Today I decided to experiment with my class. I have found that when I work with my reluctant writers that I don't get the results that I know I can get. I have been thinking about what I'm doing wrong when I teach, how can I get them to discuss their writing in detail and to just open up to me a little. Usually what I get is my group looking back at me waiting for me to give them all the answers. This leads to a lot of waiting at time. I ask questions, I encourage, we draw pictures but they are not making the progress that I was hoping to see. These children usually do a better job when an adult is not near by. This made me think that I was the problem. Are these children feeling like I might be judging their abilities or is there just too much pressure to get things right?
This lead to today's experiment. I partnered up my reluctant writers with some of my good spellers. Rather I asked them to choose a coach out of the people on the mat. What I saw was very impressive. Some of my shy students came out of their shells. They were discussing their writing and getting some good ideas down on paper. Obviously they didn't feel as much pressure when working with their peers. I recorded two of my boys working together (the video is below). I'll give you some details about the two. They boy who is receiving help is not confident when communicating in English and at times he can be very shy with me. He didn't have any problem talking to his coach (who, as you will see, took his job very seriously). Today was the first time that I could read his story with out him reading it back to me. Most of his words were spelt correctly and it all made sense. YEY!!!!
Over all I'm happy with the result and I think all parties learned a lot from the experience. Will definitely be doing this on a regular basis.
