Student Work Samples
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My grade 1 students are given many opportunities to write throughout the year. I tend to follow the Lucy Calkins Units of Study while incorporating additional program elements where needed. When completing this sample, students collected information on their topics using The Institute for Excellence in Writing's (IEW) note-taking strategy. This unit on South Korea addressed a number of standards, both in and outside of the Language Arts standards.
Students were able to explore a number of informational texts while researching information for their reports. Other areas related to speaking, listening, and technology were also addressed throughout this writing piece. Additional non-focus areas that came up throughout the unit included geography, heredity (1-LS3-1), and social skills. Having lived in South Korea for a number of years, I was able to bring first-hand knowledge to our classroom conversations, including pictures and video. Two of my students selected South Korean food as their research topic. One of the foods was kimchi. The students were able to try several Korean dishes throughout the unit, including kimchi! |
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This student sample was taken from a grade 3 student who has been identified as having possible learning disabilities. Given this concern, I am tremendously proud of the work the student produced. The samples to the left show note-taking templates, introduction/conclusion organizers, several drafts, and a culminating visual project that presents the students learning up to this point.
This piece is an end-of-year, choice topic report. The techniques used include The Institute for Excellence in Writing’s note-taking method and The Vermont Writing Collaborative’s Painted Essay method. The note-taking method served this student well given his literacy-related struggles. After finishing the report, this student chose to present his findings (with additional research) at our school’s end-of-year Learning Fair. If you wish to view larger samples, you may click here to download. |
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This activity is directly related to the word study program Words Their Way. The game was designed and created alongside students. The activity fits in well with my weekly word study program, a program that integrates a number of high-interest, choice activities that promote comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, and phonemic awareness.
In this activity, students work their way around the board. Along the way, they are required to spell words they land on, answer questions on the “DRAW” cards, and experience positive moves forward and challenging pitfalls. Some of the “DRAW” cards include prompts such as, “Use two words correctly in two sentences and move forward two spaces.” or “Spell three words correctly and move forward three spaces.”
This activity promotes an opportunity for collaboration, peer interaction, and community building. It is also incredibly motivating for reluctant readers.
In this activity, students work their way around the board. Along the way, they are required to spell words they land on, answer questions on the “DRAW” cards, and experience positive moves forward and challenging pitfalls. Some of the “DRAW” cards include prompts such as, “Use two words correctly in two sentences and move forward two spaces.” or “Spell three words correctly and move forward three spaces.”
This activity promotes an opportunity for collaboration, peer interaction, and community building. It is also incredibly motivating for reluctant readers.
This piece is taken from one of my grade 4 students. Created earlier in the year, the student wrote this personal narrative about a time she rode her boogie board. Taken from Lucy Calkin’s Launching the Writing Workshop, students considered meaningful people and meaningful events with those people. Over time, students sketch several pictures of one of those moments. I find that students often want to jump in and begin writing the story all at once.
The sketches help students break away from the desire to quickly write the entire narrative. They also serve as reminders for when they do write their narratives. I recall returning after a weekend. When one of my students went to pick up where he left off, he couldn’t remember where to begin until I started to ask him about the pictures. Once reminded, he was able to zoom in on his sketches and promptly write about them. Working on this piece was both rewarding and challenging. This is the first time my students experienced the Writer’s Workshop format. There were many variables with which I was required to introduce while also trying to introduce the idea of personal narratives. If you wish to view larger samples, you may download here. |
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These samples were created during a Bridges math lesson for my grade
3 students. Through discussion, previous related lessons, and this activity,
students explored reflectional and rotational symmetry that led to creating
these “Bentley” snowflakes. I started this lesson by reading Snowflake Bentley,
a wonderful book that details the life of Wilson Bentley a Vermont native who
captured snowflakes on film. I especially enjoyed this lesson as the majority
of it spent much of the time discussing Mr. Wilson’s life and the various
aspects of snowflakes. The timing of the
unit couldn’t have been more perfect with the coinciding weather outside!
Reflecting back on the lesson, I believe the hands-on activity contributed to student understanding, especially considering the time of year and their concrete thinking. While conferring with students during the activity, I was able to ascertain individual understanding and whether students were grasping the concepts. When conducting this lesson in the future, I will integrate a cross-curricular biography project that will include Wilson Bentley. I was unable to do it this year as my literacy class was multi-age where the majority of students were not grade 3. |
The school at which I worked in Indonesia held a culminating unit for the grade 6 students, the Exhibition. The Exhibition is a rite of passage for the Primary Year student into the Middle Years of the International Baccalaureate program. This self-designed unit allows students to apply what they have learned and demonstrate who they have become throughout their journey in the Primary Years Program (PYP).
The purpose of the Exhibition is for students to engage in an in-depth collaborative inquiry. The Exhibition provides students an opportunity to demonstrate independence and responsibility for their own learning. Students synthesize and apply their learning of previous years and reflect on their journey through the PYP. Students pose questions that help them to define their central ideas and lines of inquiry that ultimately lead to investing real-life issues or problems. Towards the end of the Exhibition, students must consider how they will present their findings and how they will take action. Part of this process includes creating an action proposal (bottom right) and writing an after-action reflection (bottom left). I have also included a copy of the Exhibition rubric (bottom right). Reflecting on the Exhibition, I’m presented with the question as to whether my grade 6, US students have the means to benefit from an Exhibition-type project. When I consider the required tasks for high school students, it is somewhat comparable to the tasks presented to my International Baccalaureate, grade 6 students. The question remains as to whether public school grade 6 students are able to perform such as task. Although our society here in the US is different than that of Indonesia, especially in terms of opportunities to help others, I do believe it is possible to incorporate an Exhibition-style learning opportunity, albeit it would occur over the course of the year as students are simply not allotted enough time to fully design, research, and act on a social need due to the state and federal requirements they face. I have found that my best lessons are those that allow students to learn through inquiry on a project that lends itself to several content areas. If an inquiry-based opportunity were started early in the year, and education professionals collaborated in a manner that permitted students to inquire in a cross-curricular manner, students would have a year-long inquiry opportunity that culminates with a presentation and action that ultimately leads to supporting some problem or issue within our community.
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