Reading as Writers, Writing as Readers

Writing as Readers

Students in grade 5 have been using what they know about reading to improve their writing, and using writing as a way to dig deeper into reading. 

In writer’s workshop, students recently finished a piece of memoir writing. In this, students were asked to write a piece that shows, “This is who I am.”  After several rounds of brainstorming and flash drafting, students were asked to think of themselves as a character in a book.  Students then analysed themselves much as we do a character in a book. Here are a few guiding questions that were used:

“What makes this character special and unique?” “What struggles does this character face?” “How does this character deal with adversity?” “What has the character learned through their ups and downs in life?” “What does this character want us to know about her?” “How is this character complex?” 

Students use a thought prompt to help analyse themselves in their memoirs

Through this exercise, students were better able to structure their memoirs around a theme or big idea that they wanted to share with the world. 

Reading as Writers

In reader’s workshop, students spent time analysing novels through the lens of a writer. While reading, and in discussions with partners, students asked themselves and each other questions to probe the thoughts of the author. Students used the following questions to help them:

“Why did the author include this detail, is there some greater significance to it?” “What aspect of the setting is unusual and how will that impact the novel?” “What is unique about this main character, what is the author trying to tell us about her?”  “What has the author included or left out? Where is the author trying to lead us?”  “Which supporting characters will the author use to help the main character evolve?” 

These and other questions helped guide students as they explored the theme and character development of various novels. In addition, it helps focus their own memoirs writing by employing some of the techniques used by expert writers.

Students used the question prompts to explore possible themes while they read

Student writing will be on display at our next parent session. Keep an eye out for upcoming information about that.

Week in Review

Readers’ Workshop

Students in 5B have a begun reading a class novel, Esperanza Rising. Although all students are reading the same book, we have broken up into smaller groups to work on different skills and strategies while we read and respond to what we read.  After reading, students are responsible for completing one of the following tasks: analyzing Esperanza’s character, creating high quality discussion questions in regards to the chapter, visualizing an important event, writing a summary, finding an important quote from the chapter, and researching the historical event from the chapter. In addition, using clues from the texts, everyone records their predictions on what they think will happen later in the story.

Students working on the various tasks after reading

Some students read along to an audiobook, some read orally in a group, some read in pairs, and one reads individually

Our working board. Students translated key proverbs from the story into their native languages. Can you recognise any of these languages or sayings?

Mathematics

Central Idea:

Patterns can often be generalized using algebraic expressions, equations or functions.

Students started with a tuning in game to help construct meaning around this idea. Students were given 7 two-sided chips. The goal is to flip all the chips so the other colour is showing. However, you must flip exactly 3 chips at a time.  What is the least number of rounds it takes to have all chips flipped? 

Students experiment with finding patterns

After experimenting and playing with possibilities, students came to the conclusion that 3 rounds was the least possible number of rounds.  Students then continued this challenge with 8 chips, 9 chips, etc...  Students began to record their results in a function table and were asked to look for patterns and try to predict what is the least number of rounds needed for 16 chips? 100 chips?

Students begin to organise their results in a function table which will help to see the pattern

Students use the function table to see and explain the pattern. The next step is to express the pattern mathematically-in an algebraic equation

Unit of Inquiry

How we Organize Ourselves is coming to an end and students are applying their learning and going further in their inquires. 

As a class we played a game to investigate our second line of inquiry, food production and distribution. Specifically, we looked at the challenges subsistence farmers face as they try to grow enough food for their families as well produce a small surplus to sell. 

Students were organized into small groups of farming families.  Each season, students must produce enough corn for their families’ to eat. Any surplus food could be sold to the global market for a small price. In addition, farmers can choose to harvest coffee fruit. However, to sell coffee to the global market farmers must first process the fruit and package it, and purchase an expensive export license. 

Students work hard to harvest their crops and sell the surplus so they can buy fertilisers or possible an export license

After this activity, students reflected where on the SOLO Taxonomy this fit. Some students classified it as a level 4 Connecting Ideas activity. They noted that they were comparing different strategies and explaining the effects of their actions.  Some thought it was a level 5 Going Further activity as they were planning a strategy, reflecting on its success and revising and improving on it in later rounds.

Students highlighted the thinking skills they used during the activity

Mei and Jeong Yeon take action to Go Further in their learning by designing an experiment to test organic and conventional fruit. They were curious to know if their was any difference in taste or quality. The results were surprising! They will write up a full lab report over the weekend and share it with the class next week. We are all looking forward to it.

Students perform a test to see if they can taste the difference between an organic banana and a conventional banana.
What is your hypothesis?

Mathematics

Grade 5 is just wrapping up a unit in mathematics exploring the idea that:

Fractions, decimals and percentages are ways of representing whole-part relationships.

Students started off the unit with a pre-assessment to help answer the questions:

How am I doing?

Where to next?

Students used the information from the pre-assessment to set goals for the unit, and the teachers used this information when planning learning activities.

As a tuning in activity and discussion starter, students briefly reflected on the question of “What is a fractional part, and what isn’t a fractional part?" 

Students used the image below to decide which shapes were divided into fractional parts and which weren't.

Which shapes are divided into fourths? Why are the others not considered to be fourths?

Throughout the unit, students had many opportunities to work both independently and collaboratively to construct meaning on a variety of concepts related to fractions.  Here are students constructing a fraction strip to help investigate fractional relationships.

After students had opportunities to sort out ideas and construct meaning, they were given more challenging problems to apply what they had learned.  Here are a few students discussing their problem solving strategies.

              

                                   

Below, Amy, Rosa and Limie use all they know about fractions, angles, measurement and ratio to follow a detailed set of blueprints to construct a house of precise dimensions. 

A few of the details:

-The length of the front wall of the house is 9/16 of the length of the paper.

-The roof angles in at 40 degrees from each top corner of the house. The top of the roof is parallel to the top of the front wall.

Applying what they know. Perhaps they should join the school renovation meetings.

We finished the unit with an assessment to check student progress and note areas we still need to work on. Students plotted their score and progress on our

Growth Mindset Graph. 

As you can see, most students land in the top-right quadrant, which is the high growth-high achievement quadrant-exactly where we want to be!

Ask your daughter which dot is hers.

Students discussed which dot represented the "best" score. It was a lively discussion with the verdict split between the far right dots and the dots at the top.  In fact, it inspired Limie to coin a new phrase:

"Improving makes good learning." -Limie Sanada 2016

Global Wordles

Last week Seisen celebrated Global Mindedness Day. During Grade 5s time in the library this week students reflected on what we believe are the important attributes and attitudes of a globally minded person. We also read some of the statements found in the Seisen student and teacher profile titled Global Minded Men and Women, which is found in the student agenda book. 

Each student listed 10 words including the word global. After these were collected the following Wordles were created. There are similarities and differences. The Wordle helps us see which words were most common, as the word increases in size when as is used by more students.