As our Narrative Biographies are coming to an end, I am starting to reflect on what I liked and what I want to do differently next year. I loved letting the students choose whether they wanted to create a narrative biography or an informational biography. It pushed them to work harder on their writing because they chose which to create. It also proves to them that there are many different ways to write a biography. By giving them the choice, they get to practice the style they are interested in and are motivated to write.
I think it was extremely helpful having my team on board, and rotating classes. Mrs. Will and Ms. Berkowitz took students who wanted to write an informational, while the students that wanted to write a narrative came to my room. We got to focus on mini lessons that pertained to their chosen writing format. I focused mostly on narrative lessons. I gave lessons on dialogue, adjectives, transition words, figurative language, etc. As my mind is jumping to next year, I wish I would have showed all of my students MORE examples of narrative biographies and informational biographies. I wish I showed them a video biography on Clips versus a chapter book biography in Pages. I think this would have helped them to get more creative and visualize the end goal. The biggest struggle I had, and I think my team had as well, is when to "cut them off". I would love to work on their writing for a long time, there are always things they can add to make it better, but with students working at different paces it gets difficult sticking to a deadline. Our students work at different paces, you cannot change that. To avoid having everyone at different places we tried to have them complete a writing task, such as the beginning, on one day. When they are done they can free write. The problem with this is what if a student is absent, gets pulled for additional services, or is having an off day? They are bound to get behind. Because of this we, as teachers, try to give these students extra time resulting in an endless cycle of catching up. We are to the point now where we are asking each other, when should we "cut the cord" and give them a deadline? I hate the feeling of depriving students of that work time. In a perfect world, I would have one on one time with each student helping them push their writing to the next level... Unfortunately our world is not perfect, and I just have to try to give them my all when they do have that half an hour of writing time. I would love to hear thoughts, feedback, and any recommendations of what works in your class when you come to this problem. If you don't have this problem in your classroom, why do you think that is? I will be sharing some of their final products by the end of the week, stay tuned!!
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AuthorI am a second grade teacher at Irving Elementary School in a co-taught classroom! Archives
May 2019
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