Purpose of Homework... Entry #10

My past experiences with homework has been bittersweet. Dealing with difficulties of not seeing my students everyday I have found that homework can be a useful tool to help students prepare for an in class assignment or to finish an activity that they were working on in class. However, this is where the bitter comes in, it becomes such a management headache making sure students are turning it in on time and holding them accountable, and then there are the students that just do not do homework and therefore having to adjust instruction to accommodate that factor. And it comes to a point that becomes more of a burden than a blessing. I have experienced this at two different schools with multiple groups of kids and while now it is less of an issue than it has been before, I still have a bad taste in my mouth around homework, which has led me to put a lot of thought into this whole issue.

Putting my feelings aside about the whole circus that turning in homework can be, if it's what's best for kids it will be facilitated. With that being said, I believe that homework needs to have a purpose, I don't think busy work is beneficial for students or myself whether it is independent work or assigned for homework, I think that every moment spent with students should be spent purposefully. Therefore, my objective for homework has been to practice a skill we have already learned in class to achieve mastery or to prepare for a more in-depth activity that will be done in class but always to extend or deepen a students learning. One homework assignment that I have had the most success with this year was around the idea of supply and demand, where the student was able to research any topic as it related to supply and demand and answer comprehension questions about the topic and draw a visual that represents the supply and demand of this topic. Not only did I receive an almost 100% completion rate, it was the best work that I have seen because they were able to be creative and choose what they learned about. This really supported my objective around meaningful work and my intent for homework. This also supported my English Language Learners because they were able to research a topic that was culturally relevant to their own lives and the time given to complete the assignment allowed them to do high quality work. Furthermore, if they didn't feel that they were able to express themselves sufficiently in writing they also were able to express the concepts through a visual representation.

Communication between home and school can always be a challenge, but especially with English Language Learners. The first potential barrier could be the language issue which as English speaker can be difficult, but when calling home or communicating with parents I always try to use the resources available to me in the building. Another potential barrier is technology, it would be naive to assume all students have access to technology at home and be purposeful of having technology available at school or providing opportunities for students to be successful. The last potential barrier I will discuss, is the work schedules of parents especially those of ELLs, it can not be assumed that they work a regular schedule or could be working multiple jobs which can make communication home difficult or in school meetings with transportation, etc. The best method I have found as an educator, is to be patient, be understanding and continue to try no matter the adversity being faced.

Fiction vs Non-Fiction

As a teacher that works primarily with non-fiction within my content area, I found that making a graphic organizer that helps distinguish between the text features and structures within that genre very easy to put together. I used the textbook I use in class and identified different features that would help a student gain comprehension from the text. I broke down the reading into the three parts: before, during and after to help a student practice metacognitive strategies. I also scaffolded the writing portions with sentence stems and questions to think about while reading. A feature that will help a student learning to speak English would be the text features such as titles, pictures, maps, charts, glossaries to help find the meaning of unknown words. A feature that I think will serve challenging to a student learning English would be the structures of a non-fiction text such as cause and effect, compare and contrast, etc. I tried to support that challenge by using images to help explain the text structure. 

Fiction was much more difficult for me, because it is not something that I am familiar with implementing in my classroom on a daily basis. I relied on the expertise of the Language Arts teachers that I worked with and additional research on the subject. I brought up lots of old memories from elementary and middle school recalling all the features and structures of a fictional text. The graphic organizer that I included for fictional text is much more basic and just highlights identifying the beginning, middle and end of a story, the characters, conflict of the story, resolution of the story , point of view and theme. All of this features could be identified during reading, as a comprehension tool I included a story map to help students put all of these features together in a cohesive way. Features of the text that I believe will support students learning English would again be illustrations because it will make the characters, setting, and theme become more concrete for students. Furthermore, I think that they will be able to identify the conflict easily. Features that will serve challenging would be if students do not have illustrations as a support that will prove difficult to students, furthermore, I believe resolution and point of view will be difficult for students to navigate as well because these concepts are much more abstract for students. 

By completing these together or comparing them side by side, I think the students will visually see the differences between the two types of texts. I think it would be a useful activity to do in a classroom for English Language Learners or those in an intervention classroom, or as a reminder for all students of what the different features and structures are of the two texts. 

Sources:

Google Images

This Reading Mama - a developmental approach to literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http://thisreadingmama.com/

(n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http://www.abss.k12.nc.us/cms/lib02/NC01001905/Centricity/Domain/2723/Common Core Question Stems.docx.

Entry #8

What does the teacher do to promote comprehension?

• Teacher has the CLO is posted at all times and reviews with the class
• Teacher reviews: key vocabulary, content, strategies, objective at the end of the lesson
• Teacher conducts a front loading lesson about inference 
• Teacher explicitly instructs how to write questions and how to phrase questions
• Uses a parking lot strategy where students use post- it notes to record I'm confused/ I'm reminded of... thoughts from the night's homework and then reviews at the beginning of class.
• Models Reading and Strategies
• Promotes metacognition while reading with various strategies
• Has students annotating the text through post it notes with questions they have while they are reading.

