If I don’t get this reflection out of my system now, it may just die and rot inside me. Is this how students view mandatory reflective assignments? Do they view reflection as a chore? I have inflicted this task on myself, but I can imagine how much more angst ridden it would be had the choice to reflect been made by someone else.

You see! I have learned something from taking the time to reflect already, and I haven’t even started yet- reflection can be arduous and time consuming and not always feel right.  On that note let’s get started:

About a week ago, I wrote my thoughts and description of the unit I worked on with my grade 8’s, but reports, laziness, and life have prevented me form writing the post for the grade 6 & 7 unit. I realized last time that I may need a more streamlined template when I go through the steps of the unit. I hope to find a comfortable template for these reflections that make them effective for me and you as the reader.

Let’s start with the cover sheet I gave to the kids:

Grade 6 ESL Cover Sheet- Spoken Words

I like using Pages, much more than word, because it gives the document a sense of vibrancy and color, but I still find the text stifling and unapproachable to the average 6th grade ESL kid. I need to work on using language they understand and still maintaining the formality of MYP. I simply embed these documents onto our class blog, so students can have instant and constant access. I do not feel, however, that anyone ever looked at it. I hope to work on making these sheets and accompanying checklist a bigger part of our unit in the future.

Another disappointment for me was not having the rubric ready before the task began. I think it is crucial that students have a copy of the rubric along side the unit overview. In addition to sharing the rubric before we begin,  I am also playing with the idea of a more interactive video Unit Overview using glogster. (Maybe even a glogster rubric!) I want to make sure that students have a clear idea of expectations before they begin. Now that I have laid out the objectives, assessments, and criterion let me explain the gist of the unit.

We began by exploring the concept of storytelling. Why do we tell stories? We watched this video:

At the time, we watched this clip we didn’t have blogs and I was in Shanghai, but I would have liked to have done some reflection on the video to set the foundation of the unit. I am realizing that I do not like end of the unit summative reflections for the students or myself. Next time around, I want to have more frequent and shorter reflections on every step of the journey, as opposed to the end of the voyage recap.

Next, we started creating our own stories using Storybird. Because I am working with second language learners I wanted to have a tool that gave us images as a starting point to story creation. I realize now that the images shaped their stories more than I would have liked, but it was a much easier place to start than a blank page. Starting from nothing with limited language can be an intimidating process. Storybird made this much easier for sure.

I asked the student to pick 15 slides from the work desk and tell a story without any text at first. I wanted a beginning, middle, and an end. I told them to remember to have a visible problem in their slides that must be solved. Next the students added basic text to each slide to tell the story. We spent time talking about dialogue and adjectives. They were asked to add these devices into their growing stories.

Then I had them print their stories and paste them on to a large paper storyboard. The ideas was that the story at this point would become tangible. Something they could touch and literally walk upon and enter. I asked them to then think about what each slide sounded like. What could they smell, feel, touch, see etc…I told them to think about sensory language and how it would build their scenes. We also talked about sound effects they would be using in the podcast.

They added the sensory language to the storyboard and it was time to create a word document of the text- the script. They copied and pasted what they already had in Storybird into a document, while adding the new sensory language and descriptions of scenes form the paper storyboard. (Yes, these ESL kids were just as confused as you are about the difference between Storybird and storyboard.)We did a halfway point reflection at this stage.

Next we did a quick round of editing on google docs. They shared their stories with the class and me, and we made some basic edits for clarity. Next time around, however I will not help them so much with the editing. I think it is better to have authentic assessment of where they are now, so as to better monitor their growth. I was more worried about having “good” podcasts than truly assessing where each student was.

Next we were ready to record! We did a very basic “how to” lesson on Garageband and they were off. I am lucky to work at a 1:1 school, so the kids grabbed their laptops and scattered around our 8th grade lounge and empty rooms. Each one had a private place to sit and record. We discussed the differences between telling a story and reading one. We focused on the idea of intonation, expression etc…

The problem was that I still did not have a rubric at this time. I REALLY understand the value of knowing what I am assessing as I am going through the unit. Helps keep the unit grounded and goal oriented. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there was a lot of learning going on, but I wasn’t sure how I could assess it all, or what was being learned exactly without the rubric to guide me. The whole concept of rubrics and their value is another post all together, so I will leave it at that for now.

The kids did a great job playing with music to create tension and suspense. They used pitch to change their voices for each character, and a few really got into the art of storytelling. Others were still too shy, embarrassed or lacked the confidence to really tell their stories. Overall, I was impressed with their dedication and enthusiasm for this last task.

Final step, we moved our podcats to iMovie so it would play nice with blogger, posted them along with the script for your listening and reading pleasure and wrote a final reflection on the whole experience and posted the whole lot on their blogs. The last step was asking the students to answer the unit questions: What is the difference between telling a story and reading one? in a short video reflection, also posted on their blog.

You can read the rubric below. It needs a lot of work I know, but it did the job for the first time out. Next time I will really spend more time exploring exactly what is being assessed and what that will look like. This time around, I got lost in the task. Don’t get me wrong it was very valuable. The question is how much of what they learned was intentional and documented? And does that matter? Here is the rubric I eventually shared with students.

Rubric Spoken Words

Finally, I shared the rubric with each student through a Google Doc, so they could self-assess and help negotiate a final mark, based on my review. You can find all the podcasts, by clicking on the grade 6 and 7s in the sidebar of our class blog. I have posted a few examples below as well. Not necessarily the best, but examples of podcasts that showed effort.

• Ivonne
• Nabila
• Wyan

Any advice or feedback, as always, appreciated.