Wednesday, March 23, 2016

#23 - TIp - Use Elaboration Prompts to Grow Your Big Idea


At the Monday conference in my town, Lucy shares tips for teaching essay. After having us learn the STRUCTURE of essay using her bootcamp strategy to write I love ice cream because...because...and most of all, because .... , she reminded me that to revise essay, elaboration prompts help. I have used elaboration prompts with my writing students and it never fails!! I made this bookmark for my students to hold and use. Feel free to use and/or tweek. The prompts are from the Units of Study for teaching Writing. I vividly remember Kate Roberts teaching me this at a workshop where she bravely had someone in the audience name a big idea and then had the list of prompts projecting from the document camera. She started to write and when she got stuck, we called out a prompt to keep her going. Since seeing that, I have bravely repeated this in my classroom, handing cards with a prompt on it to a handful of kids. And I write in front of them as I jot down the prompts heard and fill in more ideas, elaborating! I can still see a 4th grader I taught 2 years ago smiling at me at the end of the workshop where this was the mini-lesson. "Mrs. Donnelly, I used every prompt on the bookmark," she said as I looked at her notebook, two pages filled!

Here's my attempt now to grow a big idea in draft form - Self-contained vs Departmentalized?
(Full disclosure - I am not sure what I'll be typing here - as I've recently taught both and like both for different reasons...)

         As it becomes springtime in a school, teachers start to think about NEXT year. Right now I am teaching all the subjects all day to one group of kids. I call this self-contained. I'm realizing that I like the flexibility. If I want a math lesson to go longer, I can. If I want to squeeze in another read-aloud, I can steal time away from science and make it up tomorrow. An example of this was last Wednesday when we had an author visit. We attended his presentation first thing in the morning. I had math and social studies activities planned. But the author got us excited to read and write. So, I pushed those lessons to the next day and we spent more time reading and writing. I could do this because no one was expecting me to change classes like you do when you departmentalize.  I also only have 23 students and families to know well. I see this being helpful when the parents write me emails asking me questions. With just 23 families, I have easily been able to respond. This is giving me the idea that self-contained is where I should stay. What surprises me about this is that I took a job 2 years ago specifically to be the 5th grade writing teacher. I only had to plan writing and teach it to 4 classes a day. I used to think that only having one subject to worry about as a teacher would be the best. And I did like feeling very prepared in my one subject. But now, I realize some of the cons to being departmentalized. One is you have to teach LOTS of students that one subject and I found it hard to know them all well. To add on, I had to set the timer at the beginning of every class and no matter where we were, when the timer went off, we had to stop. Many people think that being departmentalized sounds easier - only one subject to know so well. But having done it and now also done self-contained, I prefer self-contained. It allows me flexibility with my schedule and time to really know my students. (And I am even getting better at teaching math!)

(Full disclosure - I did not expect to write this much. Proof that these elaboration prompts work!! Once done, I went back and bolded all the prompts I used.)

11 comments:

  1. This will be incredibly helpful for me and my students. I have bookmarked your bookmark. I think these are the ideas that swirl in our heads as we contemplate an idea of a career path. Having the prompts helps organize the mess of ideas. I have also been a writing teacher, teaching 4 classes of writing. It was the job that made me realize I wanted to return to middle school.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent Sally... great things can be shared so clearly on this crazy internet. I'm copying your big idea!!!!
    Bonnie K

    ReplyDelete
  3. Simply amazing, Sally! I so LOVE this series where you are deliberately using what you learned from Lucy! So smart to try it out yourself!

    ReplyDelete
  4. As one who teaches two sections of reading and writing, your slice confirms what I know to be true. There is so much value in self contained. Most importantly, knowing your students. I wish I could try this...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the lesson and the writing too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh this is fabulous! I loved reading your writing and could see how using these elaboration prompts helped you to define your own position. I have been torn between going back to 4th grade (that I have taught for 14 years) or stay in 5th grade again (I looped with my 4th graders) Maybe I should try writing out my ideas with this prompts!! btw....I am departmentalized now and I love it but we only share subjects and students with one other teacher...maybe that could be the happy compromise for you?!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was very interested in reading your advantages and disadvantages. And the prompts bolded was a real bonus. I hope to use them in a slice. Maybe I will write a similar essay, in response to yours, Sally!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I was very interested in reading your advantages and disadvantages. And the prompts bolded was a real bonus. I hope to use them in a slice. Maybe I will write a similar essay, in response to yours, Sally!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm really enjoying this series, Sally - you are demonstrating these ideas so well, and now I want to try them out, too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great ideas and modeled so well here in your essay! It got me thinking...I like getting to know my students, too; although, there are days I'd love to just teach reading and writing...self-contained allows for community, which is key. BTW, I LOVE Kate Roberts!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great ideas and modeled so well here in your essay! It got me thinking...I like getting to know my students, too; although, there are days I'd love to just teach reading and writing...self-contained allows for community, which is key. BTW, I LOVE Kate Roberts!

    ReplyDelete