For today's observation I sat in on three 10th grade English classes at South Portland High School. Even though I was observing students at the secondary level, many of the basic concepts of early literacy applied to this environment. For example, the students will soon begin working on memoirs, and one of the challenges poised by the teacher was to zero in on a small moment and stretch out those details into a compelling story, just like we are now doing in our own class!
To prep the students for this assignment, the teacher first had the class read conclusions from three sample memoirs (one-page memoirs written by students from an earlier class year), and evaluate and rank the conclusions relative effectiveness. After a short, classroom-wide discussion, the students were then given the full one-page memoirs to read. They then assessed the conclusions again in the context of now knowing the full story.
As part of a formative assessment, the students turned in a paper with their comments on each of the conclusions.
The teacher also made the point that in order for the small moment to succeed as a piece of memoir writing it should lead to a change in the author or new understanding or result in the transition to another stage of life. It was a great way of illustrating how the basic idea of stretching small moments, which can be learned in elementary school, can also be applied to the secondary level when more advanced ideas, like memoir writing, are being discussed.
Another nice organizational touch I observed is that the teacher had posted all the English learning targets for the semester up on the wall of the classroom, and then put arrows by the current skills being covered. It was a great way to show the overall goals of the class and how these concepts interrelate, while still focusing the student attention on what skills are being covered in the moment.
