We are in the midst of finishing our opinion piece on explorers. Last week I asked the 60+ kiddos to find some information about explorers. They needed to read strategically, looking for ideas that were in the social studies text. The questions ranged from: where was the explorer from, to how did the explorer help/hurt native people. The kiddos were able to easily find some of the explicit information, but inferring was more difficult (isn't it difficult for everyone?!). From those pieces of information we compared and contrasted the effects of European explorers, and worked towards drawing conclusions (do you think they were positive or negative, and why? what facts support your opinion?).
Since the tasks were so diverse, I've had to teach a myriad of skills. For example we started with identifying important information in text, then transitioned into the reading skill of compare/contrast. After that we worked on our thinking, and how we evaluate information (with the idea of the two column chart being like a scale). Where I have had to circle back, and often, has been how to structure writing. In many ways the writing is similar to a summary, as you have a topic sentence followed by facts to support that sentence. But I've found myself repeating the sequence, and reteaching the sequence each of the past 3 days. Has it sunk in? Not necessarily, which tells me that I need a more engaging teaching point as well as more guided practice.
I will admit that I am excited to look through their work. I want to see if they hit everything on our writing checklist (topic sentence, 3 supporting facts, opposing opinion, closure, readability, etc) as they have assured me they have. Next time around I will be introducing a self-assessment piece. I want them to assess where their own writing is, and what they need to do in order to make it better. I already do something like this for their homework and it has worked well. Now if I could only get it out of my box of teaching stuff....
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