After missing out on last week’s classes, I was a little worried the students might have felt a little abandoned. This was an especially big concern because of the note that I left on last class, which had been a rough experience with the substitute teacher. The students had been sternly scolded afterward, and were clearly ashamed, so I was glad to see that they were not concerned that my absence was due to them and their behavior last time. I walked into the classroom at 11 a.m. as usual, and got the usual round of “Hey Paul” and “what’s up Paul” from the students. Nice to know that I am becoming more of a regular figure. The students were working on a new type of essay (not a narrative, as before), the persuasive essay. Ms. Moraes was leading a worksheet on the 5-paragraph essay form with the topic being “healthy foods” and the direction being “how can we convince others to prefer healthy foods.” This was a good integration of a potentially boring (yet VERY critical) essay writing exercise, using a topic that not only was easy to talk about, criticize, and apply, but also beneficial in itself. During the worksheet, I noticed that Laura was playing with her broken earring and distracting some other students. This was troubling to me because I know from experience she is one of the brightest students in the class, and also a great writer. I suspected she might be bored with the work – more on that later. However, I was impressed with how Ms. Moraes pulled her back into focus for a moment. “Laura, please finish that because you’re distracting others.” “I’m still paying attention, though!” “That’s not enough, you should use your ability to multi-task to help others around you instead.” This is exactly what Laura generally does during classroom activity, and it’s clear the layout of the seating is designed to leverage her ability to elevate her peers’ performance. Laura is especially effective in this role because she is a playground leader as well. Laura jumped right back into the whole-class instruction and breached the concept of the counter-argument. She gave a great example of a conversation she had with Mikayla where she was trying to convince her of the merits of basketball as a form of exercise, and explains in very digestible terms how a persuasive essay would incorporate counter-arguments, refute them, and thus be stronger for that anticipation. Ms. Moraes let Laura and a few others fire off their explanations for the counter-argument and how it works, allowing the students to teach their fellow students. Because Laura is so well-respected by her peers for her intelligence, charisma, and leadership outside the classroom, the entire class was paying rapt attention. Sam, another student I have mentioned as a leader (also a member of the student council), observed that persuasive essay writing was like “selling things on TV,” another sign that students were connecting the somewhat abstract academic work with real-life activities and skills. Ms. Moraes took this as a teaching moment to play off that comment, and explained in broader terms that the skills garnered from learning to write persuasive essays effectively translates into “getting what you want in life.” This one hit home with students, who have always shown a strong recognition of school skills and job skills and the money and success associated with them. We then broke into individual work on the persuasive essays the students had written a few days earlier. They were typed and in rough draft form, and it appeared the students had done a few exercises and drafts beforehand to get to this point. Students who were not directly working with me or Ms. Moraes were asked to “work on money words.” I didn’t have great expectations for this “side activity,” and would’ve liked to see some sort of better system for keeping students occupied. Rotating activity centers or an ongoing project would have been a better use of student time – it was pretty obvious that many students were simply listening to music on their laptops or generally not working on their essays. Again, this approach favored the proactive students, which is a bit of a trend in Ms. Moraes’ classes. This makes me think of Max V. and the message it sends to students similar to him – he’s sometimes treated as an afterthought because working with him is so time and energy intensive. I would have liked to take on my earlier role of holding the fort down by hopping from student to student and talking to them about their projects, but Ms. Moraes asked me to play “her” as a one-on-one writing tutor for the students who were set to work with the teacher during that block. The first student I worked with was DeShawna. The topic she chose was “why we should be able to have more student dances.” I found that the students had been asked to choose one of two salient topics: dances, or school uniforms. I felt a little put off that they were not allowed to write their opinions on any subject – from a selfish standpoint I felt I could learn more about what these students had internalized from their peers, parents, community, and school if they were given the opportunity to pick their own subject. Either way, I was surprised at how similar students’ ideas were. DeShawna had some trouble pinning down what she wanted to say at first, but after just “talking it out” with her a little, I found that it wasn’t so much that she didn’t know what to say, but she had trouble with writing it in words. Because she was so vocal and put forth such complex opinions once pushed, I suspect her quick deference to “I dunno… I dunno…” was more a product of her confidence issues with writing. DeShawna was a great student to try scaffolding with and give encouragement to, because she really responded well to both. She’s an example of a student that really needs to be working with someone who understands her ZPD. The next student I worked with was Karina, who I’d also worked with last time during the sub day. She was one of the students who self-stated “I want to learn,” and that attitude proved consistent and not simply a fleeting emotion. She differentiated herself from the other students I worked with because she was loath to simply take my words