4-Mat writings - 5th grade, Borger, Texas

Please comment below to add your 4-Mat Review

Google Docs Lesson Plan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oXtuwR7ze46cxN_b_R2xbN6mTFC6J25qaAtj8gZpHsg/edit?usp=sharing


Sorry about that. I hope we can all edit it now.

Above is Google Docs.
Below is Google Slides.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JjtA_11EIkiTWj1gh-FY_gKz-jQmO4yb9_J_PUT6AL0/edit?usp=sharing

ASL

Is anyone clear on how we are supposed to do the Assessment of Student Learning assignment? It seems like we're expected to teach the lesson to a group of students ...

Lesson Plan

Good Morning,

I plan on starting to look at this more tomorrow. The lesson needs to be tied to a TEKS and I think our idea works best around some sort of reading related TEKS. It also has to target a specific set of students; my idea is that it be in the 4th - 7th grade range, but I'm not particular.
It also has to be tied to a Technology TEKS and I think that shouldn't be that difficult to find.

Since we're using Blogger for our assignment and the main idea is that this be generally an outside the classroom activity, but since our lesson plan must concern inside the classroom, then the lesson could be based on a beginning of the year I assignment in the Gradual release model. The teacher models it, the class does it together, then the goal would be for the students to be released to do this more on their own than inside the class as the academic year progresses.

Just my initial thoughts. I'll add more tomorrow.

Pre and Post Assessment ideas:
Since we are doing this assignment over some sort of reading and the students have to use the Blogger to interact, perhaps the Blogger could be used as homework before the in class part of the assignment and answer the questions in teams. So, we could teach a lesson on how to analyze a piece of writing around themes or motifs or grammar or whatever is done in the appropriate grade level, then the pre-assessment is centered on GENERIC questions about analyzing writing. This gives us as the teacher a level of measurement to see if the students understand the principles we are trying to teach. THEN, we teach the lesson related to our specific piece of writing, or the students read it and discuss it, the POST-Assessment is generally like the pre-assessment questions but related SPECIFICALLY to the assigned reading. 

It seems like the lesson plan would just cover one period of class time but maybe it should be a broader lesson plan covering a unit, piece of writing, etc. Having a pre-assessment, a post-assessment and teaching + technology interaction in one 45 minute (or whatever) block of instruction would be pretty difficult. 

That way the technology component is not the WHOLE thing, but just part of extending learning/interaction outside of the classroom lesson but that is integrated with it.

I'm reading Differentiating Instruction with Technology in Middle School Classrooms for my Literature Review; chapter 4 has great ideas to use technology for English/Language Arts

Technology Project

I wrote a rough technology project for us. You can find the Microsoft Word document under the file exchange or access the Google doc here Document

I was fairly unclear on the directions, so I just went with it. Please feel free to edit/change as you wish!

Quentin McCart

This is a great idea, and an easier way to keep track of students' initial posts.

I like the idea of there being a class blog. Students create posts with their name as the heading, perhaps name and title of assignment "Quentin McCart Reading 1" then write their 4Mat review (or whatever). Then students respond to their peers writing. 

It seems like there is a lot of flexibility; it could, for example, also be used for peer editing. If a paper of some length were assigned, the peer edits could be done on the blog post itself (perhaps in a different color), then the student could complete a final draft before submission.

A couple of questions: how does the teacher ensure students don't come on and mess with their peers' work? Is there a way to track who is posting what ... maybe that is what the email alerts detail ...

Laura Rodgers

I was trying to figure out a way for students to post their individual responses where other students and the teacher could comment and give feedback, without having to search for each individual blog. I figured out that the teacher could add the students to the same Blogger account (like I have done for y'all with this account) and the students can create a new post with the title being their name. That way when you click on an indivudal student's name under the blog archive, it will automatically take you to what they have written for their assignment. This is an example of what they could be doing. From now on, let's each post under our individual names. Can y'all go in and create a new post with the title as your name?