Modeling Our Writing
I had a really great first day of work. I learned a lot. The first thing I learned is that fourth graders are way different than fifth graders. Here’s what I mean. My new students were a bit confused by the bio poems. In the past, my fifth graders never had trouble with completing a bio poem. However there were lots of questions today. I think the questions arose from the fact that I read my bio poem to the kids, rather than modeling the writing of the bio poem. I realized that I SHOULD have modeled. (Note: Before it was too late I pulled a few kids on to the rug to help them by doing an explicit demo with the overhead projector.)
So what I am really taking away from my day today is that modeling our writing in front of our students matters. Modeling to our students isn’t so much of a help. Allowing the students to watch me struggle to find the words to make up the lines of the poem would’ve been much better than showing them a finished product. Alas, I have 179 more days with them… everything will be fine.
I had the same realization with 9th and 10th graders yesterday. Why is it so hard for me to remember to model for students? Isn’t it great to know that it is okay and we do have the rest of the year to make adjustments and improvements?
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I too had the problem this year with my students doing a bio poem. I showed mine first and couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do it w/o so many questions. Thanks Stacey for the reminder that I do have to model to 6th & 7th graders.