fourth grade Archives - At the Heart of Teaching

Collaboratively Constructing An Assessment Using GAFE

I am a firm believer in collaboratively constructing assessment criteria with students in order to determine what has been learned. I also know from experience that the process of creating, reviewing, revising, and applying criteria with fourth-graders can be a lengthy process. It is also one which can lose effectiveness if we don’t maintain momentum. We need time to discuss, chart ideas, categorize, test-through-application, and revise our criteria. This year, as I prepared for 4JR’s first collaboratively constructed assessment, I decided to try using Google Apps For Education-GAFE.

Using Google Docs To Chart and Draft Criteria:

As my fourth-grade class neared a stopping point in our nonfiction and research unit, we started discussing how we would know what we learned. The students knew throughout the unit that they would do a post-unit assessment. They expected to evaluate what they took away from the unit and what might need to be reviewed or extended in a later unit. When it came time to discuss criteria, I gathered the students together in front of our SMART board and asked:

I set up the google doc prior to the lesson. As we discussed the criteria, an assessment tool was born. Where there was confusion, we discussed what could be observed to know if a researcher had met the criteria. These discussions were captured in the third column.

I originally planned to categorize the criteria at this time, but as we continued the discussion, I sensed they needed to work with the criteria first. I decided it was enough to generate criteria and discuss how we would know for now and to come back to categorizing later.

The students first applied the criteria to the post-assessment they had completed the day before. Once we had our working document, I immediately pushed the doc out to them using our Google Classroom and sent them off to assess their research skills and behaviors with their reading partners. Here are a few samples of what I got back:

Student Assessment Using Google Classroom and Google Docs — Student: KN

Student Assessment Via Google Classroom and Google Docs

After actually applying the assessment to their own work, evidence emerged on what students were doing as researchers. It also became evident which criteria students understood enough to discuss in detail when applied to their own work.

Ready to Revise:

Revised Assessment Using A Google Doc — The “final” tool, complete with categories.

We reconvened at the end of the session. At that point, I felt the students were ready to consider how we might organize our criteria. I asked them if any of our criteria could be categorized into groups. We use Project Zero’s Visible Thinking routine, “Generate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate,” often in our community, so this was a fairly accessible question. The students discussed how we could reorganize our criteria and we ended up with a “final” tool for future use. The students can now access this rubric at any time using our Google Classroom.

Reflections:

Use comment feature on google docs to make assessment clearer — Using comments to annotate the discussion leaves the reflection boxes open for student’s individual reflection. Next time, I want to record the initial discussion about how the criteria might be observable in comments, instead of in the green column. I think that will make it clearer to my students that they should back up their assessment of their own work with evidence.

This lesson took just under 90 minutes. Some students did not make it all the way through the criteria when they were self-assessing but I was confident that they’d had enough interaction with the criteria and tool to discuss the categorizing and other possible revisions. Those students finished their individual assessments at home that evening for homework.

I will definitely use this process in the future. As the students become ready to evaluate themselves in more depth, we can move into more of a rubric than a checklist-with-explanation.

Classroom Libraries: What’s in there and why?

How Do We Decide What Goes In Our Classroom Libraries?

My classroom library is a vital part of the classroom culture. I spend as much time and thought curating my library as I do setting up my room and planning units. I know that a classroom library can inspire imagination and ignite reading lives but it can also deter readers and dampen enthusiasm. Making sure that our classroom library is a place kids want to spend time is crucial. Here are some of the ways I inform the selection of books on hand for my fourth graders:

I focus heavily on series and authors. Experience has taught me that if a reader, especially a reluctant reader, can get into one book in one series, they’ll continue reading and actually benefit from the support of the structure and familiarity of the series. Automatic scaffolding. Win-Win!
Stand of series and author collections
I consider genre, making sure I have a balance of fiction and nonfiction and a good variety of each.
I keep track of what’s hot. Right now fantasy and sci-fi are in with both boys and girls. Fairies used to be a female favorite but now they are so three years ago. I hadn’t seen much interest in straight-up adventure (no magic or post-apocalyptic civilizations) in the past few years but see that it is starting to make a comeback.
I consider hot topics for nonfiction. Cars, soccer (European), jewelry-making and ancient civilizations are big right now. The usual animals also have a strong showing.
I consider my curriculum and am always on the
Unit-related collections. Some stay out all year, some are introduced later in the year and some are put away after a period of time.

lookout for titles that support my units AND are appropriate for my readers. That last bit can be tricky.
I troll teacher blogs and book lists more than I troll facebook. Donalynn Miller is one of my biggest influences when it comes to how I organize my reader’s workshop and of course, my library. (I highly recommend that teachers who are interested in selecting books and organizing for engaging and effective reading instruction check out what Donnalynn has to say.)
I find out what other teacher’s kids are into.
I ask my students. This is likely the most powerful method I have for selecting engaging, relevant books that my readers will want to actually read. Being in touch with what the kids will actually read is the most important thing. No matter how many awards a book has received, no matter what the education field or curriculum documents say is quality reading for my fourth graders, a book that sits on a shelf doesn’t help any reader. A book that a child is dragged through can do more harm than good.
- At the start of the year, I ask them what books they think their classmates must read. I use google forms and compile lists of recommendations. This autumn, kids asked for: Warrior Cats, Dork Diaries, Land of Stories, Pegasus, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Norm, Tom Gates, Horrible Histories and books by David Walliams, to name a few.
- When we have book fairs, I ask kids to make a list of recommendations from the displays for our classroom library. When I worked in schools that didn’t have book fairs, I gave kids scholastic catalogs and asked them to make wish lists. Even in inner city NY, money could be found to purchase a selection of those lists and honor the student’s selections.
- At the end of the year, I ask again, this time for them to tell me what I must have on hand for the incoming class that August. The graduating fourth graders are more than happy to keep me hip to the trends.
- I pay attention during reader’s workshop, noticing which titles are being fought over and which topics are being discussed.
- I watch how my students organize the library. They are welcome to change the organization and their choices often let me know what’s important and interesting to them.

