Tide pools Podcast 2010
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Project 3: Questioning the characters
Before iPod recording:
To begin this project our class did our regular pre-reading routines for the Houghton Mifflin 2nd grade anthology story Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. Among the pre-reading routines were a vocabulary introduction, a "picture walk" (prediction strategy), and then watched a meet-the-author interview with Patricia Polacco to give students some more background knowledge for this particular story. I found the interview on the following Reading Rockets website: http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/polacco
I told the students that we were going to work on the strategy of questioning for this story and I would be having them work in pairs to create their own interviews of one of the characters in the story. I asked the students to keep this strategy in mind as we read the story along with the publisher provided CD. As we listened and followed along with the story in our anthology book, I paused the CD and modeled my questions on the first couple of pages, and sometimes added some possible answers to my questions. A few students chimed in with thoughts of what else could be plausible. I then paused on the following pages and had students orally share their questions and possible answers.
After completing the story, I paired-up students and had them choose to be one of the two characters. I created an interview worksheet for the students using pictures from Patricia Polacco's website and added an area for the students to write questions and write possible answers to these questions (as shown below).
http://www.patriciapolacco.com/books/thundercake/thundercake_index.html
I asked students to reread the story at home and write down one question for each of the selected areas. I did not assign them to answer the questions but they could if they chose to do so.
The following day, students worked with partners to read and think of answers to the questions they had produced (or improve answers if they had put answers on their sheets).
During the iPod recording:
Students practiced interviews with partners using the "Voice Memo" app. I chose three partnerships to share the iPods and record. They took turns interviewing each other as the characters in the story. I reminded each group to state their names and tell which character was being interviewed. Each pair of students recorded several times. They would then listen to check for quality of sound and other technical aspects. The following are samples of the recordings.
After the iPod recording:
Because we used a very familiar app (very appropriate for the learning outcome I was hoping the students would achieve), I felt this was an easy and successful lesson. Students did very well and most felt the need to rewrite to improve their questions and answers. (Who ever sees that at the end of a school year during testing?!!)
I would like to be able to replicate the lesson next year but earlier in the year. After seeing the students become more confident I would then transition them into some of the other apps to do project in something like Sonic Pics or Reel Director on the iPod and/or Keynote on the computer.
It has been wonderful to see how excited the students have been and how in-charge of their own learning they have been this year. It is truly a great thing to see the future through their learning.
Project 3- Comprehension Strategy: Questioning
For this project students will partner-up to use the comprehension strategy of questioning to create an interview. Students will use one of the remaining Houghton Mifflin stories in our language arts anthology to help them in developing an understanding of author's view point.
Project 2- Simple Routine for doing Reading Predictions
My project involved the use of only two ipods to record students' predictions using the Voice Memos application. I used our small group reading-time to have each group of students (5-7 students in a group) record what they thought the story was going to be about and to revise predictions midway through the story. I thought this would be a great way for students to understand what a prediction is and how it might need to change as the story develops.
To begin, I modeled a couple of examples of predictions using familiar fairy tales. This was done during whole group instruction using a "Think aloud" strategy to help students understand what a prediction might sound like. The following part of the lesson was done in the students' small reading groups.
Each group read the title and did a group "picture walk" of the story Jamaica Louis James by Amy Hest from the Houghton Mifflin second grade anthology. I then recorded the students first predictions on the first ipod. (Below are sample recordings). I saved each recording in Voice Memo to have them listen to their recording after they had made their second prediction.
Next, the student groups read the story chorally to allow every reader to be on the same page. When we got to where the main character in the story is sharing her "big idea," I recorded the student groups' revised predictions on a second ipod. I then had them listen to their original predictions on the first ipod to see if they were close to their second predictions. Each groups then read the remainder of the story.
When all groups had finished the reading rotation, we gathered again, whole class, and listened to all the groups secondary predictions to see how close each group was to the actual events in the story.
I feel this was a very successful way to help students understand the story and also to better understand the strategy of prediction. It was also a great way for different levels of students to contribute and to listen to the thinking of others in class. It assured that even the most timid of students got to be heard by the class.
Activity-Project 2 proposal
I will have the students do small group recordings of predictions using titles and picture walk. They will also work on recording the story problem and predict possible solutions to our story selections.
Project 1 sample- Henry and Mudge
In this project students worked on retelling a story which would then help them in summarize the whole story later on. To complete the project several things were set-up.
Ahead of time:
I took pictures of the illustrations using the classroom Elmo and created a Keynote template. I then made a Keynote story-board using the pictures (a paper copy for student use) . The Keynote template was saved in the school's "Groups Folder" for students to access later when the actual project was ready for them to record.
In class:
We listened and read the story from our Houghton Mifflin Anthology in class several times. We worked on using the story vocabulary in isolation so students would feel like they "owned" the words and would be able to incorporate them in their retellings. I allowed the students to write freely without much fuss about spelling or penmanship as this was their "script" and only for their use. I paired students up to share the reading which allowed them to make sure the writing was understandable.
When the student "scripts" were ready, we went to computer lab to do the recordings.
In the lab:
Several trips were made to get students ready to record. On the initial trip student learned to open the Groups Folder, drag a copy of the template onto their desktop and rename it. The students then learned to record, name the recording, and put the recording on each of the slides in Keynote. They each also learned how to put their projects into the "Drop-in Folder."
Some problems encountered:
I was too ambitious. I would absolutely reduce the number of slides the students were expected to have.
Also having all the students record at the same time was challenging. Most of the recording have lots of background noise which is a bit of a problem with recording some of the quieter students.
The students did nice work overall. I am looking forward to fixing some of the glitches and excited to try again.
Project 1 proposal
In my project students will use Keynote and the audio-recorder feature to summarize one of three stories. The students will create a written script of the story prior to recording. In the computer lab the students will copy a keynote template I have created and placed into the common folder.
The three stories will be from our Houghton Mifflin theme 1 and 2.