What do you see the teacher do?

• Reviews reading strategies and makes connections to students' background knowledge
• Previews key vocabulary pre-selected by the teacher and supports with visuals
• Uses anecdotes to help vocabulary make sense
• Uses key vocabulary in students' native language to establish connections
• Uses pictures, headings, titles to preview what the text is about and make connections to background knowledge
• Speaks clearly and slowly
• Explicit direct instruction around during reading strategies
• Asks questions and provides scaffolding around strategies
• Creates sufficient wait time

What do you see the students do?

• Collaborative learning-- clarifying in native language
• Asks students to make connections and understand their background knowledge of culture
• Interacting with difficult texts
• Generating questions
• Making connections to background knowledge
• Implementing reading strategies
• Asking questions
• Participating in discussion

Coming from a content area classroom, I have experience implementing a reading lesson at a much smaller scale such as an article, but I have never seen or been able to see how it can be implemented with an entire text over a unit so I found this to be very informative and interesting to watch. What I noticed, is that it seemed the students trusted their teacher and that they had built an environment where it was ok to make mistakes and talk about books in a very authentic way. This to me is extremely important for any student but in particular for an English Language Learner at the secondary level. Furthermore, I observed many strategies that I use in my own classroom so it was very validating to know that I am supporting ELL's in an effective manner across various contents.

Running Record

My first running record that I administered was to a male 7th grade student whose first language is Arabic. According to his ACCESS results from last spring, he scored reaching (6) in comprehension, listening, oral, reading and speaking. He scored bridging (5) in literacy and expanding (4) in writing. This is very apparent when working with the student because verbally he is very articulate but his writing does not match this. It is to be noted that his family has chosen to refuse ELA services. After reading the passage, he scored a 97% accuracy rate with an error ratio being 1:30.5. He was very aware of his reading and self corrected at a 1:3 ratio. Upon analyzing the miscues I noticed that the student tended to make words singular when they were written as plurals, that could be a feature of his first language, I am not familiar enough with the Arabic language to make this assumption. Another common feature of his miscues were omitting words altogether but they were words that did not detract meaning from the passage.

The second running record I administered was to a female 6th grade student whose first language is Spanish. According to her ACCESS scores from last spring, the student scored reaching (6) in listening, bridging (5) in comprehension, expanding (4) in oral and reading, developing (3) in literacy and writing and emerging (2) in speaking. This student is truly all over the board in her language acquisition. This student is somebody that I do not teach so I am unaware of how they perform as a student, but through this activity it was very apparent we she scored by listening to her read. After reading the passage, she scored an error ratio of 1:4.9 and an accuracy rate of 80%. Upon analyzing the miscues I noticed that the student often substituted words that had no context within the reading making comprehension of the text very difficult. Furthermore, the student often pronounced or sounded out words based on that of her first language.

The only trend that I was able to locate between the two students was their tendency to make words singular when they were written as plurals. This could be a universal trend between all English Language Learners because that is difficult skill to transfer between languages.

Next teaching points based on this data would be, some explicit vocabulary instruction. This would be essential to both students reading comprehension and fluency. This instruction could take place as sight word practice for my second student and then more content specific vocabulary instruction for my first student. Furthermore, another teaching point based on the data would be continued guided reading to help them become more comfortable with reading and continue to develop strategies.

Language + Acquisition = Krashen's Theory

When answering these questions for this exercise I came back to the fundamental of both the theories; language is the view of word recognition that it must be learned while acquisition is the view that language is innate and can construct meaning through reading. That is why when it asked questions such as "read a language experience story they have created with a teacher" or "sets aside time for SSR each day" I felt that it most represented acquisition because the students are reading in order to deepen their understanding of their already acquired language and using that to help them to construct meaning. When it presented choices such as "divide words into syllables" or "on a worksheet, draw a line from each word to the picture that starts with the same sound" I deduced that it would best represent language because the students were being specifically taught word recognition. 

My understanding of the two views tells me that, language can also be acquisition activities but acquisition can not be language activities, therefore it was difficult for me to dual label many of the scenarios for that reason.

 I think this was a helpful exercise in investigating the two view points on teaching language acquisition. My idealistic self seems to want to side with the acquisition view because I believe that is the best way that anyone should learn is through the application of language and the acquiring of language in a real authentic way. However, the practical, realistic part of myself knows that they can't always happen and students need that explicit instruction around language in order to reach the authentic acquisition stage. In an everyday classroom, these two viewpoints can be blended in order to ensure that every student is able to access language and be able to apply it towards their literacy needs. 

Circle Time

    By Judy Schachner
Ages: 5-8 years 
Grade Level: Kindergarten through 3rd
Lexile Level: 740

"My name is skippito friskito. I fear not a single bandito."

