Beginning by asking questions. The main one, What engages students in their own learning? Reading Leaders of Their Own Learning (Berger, 2014), and working at bringing intentional learning targets into the classroom with student engagement. I am feeling like I need partners or, better yet, a mentor to whom I can put my own questions, but for now am journaling to help myself analyze my own process.
I wrote one learning goal (“I can determine the central idea of an informational text” (RI7.2)) up on the board yesterday with 7th grade, after watching several of the videoed classroom sessions from the cd that came with Berger’s book. The shift of responsibility from me to students was immediately tangible, obvious by suddenly-upright body postures, eyes on the board, and hands in the air. I used the language from one of the videos, “What do you notice or wonder about this learning target?” I had immediate responses from students. They asked questions and noticed words. We discussed the target, and then I asked for a fist-to-five response, a student self-assessment on how they each thought they could meet this target. I had a couple of fours, several threes and twos, and a few ones. I asked what was difficult, and it was the phrase “central idea.” Changing the word central to main brought three or four more students up to a four, but we still had four who weren’t clear on what main idea is. I explained. It didn’t help. A student tried, to no avail. I had them discuss in their table groups, and, amazingly for me, heard the ah-haas go around the room after about a minute!
I had been wondering if I had begun with a learning target I would have to back-scaffold for, but now I am going to go ahead with the next step in our lesson: Working in table groups to write a statement regarding the central idea of an excerpt from “The ‘Other’ Animals” by Jack London. We’ve already read it as homework and as a class, and on Tuesday, we will review it in table groups before writing the central idea. I will put this learning target on the board again, and maybe add a new one when we are ready to write, one that states, “I can state the central idea of a text in writing.” Am I getting too detailed here? This is leading to work on the whole of RI7.2, “Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text,” and of RL7.2, “Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text ” in Where the Red Fern Grows.
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