and suggestions as her own – “I want to write this in my own words.” I asked her what drove that independence, and she related to me that her parents were pushing her to become a lawyer and she recognized that that would require a lot of skill in writing. She really understands the connection between academic work, even at the 7th grade level, job skills, and the success in life that follows. She also related to me that her parents were very strict and rarely let her play with friends outside of school. Clearly she has internalized certain values about school, and it seems her parents run a very structured household and have a lot of influence on her (in a good way). Unsurprisingly, she also had one of the most well-written drafts. Her “big-picture” life outlook also applied to her arguments in her writing – she anticipated counter-arguments, had well thought-out reasons for her argument, and was receptive to criticism. Fatima is another student who is really proactive about getting help with writing. She was the second student (after Karina) to call me over by name and ask for help. Fatima tends to copy things out, and is probably most unlike Karina in that she tries to write what I say verbatim. I try to encourage her to think of different ways to phrase things and use synonyms for the words I suggest. I wonder if Fatima has internalized certain values that drive her to “copy” things rather than think independently. Fatima contrasted with Karina is interesting to me – both students are highly engaged and enthusiastic, clearly care about learning, but one is much more independent and knows the big-picture, and another sees only the very short-term and is looking to get the assignment done properly. I suspect Karina’s strong household culture has driven her to take on the more productive attitude. Both students’ ZPDs are easy to locate and both are eager learners. Back to Laura. During the essay work time, she mentioned to me she was not writing an essay because she had missed class. I asked her why she didn’t try and catch up, and she said she could write an essay easily, but it was “boring” and she “didn’t have to, so why?” This confirmed my suspicion that she is probably moving too fast for the class and is bored with the level of work. I believe she’s internalized the heteroglossic messages that she is very intelligent and a leader, and in a way she’s let it get to her head and thinks she’s almost “too good” for the work. She told me she was placed in a high school level of reading ability as well. Next class, I hope to work with Laura one-on-one and challenge her ability with a more difficult concept related to writing, and see how she responds. I am curious to find out more about what she’s internalized from her heteroglossic influences. Clearly we are working “below” her ZPD.
2 comments:
Wednesday 3/5/2008
After missing out on last week’s classes, I was a little worried the students might have felt a little abandoned. This was an especially big concern because of the note that I left on last class, which had been a rough experience with the substitute teacher. The students had been sternly scolded afterward, and were clearly ashamed, so I was glad to see that they were not concerned that my absence was due to them and their behavior last time. I walked into the classroom at 11 a.m. as usual, and got the usual round of “Hey Paul” and “what’s up Paul” from the students. Nice to know that I am becoming more of a regular figure.
The students were working on a new type of essay (not a narrative, as before), the persuasive essay. Ms. Moraes was leading a worksheet on the 5-paragraph essay form with the topic being “healthy foods” and the direction being “how can we convince others to prefer healthy foods.” This was a good integration of a potentially boring (yet VERY critical) essay writing exercise, using a topic that not only was easy to talk about, criticize, and apply, but also beneficial in itself. During the worksheet, I noticed that Laura was playing with her broken earring and distracting some other students. This was troubling to me because I know from experience she is one of the brightest students in the class, and also a great writer. I suspected she might be bored with the work – more on that later. However, I was impressed with how Ms. Moraes pulled her back into focus for a moment. “Laura, please finish that because you’re distracting others.” “I’m still paying attention, though!” “That’s not enough, you should use your ability to multi-task to help others around you instead.” This is exactly what Laura generally does during classroom activity, and it’s clear the layout of the seating is designed to leverage her ability to elevate her peers’ performance. Laura is especially effective in this role because she is a playground leader as well.
Laura jumped right back into the whole-class instruction and breached the concept of the counter-argument. She gave a great example of a conversation she had with Mikayla where she was trying to convince her of the merits of basketball as a form of exercise, and explains in very digestible terms how a persuasive essay would incorporate counter-arguments, refute them, and thus be stronger for that anticipation. Ms. Moraes let Laura and a few others fire off their explanations for the counter-argument and how it works, allowing the students to teach their fellow students. Because Laura is so well-respected by her peers for her intelligence, charisma, and leadership outside the classroom, the entire class was paying rapt attention. Sam, another student I have mentioned as a leader (also a member of the student council), observed that persuasive essay writing was like “selling things on TV,” another sign that students were connecting the somewhat abstract academic work with real-life activities and skills. Ms. Moraes took this as a teaching moment to play off that comment, and explained in broader terms that the skills garnered from learning to write persuasive essays effectively translates into “getting what you want in life.” This one hit home with students, who have always shown a strong recognition of school skills and job skills and the money and success associated with them.
