`Leading Literacy: Literacy in practice

Using a class blog to improve literacy levels in a Year 8 class

My Year 8 class have an assessment this week so I modelled some sample responses to a question they were given on a practice text. We also explored common mistakes students make in response to comprehension questions and where potential marks are often lost.

I then photographed my whiteboard and put the sample paragraphs on their class blog along with a dot point summary of each one. That way, the students have access to modelled examples which have been annotated. 

Thought, from a literacy perspective, this might be worth sharing.

The link to the blog is https://blogs.ststephens.wa.edu.au/yr8engdunhj/.

Mr Howie Jakeway

Scaffolding Adolescent Literacy - A Reflection

A screenshot of my whiteboard with the student instructions. 

Period One and Period Two Year 10/1 C4

Learning Objective: Deepening student understanding and engagement with an extract from 1984 through the use of a range of comprehension/literacy strategies from the 'Scaffolding Adolescent Literacy' PD session. 

Here’s a snapshot of what’s been going down in my English classes this week:

1. https://blogs.ststephens.wa.edu.au/yr8engdunhj/- Feb 23rd post- Year 8- modelled responses to a question on ‘Fish and Chips’ by Archie Weller. The post shows an ‘effective’ answer as well as a response that demonstrates the common mistakes and missed opportunities students sometimes make. The post is fully annotated and was there to give students an opportunity to formatively assess their own responses against an ‘effective’ one and a less effective one. Modelled the examples on the whiteboard, took a screenshot with my iPad and put them on their class blog. I have quite a few students with Learning Plans in this class and by photographing the whiteboard, I can show that I am accomodating their learning needs as many of the students require their work to be scaffolded. It also means that they have access to these resources beyond the classroom and it invites parents into my classroom. I also compile an audit of the students with learning plans at least twice a year to make sure that my teaching best meets the needs of those students in my care. 
2. An extract from ‘Herbie’ by Archie Weller recorded as an MP4 audiobook for two students who would’ve struggled to access the printed text because of their reading age. I recorded my own voice on the Voice Memo app on my iPhone and used Airdrop to send it to my Macbook. The two students (Matt Hanrahan and Steven Booth) were then able to listen to my reading before completing their assessment on it. This was a very effective teaching strategy which allowed students access to a text that they otherwise might not have been able to make sense of. 
3. https://blogs.ststephens.wa.edu.au/12englitdunhj/ - most recent post- Modelled introduction for a Year 12 ATAR Literature class studying the poetry of Seamus Heaney. I wrote an introduction in Word, projected it onto the board, annotated it with my board pens, took a photograph of it and then put it on the class blog (with further dot point annotations). The class then had a healthy discussion about the relative merits of the modelled paragraph and then used it to formatively assess their own introductions written in a previous lesson. It’s also telling that several students came up to me the day after the lesson to say that they had been discussing the modelled example and had found a few issues with it that they wanted to discuss. I then had a very productive discussion about the merits of the proposition and we examined ways in which it might be improved. Again, this teaching strategy worked really well and extended the learning beyond the classroom. 

I think the use of class blogs (particularly when it comes to giving students opportunities for formative assessment) is a powerful tool in promoting frameworks for discussion, for reflection and for students to evaluate their own performance. I’ve learnt a lot about my own teaching this week and thought I’d share it. On that point, I know that there’s heaps of outstandingly good practice taking place across the school because I hear the conversations that take place. I think we need to be more assertive as a teaching body in sharing what we do because if we did, the students themselves are only going to benefit. 

Lesson delivered by:    
Howie Jakeway & Ben Nicholson

"The learning objective for the team taught lesson was to help students identify key words/trigger words in questions and to use these to deepen their understanding of what the question was asking them to, what knowledge the question was asking them to demonstrate and to interrogate such questions in a more deliberate manner. It was clear that the students in this class weren't used to interrogating questions in science in this way; many students admitted that they often 'jumped' straight into answering questions without considering whether they had read them accurately or not. "  

Source:  Reflection: Howie Jakeway