Contact with Author and Inspiration

Feeling really pleased with myself as I found the authors website and have emailed her. She seems to be the kind that responds to people so might hear back from her. She has written so many books, I like the look of a few others. (Trust me to pick the only one out of print). 

Also made contact with Laura Candler who is pretty much the brains behind Literature Circles. Every search I make comes up with her resources and if not hers then they refer to her. I am using some of her role sheets and on her site she had said that people were free to use them in their class and school. Because I want my wiki to be a one stop resource place, I really wanted to upload her sheets. Emailed her and asked her permission to do that and she emailed back within a couple of hours and said it was fine, just make sure the credit line is there. Think it is great to acknowledge the work she has done in making the resources and would never claim them as my own, but feel a lot more comfortable that she knows I am using them and will be able to have them on the wiki. She has many, many resources and thoughts about teaching so well worth people visiting www.lauracandler.com

Great Book

This book has been a great catalyst for things. (Tomorrow is a Great Word) How could such a great book be buried on our bookshelf in the resource room and even worse be out of print now. Have contacted publisher, maybe they might reprint if they get enough good feedback about it. Going to try to contact the author also, she might have loads of copies of it still.

The children initially have found it really hard trying to do the roles in just a pair. A couple of times they've wanted to give up but we have refocussed and worked through it. Taking us much longer to get things posted as they are putting a lot more thought into their roles. The word detectives have found it quite hard as they know they are trying to help others understand what words and phrases mean, not just themselves. They have to be clearer. The illustrators really thought they might have an easy time of it, but they have seen there is much more thought having to go into depicting a scene.

Found we needed to do some more work on what an earthquake was like that is on that scale and it has spun off into some homework tasks and going to other sites. Found a really neat site which had an earthquake simulator which the children could use. Being in Rotorua we experience little earthquakes all the time, but to get to grips with an earthquake of the magnitude of the one in the story was difficult. A fine line between showing the children and scaring them senseless. Hopefully I have got it right. It has really reinforced to me how great developing the wiki is as I could just add the links to the site. I was also able to post a new question for them to answer right away. I am able to do things at the moment I think of it, the children can go on at a time that suits them also if they are going in at home.

Capturing the Thinking

With this latest book (Tomorrow is a Great Word) I decided to put pairs in each role in the hope they would support each other and I would be able to get discussion between the pairs. This has worked for a couple of the pairings, being a fly on the wall I am able to hear what I think is discussion, bouncing ideas back and forth, agree, disagreeing, moving on. (Voice recorders are a wonderful invention). For a couple of pairs they are trying to go it alone. Showed me also the refocussing I need to do - e.g the Summarisers are having a good discussion but I don't think they are quite sure of their role yet and what they need to end up with. Think they need a story map to help them with making decisions on events. Early days.

A Woo Hoo Moment

We read our new story today. Had the video running and the voice recorder and it didn't phase the children at all with it going, so that was good. 

Had such a neat moment today. At the end of the story one of my children said out of the blue, "I can make a connection between this and the 3 little pigs story we read - they are both about fear. Different kinds of fear, but there was fear in both stories." It was just so neat, he went on to tell us about his experiences of being in an earthquake and how scared he'd been, and how she must have been really scared. It was just so great for me that so early in our work on Literacy Circles and the roles, that he clearly saw something and was sharing it.

It worked out today that the children asked for different roles, some interesting choices but they were the roles they felt they could contribute to the most for this story so great. Am heading to them making those choices and they've done it early for me. 

Tomorrow is a Great Word by Janeen Brian

Am starting a new story tomorrow (Monday). We are going to try to move on from us all doing each role to beginning to take on the different roles ourselves. I am going to work this time with 2 children per each role so they can support each other as it is all so new  for us still. I am going to take on the role of Questioner for this book as I want to still show them the depth I will be expecting for that role. Tomorrow will be just reading the story and setting them the task for each role and hopefully Tuesday we will start getting into the roles. As they initially read the story I will get them to circle words they are unsure of or find unusual so they can ask the Word Detective to explore those words if they have not covered them. 

A bit unsure of how to have both face to face discussions as well as the blog discussions. Guess this will play itself out in time, at what point do we need the face to face?....

Good Session Today

Had a session with the children today where they were being word detectives and really felt they were thinking with their posts. They are starting to see that their discussions are for a wider audience than them, if they explain what a word means, they might help someone further away, doesn't have to be just for the group.

Was great today as the kids put some good online dictionary sites on our Word Detective Page on our wiki. They decided that would save them wasting time searching through millions of sites when they search for a definition.  Wish I'd been that clever ages ago, the hours I spend searching for things. Getting the idea of the difference between a phrase and a word and how searching for a meaning needs to be done differently.

I think they love the fact that all their work is right where they left it, no book to find, no paper to lose.

Technology

Goodness, video certainly stifles my children's discussions. They kind of clam up and just look to the camera...Guess by doing more they will get used to it. Also thinking...my children just don't have the experience of discussing in a group. They are kind of used to Round Robin talks where they contribute in turn and don't really just contribute freely. Even if we are reading a story and talking about things, it is usually directed through me as the teacher, taking turns. So many skills to learn and do.  

The blogging for the sake of it tends to have tapered off and as we are learning more about the roles, it is taking longer for the children to post as they are now putting more thought and research into what they are putting up. Guess this is also the second week of working with the book so our initial questions are asked, we are now looking at deeper thinking to try to answer some of our questions.

Having technology that works is the biggest frustration. Of the 6 desktop computers in my room, 1 is working at the moment!!!!! Thank goodness for two laptops and a suite with enough computers. Blogging is great and working in online environments fantastic - if you get on there.....