We then broke into individual work on the persuasive essays the students had written a few days earlier. They were typed and in rough draft form, and it appeared the students had done a few exercises and drafts beforehand to get to this point. Students who were not directly working with me or Ms. Moraes were asked to “work on money words.” I didn’t have great expectations for this “side activity,” and would’ve liked to see some sort of better system for keeping students occupied. Rotating activity centers or an ongoing project would have been a better use of student time – it was pretty obvious that many students were simply listening to music on their laptops or generally not working on their essays. Again, this approach favored the proactive students, which is a bit of a trend in Ms. Moraes’ classes. This makes me think of Max V. and the message it sends to students similar to him – he’s sometimes treated as an afterthought because working with him is so time and energy intensive. I would have liked to take on my earlier role of holding the fort down by hopping from student to student and talking to them about their projects, but Ms. Moraes asked me to play “her” as a one-on-one writing tutor for the students who were set to work with the teacher during that block.
The first student I worked with was DeShawna. The topic she chose was “why we should be able to have more student dances.” I found that the students had been asked to choose one of two salient topics: dances, or school uniforms. I felt a little put off that they were not allowed to write their opinions on any subject – from a selfish standpoint I felt I could learn more about what these students had internalized from their peers, parents, community, and school if they were given the opportunity to pick their own subject. Either way, I was surprised at how similar students’ ideas were. DeShawna had some trouble pinning down what she wanted to say at first, but after just “talking it out” with her a little, I found that it wasn’t so much that she didn’t know what to say, but she had trouble with writing it in words. Because she was so vocal and put forth such complex opinions once pushed, I suspect her quick deference to “I dunno… I dunno…” was more a product of her confidence issues with writing. DeShawna was a great student to try scaffolding with and give encouragement to, because she really responded well to both. She’s an example of a student that really needs to be working with someone who understands her ZPD.
The next student I worked with was Karina, who I’d also worked with last time during the sub day. She was one of the students who self-stated “I want to learn,” and that attitude proved consistent and not simply a fleeting emotion. She differentiated herself from the other students I worked with because she was loath to simply take my words and suggestions as her own – “I want to write this in my own words.” I asked her what drove that independence, and she related to me that her parents were pushing her to become a lawyer and she recognized that that would require a lot of skill in writing. She really understands the connection between academic work, even at the 7th grade level, job skills, and the success in life that follows. She also related to me that her parents were very strict and rarely let her play with friends outside of school. Clearly she has internalized certain values about school, and it seems her parents run a very structured household and have a lot of influence on her (in a good way). Unsurprisingly, she also had one of the most well-written drafts. Her “big-picture” life outlook also applied to her arguments in her writing – she anticipated counter-arguments, had well thought-out reasons for her argument, and was receptive to criticism.
Fatima is another student who is really proactive about getting help with writing. She was the second student (after Karina) to call me over by name and ask for help. Fatima tends to copy things out, and is probably most unlike Karina in that she tries to write what I say verbatim. I try to encourage her to think of different ways to phrase things and use synonyms for the words I suggest. I wonder if Fatima has internalized certain values that drive her to “copy” things rather than think independently. Fatima contrasted with Karina is interesting to me – both students are highly engaged and enthusiastic, clearly care about learning, but one is much more independent and knows the big-picture, and another sees only the very short-term and is looking to get the assignment done properly. I suspect Karina’s strong household culture has driven her to take on the more productive attitude. Both students’ ZPDs are easy to locate and both are eager learners.
Back to Laura. During the essay work time, she mentioned to me she was not writing an essay because she had missed class. I asked her why she didn’t try and catch up, and she said she could write an essay easily, but it was “boring” and she “didn’t have to, so why?” This confirmed my suspicion that she is probably moving too fast for the class and is bored with the level of work. I believe she’s internalized the heteroglossic messages that she is very intelligent and a leader, and in a way she’s let it get to her head and thinks she’s almost “too good” for the work. She told me she was placed in a high school level of reading ability as well. Next class, I hope to work with Laura one-on-one and challenge her ability with a more difficult concept related to writing, and see how she responds. I am curious to find out more about what she’s internalized from her heteroglossic influences. Clearly we are working “below” her ZPD.
Whats this ZPD business?
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