Been practicing sketchnotes every chance I get these days. Grateful my team leader asked me to capture out team discussion and agreements about Seasaw in our classrooms.

An important part of getting in alignment with a new teaching team setting up for a successful school year is developing a shared understanding of the conditions which will maximize the chances that everyone can reach their point of highest contribution as well as achieve what they hope and dream for the school year ahead. 

That that end, we were asked to first write down two things that we hoped and dreamed for the school year ahead with our new teaching team. 

My hopes and dreams for this school year are:

• to grow and learn together with colleagues and kids
• to provide meaningful and helpful support that enhance the learning experience

Our next steps were to share our hopes and dreams with others on our team and have a talk about the  possible conditions that we will all need to do our best and achieve our hopes and dreams for the year.

We drafted the initial thoughts and used these conditions to guide our agreements. It's important we've co-constructed them together.

Today the wonderful Nicola Davies talked to us about the power picture books have because they provide is a “Story Space”. Humans, children in particular, have no problem entering this Story Space where the real & make-believe can be combined. This Story Space can be a mechanism which things in life can be explain and explored - the fun things & the hardest of things.

Getting a peak into her notebook was exciting for all of us!

Thank you Nic! Today you’ve helped me grow my love for reading picture books & further an inner interest to create them.

​Looking forward to learning more with you this week.

Single line poem here, rhyming. No big deal. Purpose: Entertain & express the impact caffeine has on our day. I’ve got a poetry teaching unit coming up where students will be thinking about why people express themselves with poetry. Seeking inspiration in daily life for written expressions of #poetry to inspire my students.

Primarily, I see Learning to Talk by Talking as a lens in which all learning needs to take place. Students’ having rich dialogue and discussion around the ideas they find interesting is essential in developing passionate learners who have a depth and breadth of language, literacy and learning skills. Deeper understanding of our world though language requires critical and analytical thinking. Talk enhances our ability to understand the world around us.

A few strategies from Dr Snow that I will use in my practice as I move ahead:

• Schedule student debate regularly.
• Use WordGeneration.com resources for quality open debatable topics and supporting materials.
• Engage in different debate models, including a switch in position.
• Being intentional about listening to students during the planning stages of units of inquiry to find out how interests can drive the content for learning

TASK ACTIVITY

• Small-group debates with assigned positions
• Partner debates with position switch

Describe what happened. How did you apply these strategies (a full class period or 10 minutes)? How did the students respond? Did anything surprise you? Was there anything you would change when applying this strategy again?

I had a partner debate with two Year 4 (Grade 3) students. The question, “Which of you has written about the most interesting animal in your list arctic?.” They each shared their thinking for 2.5mins then switched for the second round. Ida (Finnish speaker) debated for lions. YoYo (Mandarin speaker)  debated for cheetahs. Both girls are from the same homeroom class and were new-to-English in August. They have made remarkable progress developing their English skills so far this year.

Interestingly, a calm came over both of the girls.  For the first round, they were both very respectful of each others’ ideas and listened attentively. They waited patiently for the timer to finish. The girls had their “published” list articles with them for support with specific details. When they switched, they had fun. Without much thought they helped each other by using their list articles for reference.

I was surprised. YoYo is usually quite excitable. However, she responded very well with a time limit and was patience to really challenge herself to communicate her ideas. She was even open to Ida’s help when they swapped roles.

I will adapt this strategy in a variety of ways with students in our next unit. I will be curious to see how students in pairs work together to agree on a position and hold it. I am also curious to see what students might come up with if they were asked to make their own script.

How can we use discussion and debate to better support English language learners and children with reading issues?

• Provide opportunities/for ELLs to have small group discussions with an intentional mix of students w/ native target language speakers, speakers who can bridge communication (in homeroom groups, mini catch lessons after class instruction and in small group meetings.

How can we help align teaching staff beliefs about the importance of oral language?

• Advocating and celebrating teachers’ use of speaking and listening strategies/routines/actions
• Providing “sound-bites” of information about the research associated with oral language value in deep reading comprehension
• Sharing ideas at staff meetings, teachers planning meetings, blog postings

Why isn’t this happening in schools more often?

• I speculate that curriculum overfilled with content may be a challenge if a school’s curriculum is not concept based content is best determined by theme of conceptual thinking which follow students’ interests.

​What are some practical tips to support English language learners and children with reading issues?

• Listen and share inner dialogue when reading to students
• Encourage students to listen to their inner thoughts while reading and record thinking in a variety of ways
• Provide students opportunities to talk about what they’re choice reading
• Read students things your interested in and wonder together —> follow up on your wondering at a later time
• Show students that reading is a tool which grows your brain for thinking —> show the science