We have concluded our second “Reading and Writing” project at our school site.  Thank-you, to our video productions class for documented this journey. Although this video is just a quick snapshot of our work, I love the fact that the gist of the project is highlighted.

Practice makes perfect.  What we should see each month as the lessons are taught.

• The first day– the students are involved in a cold read (This allows the teachers to assess the students reading needs or progress)
• The second day –the students reread their text with a purpose and hold conversations to help them progress in their comprehension of the text (the conversations build meaning and also the teacher can signal in on what text-dependent questions to ask through the comments heard).
• The third day– the students write a written response (this step is important because we want the students to be able to write a claim and support their claim with evidence from the text.  The textual evidence is what is identified on day two).

What is not noted in our video, is the time in our collaboration meetings where our teachers model the lessons before they ask our entire staff to teach the information.  This is an essential part of our project because it allows for questions from other teammates that don’t teach English and also provides a scaffold for how the instruction should look and sound like.

Another part of the project that did not get video documentation is what happens after the project is completed.  After the articles are read and the essays are written, the teachers bring their students reading and writing work for analysis during our collaboration meetings.  The analysis of the students reading and writing work is key for our school-wide reading and writing goals. By participating in our school-wide analysis, every teacher is able to see what an exemplar looks and sounds like and identify the instructional needs of our students school-wide.

But—- the school year is still young— so we will work on that video next….

http://youtu.be/XnxpVgC58MQ