Exploring Learning

If anyone read my article in The Guardian about paper blogging, you will know I am a fan of teaching digital skills using analogue methods. True to form, I discovered another 'blend': using story cubes to teach 21st century skills. No computer or Internet required. http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/4csposter.pdf The Partnership for 21st Century Skills  identify the four big Cs of skills that are essential for today's learners. These are communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity . Generally, I address these skills through digital rather than traditional learning such as  blogging or connecting with other classes.  However, I believe that some simple cubes can also be used to address these important areas. My Year 10 second language learners undertake all the regular aspects that I deem important for all my learners, such as silent sustained reading and free writing, every lesson. However, some of the free writing prompts are not alw...

At the start of the year, I began a writing initiative based on both my experience of teaching free writing, and following my reading of the book Spilling Ink . My post in August, Spilling Ink: Writing Journal Agreements outlines this in more detail. I try to make each prompt visible on a single slide, and we work on the same prompt for the week. We have written about all sorts of things, from shapeshifters to thunderstorms, garlic gum to invisibility potion. Learners are always given the option to choose the prompt, or write about something they need to write about. They can fold over any writing that they wish to keep private. They are also encouraged to go back and rework previous writing, revising to make it better, or making into something new. I ask them to focus particularly on areas we have looked at in lessons, such as narrative perspective, sentence clarity, adjectives or noun phrases etc. Sometimes I will give specific targets to learners as they need it,...

I have started this year with a commitment to develop literacy through reading and writing. I dedicate the start of every lesson to ten minutes silent reading. Sometimes I listen to the learners read, sometimes I ask them to tell me about their reading. Read about this in my post, Inspiring a Reading Community . We also write for fifteen to twenty minutes each lesson. This writing is done in a separate book to their lesson work. It is an opportunity to explore and play with language and is a chance to write what they want to write. Read about how I set this up and where I got my inspiration in my post, Spilling Ink. Each lesson they are given the option to: - write something they need to write about - re-work or continue with something they have previously written - use the writing prompt. I provide a new writing prompt each week - and they can write a poem, a list, a story, a letter, a speech, a script - whatever they want. Some prompts I have used so far this ye...

Writing Journals I started reading an awesome book today. ' Spilling Ink' is aimed at children and encourages them all to become writers. I got about half way through by the pool this morning. I tend to fold down pages where there are great ideas I want to return to (I know this is will irk some people, but this is my method). As you can see, I folded down almost every page. It has so many great and workable ideas I can use in the classroom that I know will help them find who they want to be as a writer. I am so excited about sharing them with my learners and to see their progress. We start our journals next week - this weekend, learners are buying their own or decorating the one I gave them ready to be filled with their scribbles and musings. Learner Agreement As I launch, I will provide a writers agreement. This is a combination of ideas from both the Spilling Ink book and another book I read recently, ' Notebook Know How '. It consists of a learner agree...