Language Arts Patterns of Practice

Chapter 2: Teaching and Assessing Language Arts

Classroom Schedule

8:30- 8:45 Opening

8:45 - 9:45 Literature Focus Unit

9:45-10:30 Book Groups

10:30-10:45 Recess

10:45-11:15 Word Work

11:15-12:15 Writing Workshop

12:15-1:00 Lunch and Recess

1:00-2:00 Math

2:00 – 3:15 Social Studies/Science

3:15-3:25 Clean-up/Dismissal

This is what a typical day in our classroom looks like.

Teachers use four patterns of practice to involve students in meaningful, functional, and genuine language-learning activities: literature focus units, literature circles, reading and writing workshops, and thematic units.

Literature Focus Units• Teachers and students read and respond to one text together as a class or in

small groups. Teachers choose texts that are high-quality literature selections. After reading , students explore the text and apply their learning by creating projects.

Literature Circles• Teachers choose five or six books and collect multiple copies of each one.

Students choose the book they want to read and form groups or “book clubs” to read and respond to the book. They develop a reading and discussion schedule, and the teacher participates in some of the discussions.

Reading and Writing Workshop• Students choose books and read and respond to them independently during

reading workshop and write books on self-selected topics during writing workshop. Teachers monitor students’ work through conferences. Students share the books they read and the books they write with classmates during sharing periods.

Thematic Units• Students study social studies or science topics. They use the six language arts as

they participate in activities and demonstrate learning. Although content-area textbooks may be used, they are only one resource. Students also identify topics they want to study, so thematic units are authentic learning opportunities.

The Teacher’s Role• The teachers role is complex and multidimensional. No longer are teachers

simply providers of knowledge, nor do they assign an endless of series of worksheets and busywork. Instead, teachers understand that students’ literacy develops most effectively through meaningful social contexts. These teachers plan for instruction using the four patter of practice to meet the needs of their students. Their goal is to help children develop communicative competence and to excite them about literacy.

What About Teaching? • You could say that everything a teachers does during the four patters of practice

is teaching, and in a sense it is. Although teaching is defined as providing information, teachers do two kinds of teaching.

• One kind is direct instruction, where teachers teach mini-lessons in which they explicitly present information, provide opportunities for supervised practice, and then have students apply what they have learned through reading and writing activities.

• The second kind is indirect instruction. Teachers use indirect instruction for brief, on-the-spot lessons as they respond to students’ questions or when students demonstrate the need to know something. These interactions take place during whole-class activities, during conferences with students, and while working with small groups.

Differentiating Instruction• Teachers know that students vary------- their interests and motivation, their

background knowledge and prior experiences, and their culture and language proficiency as well as their language arts capabilities---- so it is important to allow for these differences as they plan for instruction.

• Differentiated instruction means shaking up what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for taking information, making sense of ideas, and expressing what they learn.

• Differentation instruction is especially important for students who haven’t been successful and who cant hanvle grade-level reading assignments.

5 Ways to Differentiate Instruction• Offer choices- teachers offer choices when students select books to read in literature circles and in

reading workshop, and students often choose their writing topics and genres during writing workshop. Students also make choices about the projects they create during literature focus units and thematic units.

• Use small groups- teacher group students flexibly for literature circles, guided reading, writing groups, and other instructional activities.

• Set up Centers-teachers set up centers with instructional material for students to practice concepts their studying and to extend their learning.

• Integrate All Six Language Arts- teachers provide opportunities for students to develop expertise in all six language arts, not just reading and writing. Because many students are better able to understand and express themselves through the oral and visual language arts than through the written language arts. Using all six language arts scaffolds their learning.

• Incorporate Projects-teachers have students create projects as the final step in literature focus units and thematic units so that they have opportunities to explore topic that interest them and demonstrate their learning in authentic ways.

Assessing Students’ Learning• Assessing students’ learning in language arts is a difficult task. Although it may

seem fairly easy to develop and administer a criterion-referenced test, tests measure language skills rather than students'’ ability to use language in authentic ways. (pg.52)

• Traditional assessment reflects outdated vies of how students learn to read and write and offers an incomplete picture of students’ language abilities.

• Tests focus on only a few aspects of what readers do as they read, what listeners do as they listen, and what writers do as they write.

• Traditional assessment fails to use authentic language tasks or to assist teacher in finding ways to help students succeed.

Continued………..• Assessment should resemble real language use. A better approach is authentic assessment, in which

teachers examine both the processes that students use as they listen, talk, read, write, view, and visually represent and the artifacts or products they create, such as projects and reading logs. Students, too, participate in reflecting on and assessing their own learning.

• Authentic Assessment has five purposes:

• 1. to document milestones in students’ language and literacy development

• 2. to identify students' strengths in order to plan for instruction

• 3. to document students language arts activities and projects

• 4. to determine grades

• 5. to help teachers learn more about how students become strategic readers and writers

• Assessment is more than testing; it is an integral parto f teaching and learning. The purpose of classroom assessment is to inform and influence instruction.

Monitoring Students Progress• Teachers monitor students’ progress as they are involved in language arts

activities during literature focus units, literature circles, reading and writing workshops, and thematic units, and they use the result of their monitoring to inform their teaching. Four ways to monitor students’ progress are classroom observations, anecdotal notes, conferences, and checklists.

Implementing Portfolios in the Classroom• Portfolios are systematic and meaningful collections of artifacts documenting

students’ language arts learning and development over a period of time. These collections are dynamic, and they reflect students’ day-to-day learning activities in language arts and across the curriculum. Students’ work samples provide windows on the strategies they employ as language users---readers, writers, listeners, viewers, and talkers.

• Portfolio programs complement language arts instruction in many ways . The most important benefit is that students become more involved in the assessment of their work and more reflective about the quality of their reading, writing, and other language use. In addition portfolios eliminate the need to grade all student work. Portfolios are useful for student and parent conferences, and they complement the information provided in report cards.

Assigning Grades• Assigning grades is one of the most difficult responsibilities placed on teachers,

and teachers should use grades to encourage students, not to hinder their achievement.