This book would be a good choice to introduce to an English Language Learner because the story line is about a Siamese cat that believes he is a Chihuahua. ELL students will hopefully understand that confusion around identity and where they "fit" within a setting. 
For Spanish speaking ELLs they will be " especially delighted by the words and humor; others maybe bewildered by all of the foreign phrases and will need some explanation, but the story definitely has the potential of a fun read aloud. A good multicultural offering."Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA

Students may struggle with:
                          idiomatic expressions
                          non-sense words 
                          rhyme
                          figurative language 

In order to activate schema the teacher can ask the students before reading to discuss a time that they have gotten lost in their imaginations or their thoughts and to describe what that was like for them. Another way to activate schema to model how to work through difficult vocabulary and determining if the word is essential to meaning or if they are primarily non-sense. Next, having the students repeat the process for other words through out the story. 

 By Anna Dewdney
Ages: 3 and Up
Grades: Preschool and Up
Lexile Level: 370

"Yucky music,/great big feet./Ladies smelling way too sweet....Try it on and take it off./Pull and wiggle,/itch and cough"

This second book would be good to introduce to English Language Learners because it is very repetitive, and students will very easily catch on to the pattern of the story. Also, it is a situation that many children can relate to no matter their cultural background. 

Students may struggle with:
                         rhythmic rhymes
                         figurative languages
                         non-sense words
                         Onomatopoeia 

In order to activate schema, teachers can ask students about a time that they became frustrated with a family member, and have them discuss how that made them feel and what actions they choose to take. After reading, students can then create a rhyme about the time they brainstormed before reading. Another way, teachers can activate schema is to discuss with the students before reading what is rhyme? Students could then brainstorm rhymes after defining the term. After reading, teachers can ask the students to identify the rhymes within in the story.  

Seeing French...

I found this assignment very interesting and decided I would challenge myself to rise to the occasion. It would have been easy to pick a text in spanish, but French is a language that I have been interested in but have been told it wouldn't be "useful" to me in the future… Well eight years of spanish courses, and I am not sure that has been anymore "useful". I searched Google for a text seen below, 

"Lucie, étudiante des États-Unis, vient d'arriver à Charles de Gaulle, l'aéroport qui accueille chaque jour à Paris, 1 million de visiteurs. Paris. Enfin. Ça a toujours été le rêve de Lucie : vivre dans la Ville lumière, la ville des beaux arts, du quartier latin, du vin, et qui sait, peut-être la ville d'une petite histoire d'amour.

Son projet est d'étudier en France pendant un an, pour obtenir sa licence ès informatique à l'Université de Versailles à St. Quentin-en-Yvelines. C'est l'université qui lui a offert une bourse pour faire ses études. En plus, sa copine Josephine fait ses études là-bas, et Lucie va pouvoir vivre avec elle dans son petit appartement. 

Elle prend le RER qui la mène directement à la Gare St. Lazare, en centre-ville. Une fois arrivée, elle cherche le quai du train pour Versailles. Elle monte dans le train, et bientôt il entre dans un tunnel sombre en direction de Versailles. Lucie est un peu déçue, parce qu'elle doit rester à Versailles bien qu'elle veuille vivre à Paris. Mais elle se dit que Versailles n'est qu'à quelques minutes en train de la grande ville de Paris, et qu'il y a aussi plusieurs attractions à Versailles.

Le train sort du tunnel, et en passant par la grande ville, elle voit un grand cimetière, la tour Eiffel et Montmarte avec la basilique du Sacré-Coeur tout près. Quelques instants plus tard, elle arrive en gare de Versailles.

Elle est arrivée à destination. Devant elle le grand Château de Versailles où Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, organisa des fêtes et vécut la grande vie entouré de ses maîtresses. À droite se trouve l'avenue de St.-Cloud, où est situé l'appartement dans lequel elle va vivre avec Josephine. Fatiguée, mais joyeuse, elle commence à chercher l'adresse de l'appartement. « Toute seule dans un nouveau pays, ne connaissant personne, l'avenir, je t'embrasse vivement ! » se dit Lucie" ---http://french.about.com/library/reading/bl-luciea.htm

Once I got the text my eyes immediately went to words that I recognize from english such as "univeriste" "informatique"and I started to create meaning. Furthermore, I started using my language skills that I recognized from my spanish study days (hey! it did come in useful!) and began to find comparisons between the spanish words that I know and there french counterparts. 

What I noticed is as I read, I jumped around a lot in the text, unlike when I read English text my brain jumped around locating the words that it recognized. The more I looked at the text, the easier it was for me to focus my brain and actually read the text in actual sentences. Also, I observed that I kept recalling what I understood to the point that I had to write it down, and feel in the blanks very similar to word puzzle where you one by one fill in the blanks. While I know I did not understand every word of the text I do think I was able to get the general gist of the text. 

"Lucy is a student that has just arrived in Paris to study Computer Science at the University…" 

Implications as a teacher, through  this exercise I have found that English Language Learners have to read a text several time to even began to create comprehension of a text in their brains. Furthermore, it is very easy for students to forget the text they have translated so a good strategy is to have students write down what they understand as they are going through a text to create meaning of what they have read. 

This was a very insightful exercise.