Variety Vs. Boredom

During my interviews with students regarding best classroom climate management methods, I gained interesting insights on teaching methods. Students indicated they are desperate for instructional variety. Kids are bored with more bookwork. They want teachers to use methods that go beyond the vocabulary and reading comprehension quizzes outlined in their textbooks. Students indicated they were more likely to exhibit disruptive behavior when they were bored. Back in my sixth grade practicum classroom, I realized variety in instructional strategies is especially important during review sessions. Students are prone to tune the teacher out, thinking they have heard all the material before. My lesson entitled “North African Perspectives by Pen" took students into entirely new territory as I engaged them in writing their first RAFT 


This “North African Perspective by Pen” lesson provided ample opportunity to assess students’ progress as well as my own instructional effectiveness. Their RAFTs were to include at least three specific facts from chapter seventeen. Reading their creative writing gave me the opportunity to assess students’ ability to identify key facts and internalized them through the creative writing activity. Using the data from this formative assessment, I evaluated my own instructional practice. Were my methods clear and on target? From my reflection I deduced that in the future, I would require students to incorporate at least five specific facts from the chapter since many students demonstrated they are ready for a greater challenge. Furthermore, since several students missed the target, next time not only give an example of a “good RAFT”, I would compare and contrast it to a “bad RAFT” – one that does not make clear, creative connections to relevant chapter facts. 


By the way, I am grateful to report the students were extremely well behaved that day. Seems like variety works. :-)

Conundrum Kid : )

Aren’t people interesting? I mean after all the humans I’ve known you’d think there would be no more surprises. That’s just not the case.

There is a student at my 6^th grade placement – we’ll call him Dave – who just has other things on his radar. Most days he doesn’t complete his work. He sketches Pokémon-type figures daydreams. He seems to think the other kids all bully him, and can’t understand it when they don’t give him a standing ovation for his random stabs at entertainment. He brought a toy guitar and a tin can to school once and got mad when no one paid him for his songs. He doesn’t have the social savvy/maturity to interact with his peers well. He brings stuffed animals, race cars and hand puppets to class on occasion and gets moody and upset when teachers ask him to put the toy away. He will also refuse to do partnered work. He is smart enough to score passing grades on the chapter tests; he’s just not interested or organized enough to turn in the everyday assignments. He doesn’t qualify for an IEP, but I think he really needs something.

I’d love to be one of the encouraging, caring adults in Dave’s life. I’m just not sure how to do it. I think he needs regular one-on-one attention that encourages him to practically develop his interests. He asked me once what jobs are available that are really easy, but that pay a lot of money. (Reality check! People won’t pay you lots to do something they could do themselves.) Since he is smart and curious, he would do well to find real-world applications for his interests. He would benefit from a real-world experience with responsibility. I think money would motivate him. If someone could come along side him and mentor him in perseverance and organization, I think that would be help a helpful step in the right direction. I think specific training on how to make and keep friends would also help Dave. Such an interesting person. 

Original, Respected Ideas

Question: Do my students generate original ideas? And do they show evidence of respect for each other's ideas?
Answer: Yes! And yes!
The students at my practicum placement were recently studying North Africa. I had the opportunity to lead them in a review lesson which incorporated creative writing. Since these students had never heard of RAFT before, I taught them how to use this writing strategy to review for the test. Students incorporated key facts from their North Africa chapter while choosing to write from the role or their choice, to the audience of their choice, in the format of their choice. Several of the products students generated were extremely creative. For example one student decided she would take the role of a suitcase stuck in the trunk of a car traveling across the Sahara. The suitcase and the car had a "heated" discussion which included three key facts from the chapter. Another student chose to be a drop of water sharing a memoir of his journey from the Nile River through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. :-D

Before class was over several students shared the fruits of their twenty-minutes-of-silent-writing labor. All students eagerly listened to their peers share their RAFT creations. Even when one of the writing pieces seemed exceptionally far-fetched, the other students continued to show respect, listening attentively and clapping for their brave classmate.

Using a RAFT for an end of chapter review lesson

This week I got to teach by third observed lesson! At first I thought it would be a tough day to teach and meet the observation criteria, but then my reading and writing across the curriculum training gave me an idea. The date of my lesson landed one day before the chapter 17 test on North Africa. The CT didn't want me to cover any new material from the textbook so they could focus on review, but my university supervisor required that the lesson teach the students new information. I decided that teaching the students how to RAFT would be just the thing. 


Students had never heard of a RAFT writing activity, but after I explained and modeled it they began to get excited. In order to incorporate my CT's desire that the students review chapter 17 facts in preparation for the test, I required that each student incorporate at least three facts into their RAFT from chapter 17. Students scanned their textbooks, handouts, and study guide to select these facts. I wanted to encourage students to view North Africa from a North African's perspective. So we brainstormed a role they could play that would help them do this such as writing from an Egyptian farmer's view, a 6th grade Libyan student's view, or a Arabic news anchor's perspective.


Although some students moaned at the beginning of class when they heard the lesson involved creative writing, these same students eventually caught the creative bug and joined the activity with focus. Students enjoyed the aspect of personal choice in designing their RAFT. This activity seemed to capture their imagination and therefore
went quite smoothly for a first-time activity. Several outspoken students glowed when given the opportunity to stand in the lime-light and read their finished product to the class. All of them loved the finished results and all students benefited from hearing which facts their classmates used in their RAFT because helped them internalize items which they would see on the test the following morning. I would use this activity again in the future.