T-Shaped Literacy Unit 2 - Characterisation

This term our T shaped literacy unit focused on characterisation in texts. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups. Robyn lead the last unit so this time around I took the lead. After creating our unit we remembered or more able students shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. To rectify this we made the decision that Robyn would take a small group characterisation unit that ran alongside my unit. To keep this entirely separate we used different texts for each group although our learning intentions were the same. I used the text 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and Robyn used 'Wolves' in children's literature. As I had a much larger group I was supported by our TA Linda.

Like last time we began by introducing the word characterisation so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. To help our students and ourselves strengthen our connections to this focus we used the excerpt from the text 'Beans' that Aaron shared with us in our PD sessions. These activities can be found on here on slides 2 - 9. Both Robyn and I then front loaded our groups with vocabulary they would be needing to make sense of the learning. This can be found here on slides 14 - 19.

We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation again this time around as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is my teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded.  Robyn's group had an individual response DLO as it was a much smaller group. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. The purpose of the response DLO is to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit focused on the way author influenced the perception we have of the many characters as readers.  As we explored this text we found similarities between the words used to describe the appearance of different characters. My students then filled tables that reflected their first impressions and synthesised their findings across the range of texts we were exploring. Each character from the text was unpacked and they had the same follow up activities so again that allowed opportunities for connections to be strengthened. In place of sharing the activities created I have chosen this time to highlight the student's work via their blog links and a collaborative DLO. Not everything we did was blogged as not everything was a 'create' task. 

Building a picture of a character - This was a collaborative group task that shared ideas and rich discussion opportunities. When building a picture of the character each group defined what 'Characterisation' was. They then choose one character which they analysed and answered questions on a DLO.  Word art was another way we used the vocabulary gathered during the unit in a creative way relating to each students chosen chartater. 

Oscar's Characterisation blog

First impressions of Character Analysis - This was also a collaborative task that showcased connections made to the learning and to synthesise the comparisons of the characters. You will see from reading these that connections were made.

Kingston's First Impressions blog

Describing the scene - This was something that worked well with our Mood and Atmosphere unit and worked just as well in this Characterisation Unit.  Below I have two examples of this - one being from 

Sasuke's Describing the scene blog

This was another powerful unit of learning. Upon reflection and after observing some of Robyn teaching her unit, Charlie and the Chocolate factory was not the most effective choice of text to use for this unit. At first it seemed like a good example of characterisation with having multiple characters, but when looking at each character on a deeper level it did not afford the students the luxury of digging as deep as they might have if we had used multiple texts enabling the comparison of like characters in differing circumstances. 

Click here to find Robyn's blog and her reflection of her T shaped Characterisation unit.

T Shaped Literacy Unit 1 - Mood and Atmosphere...

This is my reflection of our first T shaped literacy unit that focused on the mood and emotions in a text. We decided that we would do this unit with the whole class with the students being grouped in mixed ability groups, except for our two 'top' groups. We kept these groups separate as we wanted to see how they would rise to the challenges set. This group of students have shared with us that they feel frustrated when they have to take the lead in groups instead of being able to work alongside others who work at their speed and at their ability level. This proved to be an excellent decision as it not only allowed the two groups to realise their full potential, but saw other students who would normally take a more passive role, stepping up. 

We began by introducing the words mood and atmosphere so that everyone understood what is was that we would be focusing on. These lessons were shared in an earlier post.

Our provocation that underpinned our learning was: ‘Man should die fighting hard like the struggling shark not tamely submitting like the lazy Tarakihi.’ Should the men of the native contingent have had the right to prove their mettle at the front?

Robyn was responsible for creating and running this unit. As I had never planned a T shaped literacy unit before we decided together that Robyn would take the lead. We will be reversing the roles in the next unit. Doing it this way allowed me to observe Robyn and give her regular feedback, in addition to supporting the student learning. We chose to collate all the tasks in a Google presentation as it kept everything in one place. The DLO below is Robyn's teaching DLO. Each group had a response DLO where all their responses were recorded. Again, it kept everything in one place and made following up on tasks manageable. We do realise this looks like creativity was a bit stifled, and to some extent I agree. In the past when Robyn has run T shaped units her groups have all naturally changed the look of their response DLOs, but this year they didn't. Perhaps because these students needed the scaffolding in place. The purpose of the response DLO was to have a holding place for the learning along the way. Their learning conversations were rich and their create tasks looked quite different. 

The master copy of the response DLO. Each group made a copy and used this as the place they recorded their thinking and added the links to their recorded learning conversations. Really useful additions to this DLO were the 'Questions we have' slide and the 'Vocabulary we don’t understand' slide. Discussing the content of these slides at the start of each lesson meant that we learnt with and from each other the whole way through. 

What has amazed us throughout this learning experience is the way our students have connected to the learning. I don't recall ever having asked them to look closely at the way the author uses mood and atmosphere in the text before, so this focus was completely new. Their understanding is reflected in the discussions that we chose to record on Screencastify and in their DLOs. 

One of the highlights of this unit for us was when a student who finds many aspects of reading a challenge called Robyn over to his group and said, "Mrs Anderson we can't believe they had racial profiling back then.... The men of Te Hokowhitu-a-tu were overlooked because of the colour of their skin.... I can't believe that some people in England thought the Maori men wouldn't be safe if they had guns, that's just dumb!" She was so shocked by what he said that she wrote it down as soon as they had finished talking. This just proves the importance of helping our students make connections to the learning. His 'ah ha' moment set the tone for the rest of his learning. He confidently contributed to class and group discussions from then on, and on a number of occasions took on a leadership role in his group. Something he usually shies away from.

I'm excited to see how we can transfer this learning across our wider literacy program.

Mood and Emotions in Poetry and Art..

Last week Robyn and I introduced our learners to the way authors use words to evoke mood and emotions in poetry. We used ANZAC poems as this was both timely and sets us up for success in our upcoming unit. We began by asking our students to choose three emotions then match them to a colour before sharing their reasons for these colour choices with with their groups.

The challenge was to read each poem then respond to the questions below that were guided by feedback from Dr Aaron Wilson at our last PD session. We did the first poem together as a class. This was very much a guided teaching time. Our students then worked their way through the DLO below, choosing the order they read and responded to the poems in. 

• Use the highlighter tool to match a colour to the emotion or mood the words make your feel. 

• How did the poem make you feel?
• What words did the author use to make you feel a certain way?
• Did you want to feel this way?

Ours students were given the choice of who they worked with and were asked to share their thinking throughout the lesson with their peers. The time for talk allowed for ideas to be shared and gave our learners the opportunity to learn with and from each other.

The presentation below is the teaching DLO we used. 

Link to Presentation

To reinforce and strengthen connections to mood and emotion, I took an art lesson that focused on Kadinsky's concentric circles. This encouraged our students to respond to the mood and emotions that listening to the instrumental music evoked. What amazes me is the difference in the colours chosen by each student.