Another "Thick Description"

I certainly hope that "Better late than never" is an acceptable phrase with my study.  It's been a crazy week and a half, and though I've been keeping data and videoing my observations, I haven't had time to post about them on here.  I blame it on my perfectionism.  I don't want to work on something until I have enough time to do it all and do it right.  Unfortunately, in a life as busy as mine right now, that time rarely comes around.  I'm working on it...

This thick description came from a day last week when we were finishing up our first unit.  The unit focused on the Earth, and to review, I had students do an activity called "10 Most Important Words".  This activity is from a book called Content Counts!: Developing Disciplinary Literacy Skills, K-6 by Jennifer Altieri (2011).  For this activity, students work with partners to come up with the 10 most important words about a topic.  Then, all students share their words and create a graph to show which words were most popular.  You can then have discussion about which words were chosen most frequently and why.  Below is a description of the activity within my classroom...

After introducing the activity, I had students get to work and began walking around the room, taking note of what was happening.  The room was again filled with discussion and debate as students worked together to come up with the 10 most important words to describe our Earth unit.  Many students had out their learning logs and were flipping through the pages, finding key ideas and vocabulary.  Walking around the room, I noticed some reluctance of students to look for information.  In one pair, M was actively looking through her learning log for words, while E had his book open, but his head down on his desk.  In the next group, J was writing an important word down and his partner, B, was watching me make my rounds.  Both of their journals were closed.  The next group was more productive, with M writing with her learning log open while R watched and waited.  Then M passed the index card over to R and he wrote a word.  As I made my way to the back of the room, I heard some arguing and went to investigate.  Two groups were in a dispute because one group accused the other of cheating and listening to their words.  With a reminder to keep our eyes to ourselves and whisper so others don't hear our answers, I moved on to the next groups.  The pattern continued as I circled around the room.  In pairs, both students were beginning to work together, with one writing a word as the partner watched and/or looked for the word he or she wanted to add.  A couple of students ducked behind their learning logs as I came around with my camera to capture their interactions.  They are still a little camera-shy.  Some students ask questions as I pass by.  B wants to know if they can use words from when we read The Magic School Bus: Wet All Over.  She also asked for some help in remembering a word from earlier in the week. 

 

B: "What was that word from yesterday?  It was long and started with an "a"."

Me: "Atmosphere?"
B: Yeah!

 

After several minutes of collaboration with their groups, I called the students back together and had them share their words.  With each new word, we created a spot on a line plot and put an "x".  Each time a word was given after that, we added an "x" to the plot.  To help students see the breakdown of how each group responded, I even used a different color for each group's words.

 

 

The most popular words chosen along with the reasons given by the students are listed below:



• Core - because it's the middle of the Earth
• Crust - it's a part of our Earth
• Gases - it's a part that happens in the clouds and a little bit on our Earth
• Mantle - part of the inside of our Earth
• Evaporation - it happens in the water cycle
• Liquid - it's part of how our rain comes down
• Earth - the unit is about the Earth

While most words were closely aligned to the main ideas of the unit, some words were listed that were irrelevant or loosely linked to the unit.  These words are listed below:

• Sink
• Creek
• River
• Toilet
• Pool
• Ocean
• Aluminum

The first 6 words likely came from the list we made during our day discussing water on Earth.  We first brainstormed places where we saw/used water.  Several of these words were on the list.  I'm not sure exactly where "aluminum" came from, however.  We had a discussion about how even though these words were mentioned during our unit, they weren't exactly the most important words we found.
The students seemed to enjoy this activity, and though we had some trouble getting all students involved at the beginning, most students were engaged by the end.  This activity is great for getting students to really think about the most important ideas and vocabulary from a unit and was an excellent review for our first mini-unit.  I plan to use it again!

"Thick Descriptions": Finally a success!

During this lesson yesterday, I finally felt like I had some luck with keeping my students engaged while incorporating science content and reading instruction.  Here are my notes from the observation, which also serve as my first bit of "thick description".  Please note: this is my first attempt at "thick description", and while I am getting the hang of it, I am not quite there yet...bear with me! 

The article the students read

Students were working with partners on reading the article “Why Can We Breathe on Earth?” and then completed an outline together with important ideas from the passage.  First, we previewed the article, and I asked students to identify words they were not familiar with or did not know by highlighting them.  After a few minutes, the students shared the words they had highlighted and we went over them.  I did this because during some of the other lessons, students were not familiar with words used in the reading and this became an obstacle for them.  At least now, the students were somewhat familiar with the words and had heard them before.

Afterward, students paired themselves up and read the article together, working to complete an outline I created.  The students seemed really bored during one of our last lessons when we read and discussed material from the science text book.  Using this article outline gave students a chance to search for relevant science information in the passage and use their non-fiction reading skills as well.  As the students read and discussed the article, I noticed how engaged they all were.

Students read with partners

I walked around the room, careful to avoid stepping on the pairs of students working on the carpet, in the floor, and on the bean bags.  Two students played “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to determine who read the first part of the article.  Other pairs were already busy at work, using their highlighters to help them understand the passage better.  Some students highlighted important ideas, while others used the highlighters to find the information in their outline.  The room was filled with conversation as students read and discussed the article about Earth’s atmosphere.  One pair raised their hands frequently, asking what certain words in the passage were, even though we discussed those words before reading.  I wondered if they had paid attention during that part of the lesson.  Another pair chose to work on their outline separately, reading silently and then completing the outline individually before checking their answers together. Two boys who were working together surprised me as they sped through the outline page, getting all the questions correct.  They are best friends who tend to become more interested in talking to each other than in doing their school work.  Apparently, something about this assignment “worked” for them.  Students followed along with the article as their partners read and debated the answers to some of the questions.  I experienced one pair having this conversation about the answer to question #5 (Some of the gas in our atmosphere is oxygen, but most of it is _____________.):

     M: I think I found number 5.  It’s Nitrogen!
     S: (throwing her hands in the air) I told you that!
     Me: Why do you think it’s nitrogen?
     M: It said (pointing to the outline) “Most of it is a ‘blank’, most of it is, but in here (pointing to text) it said, um, most of it is a gas called nitrogen.

As I continued to walk around the room, I was amazed at how engaged the students were.  Most students were working diligently with their partners, either reading or completing the outline.  Several pairs, like the one described above, had different ideas on what the answers to the quesitons could be.  I heard students explaining their thinking and sharing their ideas.  When I checked the students’ outlines, I saw that most of the answers were correct, showing they read and understood the information. 

At the end of the lesson, I asked a few students whether they preferred this method of reading or reading out of the textbook better.  Of the six students I asked, all of them agreed it was better.  One student explained why:

     S: I like it better ‘cause, um, we get to work with a partner and we don’t have to just sit and listen and then go back to our seats and, like, do our work, and we can just read it and do our work.

This lesson showed me that my students can become engaged in this process.  The students really loved working with partners, especially since they were able to choose them.  Using the outline held students accountable for the new information they had to learn and required them to use the non-fiction reading skills we have talked about during previous lessons.  In addition, the outline really gave them a purpose for reading, making it more authentic than simply sitting and listening.  This gives me hope for future lessons!