Instructional Conversations

     Instructional conversations are a great way to get students to be engaged and learn while still relaxed and open-minded.  I believe that instructional conversations are one of the best ways to teach students.  Instructional conversations are typically conducted as a whole group in the classroom about a specific piece of literature that is being worked on at the time.  For the purpose of my instructional conversation I will be conducting one in a small group of students about a specific piece of literature.  Goldenberg states, "An instructional conversation appears deceptively simple.  On the surface, it is simply an excellent discussion by a teacher and a group of students...It is about an idea or concept that has meaning and relevance for students."

     "Perhaps because they require balancing or juggling a number of potentially conflicting elements...successful instructional conversations seem to require considerable time and effort from teachers."  This is an important thing to note from Goldenberg.  Goldenberg talks a bit about how while instructional conversations are key element for the curriculum and for the classroom he talks about how instructional conversations come as a rarity.  "Learning to manage such inherent tensions requires repeated attempts to implement instructional conversations, coupled with video tapings, discussions and analysis of lessons."  This is a lot of work!  It is suggested by Goldenberg that teachers meet weekly to work on, assess and analyze instructional conversations in order to relieve some of the stress and work. Goldenberg talks about an important element to master in order for an instructional conversations to be successful is the teacher being able to manage the conversation and keep everyone engaged in a substantive and extended conversation.  The teacher needs to be able to weave individual participants' comments into a larger tapestry of meaning.

     It is so important for the teacher to acknowledge points of views that students have and encourage others to use their own voice as well.  Teachers are responsible for leading instructional and engaging conversations about relevant and intellectual concepts.  Keeping the conversation flowing and instructional even when some students can go off topic comes with challenge.  As a teacher being able to reel the off topic comments back with a "I never thought of it that way, does anyone else think that way or possibly differently?" or, "What can we make of this comment in relevance with our topic?" is a crucial and very necessary skill to have.  Otherwise, it stops being instructional and simply becomes a random conversation between classmates.

     "We have found that when students participate in discussion such as this, their writing about a complex concept such as friendship demonstrates greater sophistication and depth of understanding without sacrificing literal comprehension of the story they have read." -Goldenberg.  Instructional conversations really give way to higher order and deeper thinking.  Students begin to engage with one another stating and hearing different points of view on relevant subject matters through literature.  I cannot wait to conduction my instructional conversation and see what happens!

Think Aloud!!

     Have you ever tried to describe to someone what you were thinking and why you were thinking it and it didn't make any sense?  You got the look of "What in the world are you talking about?"  Think Aloud's are a great way to combat this confusion and look of disbelief.  We have been talking about Think Aloud's in our class and have been asked to conduct one.  The biggest take away that I got from the conversation is that it is a time for students to read a piece of literature, be told to stop, and then think out loud.  Sounds simple enough.
     I went to my classroom the other week and conducted a Think Aloud with my small group of readers.  They were reading the book Count Karlstein.  I explained to the students that we would be conducting a Think Aloud today and these are the steps that I am going to use.  I first off started talking to my students about when we think out loud it is as if we are making our thinking come alive!  I talked to them about how students sometimes use a strategy of visualization and how important that strategy is to a Think Aloud.  Morgan says, "Engaging students in creative role-play allows students "to experience the feelings of those in other places and times and learn from them."  The objective is to help students perceive events through the lens of others and relate those experiences to what they know."  I did a little exercise with them where I had them close their eyes and imagine that they were somewhere spectacular.  What did that place look like?  Have you been there before?  Were there people there?  What were you doing?  What did it smell like?  After the exercise we talked about the places that my students thought about.  I told them that that is exactly what we are going to be doing today.  We are going to be reading Count Karlstein and I am going to randomly stop you and I am going to ask you to think out loud.  I told them that I would model first by reading a section of the book, stop myself and I would make my thinking come to life!  Then I told them that I wanted to go around our circle and have them demonstrate to me while I was still engaging with prompting questions or comments, and then I made it known to them at the very end I was going to strictly observe and they were going to lead the Think Aloud.  Everything went exceptional until it came time for them to do the Think Aloud on their own.
     "We believe that exposing children to multicultural literature is important, but exposure without teacher guidance is not likely to lead to a deeper understanding of the world and the people in it, it is not easy to really walk in the shoes of others." -Morgan.  This is something that my lesson was lacking.  I really need to do a lesson devoted to me modeling what I wanted to happen and what I wanted the students to get out of the experience from doing the Think Aloud.  If I were to have had more time and more preparation I would have done an entire modeling lesson plan or just make sure that during the Think Aloud lesson that modeling was more of the main focus so the students were able to comprehend.  Morgan says, "Students need repeated practice over time exploring multiple perspectives with varied and multiple texts, both fiction and nonfiction."  With more planning time I would have definitely completed this task.  Like Morgan says it is hard to walk in others shoes which is why our students need so much practice with a Think Aloud.  Think Aloud's can create higher order/deeper thinking and can help students comprehension skills dramatically when they are able to indulge themselves in the literature.

Writing Assessment

     It is hard for me to reflect upon the writing assessment because I am not using my students writing but another class' writing samples.  The writing samples that I will be evaluating are sixth graders writing a persuasive essay.  This persuasive essay assignment was given to every sixth grader in the class.  The students started off with a worksheet to help gather their thoughts of what they wanted to write their persuasive essays about and how they would begin to construct their essay.  The worksheet included questions such as space to brainstorm ideas for your persuasive essay, who are you writing to, how will you begin your letter, how will you end your letter, what persuasive language will you use in your letter, and three reasons with explanations and/or facts to persuade the reader to want what the writer wants.  After the students completed the worksheet the began to write their persuasive essays.
     Some things that I thought went well for the students and what helped them most was the worksheet.  The worksheet was a great way to start with this assignment.  With young writers, inexperienced writers, or writers that have a challenging time with writing this worksheet helps those students get their thoughts organized.  It gives these students time to think and plan how they would like to go about writing their persuasive essay.  The worksheet not only helped the students figure out what they wanted to say but how to construct their essays.  When they should add things in to make their argument well written and what things may not be necessary at this time to add.
     From reading the students worksheets and the persuasive essays I can tell that the students have quite the personalities and an amazing sense of humor.  I can also tell that the students are passionate in their writing and what they are writing about and to me that is the most important thing you need when writing a persuasive essay.  If the students did not get to pick their topic to write about I wonder what their essays would have been like?  I wonder what kind of tone would have been?  Would I really find out anything about the individuals that were writing the essays.  Choice in an assignment such as this is also crucial.  I want to know what the students think, I want to know what the students know about their topic and I want to see persuasive language.  These students did an amazing job with this assignment and I can't wait to finish my official write-up.