GLT Reflection

This week, students had the opportunity to choose their own concept for their concept book. I revisited the list of concept book ideas we generated as a class and added on more topics—we also talked about the kinds of pages we would have for each topic. (For instance, when discussing a zoo animal book, we named animals that would go into that book and students were explicitly told how that book would look—with appropriate animals and corresponding pictures and words on each page.) Students were then asked to choose their own topic to write about—and they had to tell us the ideas that would go in each page before they were given the pages to start. Most students were able to come up with a concept and come up with a minimum of three supporting ideas. Some students seem confused about their supporting ideas—for instance, a student who wanted their book to be about “Thanksgiving” came up with the ideas “macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and candy”, though these are appropriate ideas for Thanksgiving—a more appropriate title could be “Food” or better supporting ideas for “Thanksgiving” could be, “Turkey, pilgrims and a ship”. Over the next few days, students were able to continuously check their work—making sure to have a picture (about ONE idea) and corresponding text on each page. Some of them also went back to their book to add more details/ words/ pages as we discussed in class.

An alternative read to my student’s products is in considering their background knowledge. I need to be careful in my assessment of my students’ work because it may not be that they do not understand “concept books”—but rather the concept they are writing about. For instance, considering the student who wrote about Thanksgiving—perhaps it’s not that she does not understand that a book about Thanksgiving should have Thanksgiving ideas—but she does not have enough background knowledge in considering what Thanksgiving is about. Or that her experiences with Thanksgiving is different than mine, or even that her five-year-old-self does not remember what Thanksgiving is about besides the food!

I will continue to re-teach material throughout our read alouds and reading time. I have created an anchor chart of “what to do when you think you’re done” that I hope will help students as they become better writers. The anchor chart tells students that they can add details to pictures, words, pages, read to a partner, read to a teacher or start a new book when they think they have finished.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I think a think-pair-share would be a good thing to incorporate. Students having the opportunity to tell a peer or discuss with a peer what their book is and their ideas can help them better generate ideas and can give students practice thinking whether their and their peers ideas’ make sense. Again, I think it is very important to expose students to different kinds of literacies and genres so that students understand the different purposes of writing. Making a concept book and going back to add details is great practice for students as they become writers since revisions are a natural part of writing.