I’ve found the local bookstore that also has an impressive English language kids’ section. It’s not Barnes and Nobles but it’s a close second.
I wander into other classrooms and see what they have that we don’t.

One thing I don’t have to worry about too much is funding. We have a very generous budget that allows not only for updating our libraries regularly but also for doing so in a timely manner. In other words, when three of my reluctant readers got into the Alfie the Werewolf series last year and they were fighting over the few copies in the lower school library, I could go to Amazon and stock them in our class library while the demand was still hot. Three boys who spent two-thirds of the year bored by books were engrossed for the final three months of school in all things Alfie.

How Do You Decide?

I’d love to know how other teachers find books and make decisions on what to put in their libraries. What series, genre and topics are hot with your kids? What websites are great for finding lists and updates?

Happy reading!

Integrating A Persuasive Language Study Into A PYP Unit of Inquiry

Working at a PYP school, there is often discussion around how we can incorporate quality literacy teaching and learning into a program of inquiry. Here is an example of how this can be done by using the unit of inquiry and key concepts as a base, and “workshop” style mini-lessons and engagements as a vehicle for students to develop their skills and understanding.

At the end of an inspiring two days with Georgia Heard and Kathy Collins last month, we were asked to reflect on our take-aways. Long-term, mid-term and immediate-I had so many ideas vying to be my main focus, but Kathy Collins’ session on close reading was right on time for the unit I was starting with my fourth graders that Monday.

As a part of our “How We Organize Ourselves” unit, we explore the marketplace. Our language integration for this unit focuses on persuasive speech and texts. The unit has moved this year, and now occupies a comfortable six weeks, split up by our February break. In the past, it would get crammed in right before the Christmas break, vying with holiday festivities, special events, and waning attention spans; along with all of the other “loose ends” that we wanted to tie up before a three week break. The time now allocated to this unit has it brimming with possibilities. There is more time for students to pursue their own inquiries into the marketplace, as well as for some in-depth exploration of language within and beyond the context of the unit. Students can be afforded compelling opportunities to become critical readers of (or listeners to) persuasive and argument language; as well as skilled users of this genre when their writing or speaking goal is to persuade or convince others.

We’ve always looked at different forms of advertising during this unit, and we extend the literacy integration to include persuasive essays and stories. This usually begins with an exploration of advertising gimmicks, such as slogans, logos, smart facts, spokespeople, etc. Students learn about these gimmicks and then use them to advertise their own products and services, which they work on developing and preparing to sell at our grade 4 marketplace. We then usually continue building on our understanding of persuasive language, by examining author/creator’s purpose, and craft moves for persuasive essay writing. We would read persuasive texts together, but there was never much time for a reading unit. This has always been frustrating for me, as there are so many amazing links to the skills habits our readers need to develop, but there was never any time. Until this year…

Coming up to this unit, I knew that my students needed to work on their critical reading skills, and to recognize the need to develop their own ideas about what an author is saying. While persuasive texts are not the only ones requiring these skills, they do provide a very concrete point of entry for fourth graders to develop the skills and dispositions to read/listen to what is being communicated closely, consider it critically, and make determinations based on their own experiences, knowledge and feelings related to the text.

Planning ahead, I developed three questions for students to use as they practiced close reading of/listening to persuasive language:

What is the author/creator trying to convince me of or persuade me to do?
What strategies is the author/creator using to persuade/convince me?
What are my thoughts, connections, questions and reactions to this?

Modelling and then releasing responsibility:

Students began using these three prompts as they watched television commercials on youtube. I first modelled “close watching” using a commercial from my childhood, for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. I pointed out the jingle (I know I’m not the only person out there who can sing the “Tony the Tiger” song by heart). I noted the use of healthy, active children, playing sports and showing off their energy. I talked about Tony, the spokes-tiger. I then modelled reflecting on what the advertisement was telling me, and what it was trying to get me to do. At this point, students were catching on and joining in, thinking along. We captured our ideas on the chart below and then I sent them off with a pre-selected collection of commercials from around the world, to practice this very same thinking.

Close Listening to Commercial — Some of our thoughts in response to the Frosted Flakes commercial.

As the students practiced close listening, I noticed that many were easily picking out the purpose of the commercials, as well as some of the more obvious advertising gimmicks, but many students found it more challenging to discuss their own ideas/reactions to the commercials.

The next day, we engaged in a similar engagement with a print advertisement. This was definitely more shared reading than modelling. As the students became more comfortable with the type of thinking we were practicing, they took on more responsibility.

As our unit unfolds, students are able to revisit the collection of commercials and print ads that I had curated for them during the readers workshop, as well as explore other persuasive, and non-persuasive texts. I will continue to look for ways to support them as they develop their understanding of persuasive language, how it is used, and how they can be critical consumers when they are on the receiving end. Very soon, we will start looking at all of these ideas as writers and creators of persuasive texts and language.