Gone Fishing
The Literacy Beat Team is re-energizing and will be back in September with new posts and new ideas. Bernadette Dwyer took this photograph while in Vietnam in 2012. Time to relax and refresh!
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by Rebekah Lonon with Karen Wood and Thomas DeVere Wolsey
This is the third in a three-part series exploring conversation and collaboration opportunities using digital tools. Rebekah Lonon describes how she uses “talking drawings” to promote academic discussions in her classes and explains how she uses the Educreations digital tool with her students.
My second-grade students enjoy using the talking drawings strategy regularly in all content areas. I always begin by having the class close their eyes and imagine a mental image of a word or concept. Once they open their eyes, they immediately draw the image they made in their minds. This gives me great insight into their prior knowledge of the topic, and it helps me tailor my instruction for the coming unit. I recently used this strategy to introduce a unit about properties of matter, and I learned that my students associated the word “matter” with something being wrong (“What’s the matter?”). I knew then how my unit needed to be planned.
When it is available for our use, I like to incorporate a digital tool. In this case, I used www.educreations.com because it provides an online venue for creating related drawings. Educreations is also available as an app for mobile devices. After their initial drawings, students independently read a passage, entitled “Why Does Matter Matter?” by Kelly Hashway (n.d.) from the website http://www.superteacherworksheets.com about the states of matter and then they discussed their drawings and thoughts with a partner. Next, they returned to Educreations to create a new drawing, based on their new knowledge. If technology is scarce, students can create their drawings in pairs or small groups, using paper with Crayons or markers. To reflect on what they learn and, as a means of integrating writing with the reading and drawing process, I always ask them to compare their original and after reading drawing. In this instance, one partner group exclaimed aloud, “Matter DOES matter!” as they drew examples of each state of matter. Another partner group continued their reflection process as they wrote in their journals. Seeing their developing knowledge when using this strategy is an effective assessment tool for me.
View the video to hear Rebekah explain talking drawings using Educreations.
Bibliography:
Hashway, K. (n.d.). Why does matter matter? [PDF]. Retrieved from http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/matter/matter-article_WMTBN.pdf
McConnell, S. (1992/3). Talking drawings: A strategy for assisting learners. Journal of Reading, 36(4), 260-269.
Wolsey, T.D., Wood, K., & Lapp, D. (in press). Conversation, collaboration, and the Common Core: Strategies for learning together. IRA e-ssentials series: What’s New?Newark, DE :International Reading Association.
Wood, K. D., & Taylor, D. B. (2006). Literacy strategies across the subject areas. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
About the contributors:
Rebekah Lonon teaches 2nd-grade for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, North Carolina
Karen Wood is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Filed under: collaboration, discussion, multimodal, visual literacy | Tagged: Lonon, Wolsey, Wood | 1 Comment »
by Lindsay Merritt with Karen Wood and Thomas DeVere Wolsey
This is the second in a three-part series exploring conversation and collaboration opportunities. Lindsay Merritt describes, in the post below, how she uses jigsaw and a graffiti wall to promote academic discussions in her classes.
Lindsay writes:
In my classroom, I use the jigsaw strategy to help my students “own” their work and their learning. I started to use jigsaw (e.g., Aronson, 2000) because I found that often when I presented a lesson students looked at me blankly because they were overwhelmed by too much teacher talk, or my directions were not clear. When I began using the jigsaw process, students become the “experts” in their topics, and had the opportunity to share, discuss, and collaborate with their classmates. My role became one of planning, monitoring, guiding instruction, and having the pleasure of seeing first-hand the “ah ha” moments of my students’ learning.
My class has been studying Africa through our social studies curriculum. We are learning that Africa is not a country, but a continent made up of many different countries and cultures. I could not think of a better way to share this information than through the jigsaw strategy. Students worked in five groups, one for each of the regions of Africa (east, south, north, west, and central). Their job was to look through the informational text, Hands on Africa (Merrill, 2000) and become experts on their region’s culture, location, geography, and countries within. As they worked I was able to hear them reading together, discussing, and then writing in-depth sentences focusing on these key areas. Every student was engaged and participating. This process afforded me a perfect opportunity to continually assess their learning.
I then selected one student from each region to form a larger group to share their information. Students made sure to present their information clearly so that their classmates could understand. The students took their “expert” roles seriously and even started making connections among the regions. Once they finished sharing they went back to their home groups to create a visual display of their readings to put on the Africa graffiti wall. When they wall display was ready, the students had five minutes to view the wall and write down any new information or connections they could make to the information we were learning in the unit. I was thrilled to see my students so excited about the learning process and truly taking ownership for their learning.
In this video, Lindsay describes the jigsaw and graffiti wall approach:
Digital tools we have used to build on jigsaw and graffiti wall approaches include:
Bibliography:
Aronson, E. (2000, May/June). Nobody left to hate. The Humanist, 60(3), 17-21.
Merrill, Y. Y. (2000). Hands on Africa: Art activities for all ages. Salt Lake City, UT: Kits Publishing.
Wolsey, T.D., Wood, K., & Lapp, D. (in press). Conversation, collaboration, and the Common Core: Strategies for learning together. IRA e-ssentials series: What’s New?Newark, DE :International Reading Association.
About the contributors:
Lindsay Merritt teaches 3rd-grade at Hope Academy in Cabarrus County, North Carolina
Karen Wood is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
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