and identifying some of the insights you noted in your journal.
5) Go around again if you have more to add.
6) Take turns asking your discussion questions.
7) As a group try to sum up the most interesting ideas your group discussed.
8) Thank your group members for being prepared and sharing their ideas.
Today we’re going to focus on what makes a good discussion question.
This connects to the following learning goals and success criteria for this unit:
Learning Goal
We are learning to use oral communication skills and collaborative skills to share and build knowledge about a text. |
Success Criteria
Look at the following examples. The examples in the “yes” column are examples of the concept I want you to understand. The examples in the no column are not.
Yes | No |
How might the main character in the story react if she hadn’t known the details about the event? | What is the main character’s name? |
Why might the narrator choose to make “Earth sandwiches with someone on the other side of the world.” ? | What did Laura say to her mother when she talked to her on the phone? |
How will the main character’s mother cope with the fact that her son has rebelled against the family’s wishes? | Why does Jimmy claim to be afraid of heights? |
What would you do if you were in the main character’s position? | When can the main character leave the hospital? |
Testers
When would it be acceptable for the main character to resort to violence?
Where did Mrs.Tipping buy her shoes?
How would the villain justify his actions?
How can Billy redeem himself?
What is Jake’s explanation for burning down the convenience store?
How would you describe the author’s attitude toward the subject matter?
Please use the rest of the period to generate at least 3 discussion questions for your meeting tomorrow and finish your reader’s journals.
Othello essays are due today folks!
Could you please submit your essays directly to Turnitin? You will need the following information:
Class ID: 11246743
Password: tipping
If you run into problems, submit it via Sesame and I’ll upload it for you but you’ll save me some time if you can submit it to Turnitin yourself.
We don’t have an actual class today because you have a guidance session today. So I’ll see you tomorrow and message me on Remind if you have any questions.
We are continuing our blog posts from Tuesday. Once you’re satisfied with your post, make sure you comment on at least two other posts. Remember to extend the conversation. When you’re done those tasks use the remaining class time to read and work on on your reader’s journals.
Yesterday I introduced you to the blog that we will be using to reflect on our literature circle novels. Today we take a closer look at the learning goals and success criteria for this unit and discuss the summative assessment. You’ll also have time to read today and work on your reader’s journals so please bring your book.
Your first task is to log in to our class blogging site.
See yesterday’s post for the code you’ll need. The link for the site is in the upper right corner of this page.
I’ll talk to you about the anatomy of a blog post and what makes an effective blog post and then you’ll write one. But don’t worry, this post is just for practice. Although I also hope you’ll find some useful information.
Both novels are set during different time periods in different parts of the world. Therefore, they both have different cultural and historical contexts to consider.
What do readers need to know about:
1) The part of the world in which your story is set?
2) The time period of your story?
3) What signficicant events were happening in other parts of the world?
4) What happened right before the story takes place that is significant?
5) What was the culture like of the time? Think music, art, leisure, pop culture, etc.
6) What political issues were significant during this time?
7) How were men and women viewed? What about minority ethnic, racial, or religious groups?
Put all this information together in a blog post of approximately 500 words. Be sure to include pictures, audio, and video where possible. Make sure you tag your blog post so your classmates know what information they’ll find in the post. (Go beyond obvious things like “culture” or “history” because everyone’s researching that.)