1.4: Examples of Student Work
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The final segment from this meeting shows how the teachers bring examples of student work from their own classrooms to discuss and analyze with colleagues. All teachers brought 3 writing samples, illustrating the achievement range in their classes. This clip shows Ms.Estline presenting and discussing work from her class. We will be seeing Ms. Estline's class and hearing more from her later in the film (Segments 9 and 10). Notice about mid-way through this segment one of the AALT representatives asks Ms. Estline to elaborate on the instruction she thinks is contributing to students' use of sight (red) words in their writing: "What do you think is the main reason for them to start including the red words? What do you think that you've done….?"
Sandy We'll start with our samples of work that we have. Diana And we'll just basically talk about them and talk about the strategies that enabled us to get where we are and... Yael We all brought in our work of children at different levels. Gerardo Mhm. Yael I have here a low and and 2 mediums, so I'm going to start off with one of the mediums that I have. This is actually interesting because this was done in February but it's the same child as the one I'm going to show you next. And here he wrote, I went to the movies with my mom and my brother. I was happy. And he's got some letter reversals here. And he does have punctuation .... at the end. And some of the words that are red words that we have taught are here correctly. And he also has a grasp on some of the th, ch, sh. And with him I emphasized spaces on the next one he wrote. T3 Mmm. Yael This is just March 22nd, so it's just a few weeks later. And here he wrote, I like school. It is fun, very fun. Diana I saw, Yael, that you have the word 'the' in there. Do you have a chart where they can go and look up words? Yael We have a word wall, and we put down our high frequency sight words. Diana Mhm. Yael And so yeah, they use that a lot. They really do. And we practice, we do games, like around the world and those sorts of things where they're constantly using their red words. I have children who are still um, writing strings of letters and you'll see red words inserted in the middle. Ts (chuckling) they're getting them-- Yael So you have, yeah they're getting the red words, which are sight words. Sandy What do you think is um, the main reason for them to start getting the red words? What do you think that you've done that has made them (?)? Yael I'm also modeling it. A lot of times when I always write, I always write before it's their turn to write. And always, whenever I get to a red word I stop and I think if it's a red word or not and we decide together if it is. And if it is we'll put it on the word wall and then clap it out. And so I'm trying to model it every time for them to do it in their own writing. And they, also, we also have a little ladybug, a little puppet ladybug, we call her Red. And she hangs out by the word wall and whenever she sees, whenever they're writing, she goes around the classroom and finds red words in their paper. Ts (laughing) Cute! Yael They really want to put a red word in there because they want a visit from their friend. So a lot of the children are just writing now a lot of red words and they've forgotten communication. So you have to be careful and have to push communication more. Yeah And then I have, um, a child in low that I brought here. And this is um, a story about him and his dad. And they went to the museum together. And this is what he told me. But I don't, um, I didn't see when he was reading it any connection between what he's saying and the sounds and the letters. So, um, what I do see this child doing is writing in the lines, understanding that there is directionality to writing, he's going from left to right when he's writing. And um, he does have a couple of red words, I, and I see is down here. But it's not connected to what he's saying. So um, and this is someone who has been in my classroom from the very beginning of the school year. And this is also a child who actually does have most of his letter sounds and names. So, when you sit one on one with this child, he can do it. He can write out exactly what he wants to say. But on his own, this is what I (?). Diana So it might be a focusing, or an idea about words. What words and letters and how that all goes. Yael So these are my examples. Sandy Great. Good job.