Video: D4L 1st Grade Box A theme 1 week 3 lesson 1Time: 7 minutes
In OUSD, Discussions4Learning is most often used as a supplementary Designated ELD material in grades 2nd to 5th. However, some sites are trying the Box A, the first of the four, in 1st grade, and an introductory video provided on the D4L website from Worcester MA actually features a 1st grade class.
Time, Place and Group
In May of 2017, Ms. Blossom at New Highland Academy graciously allowed me into her classroom during her Designated ELD time to try the lesson. This group had a fairly high proficiency level, from high CELDT 2s to English-only students.
Things I Wanted to Try
1. Teach the students the Think-Pair-Share protocol. TPS encourages me to include Think or wait time, and allows all students oral practice during the Pair while I circulate to check for understanding. During the Share I can either just take some answers, or, if the prompt is open-ended and rich enough, have a full academic discussion.
2. A lesson prep procedure that included several planning moves which I think are applicable to many lessons, especially b, c and d.
a. Adding a very open introductory question: "Look at this image, what do you notice?" which I had seen other teachers use. It allows students to try out all kinds of language and make a personal connection to the details of the image. This comes in handy for developing language later in the lesson.
b. Reading through the whole script and deciding where I could put the Think-Pair-Share opportunities. I wanted to pick questions from the script that were fairly open ended and that kids might feel comfortable discussing independently.
c. Using a different "progressive repetition" procedure for repeating the black bold sentences. First, the teacher says the first logical chunk of the sentence and has students repeat it. Then s/he says that first chunk but adds on the next as well, and has students repeat that. The teacher keeps going until s/he gets to the last chunk, and then s/he has the students repeat the sentence to partners:
T: He transformed
SS: He transformed
T: He transformed things we see and use
SS: He transformed things we see and use
T: He transformed things we see and use into art.
SS: He transformed things we see and use into art.
T: Great, now say, "He transformed things we see and
use into art" once to your partners.
SS taking turns in Pairs: He transformed things we see and use into art.
I like the way this technique provides a high level of scaffolding but keeps students at all levels engaged as they attend to how the sentence gradually unpacks, similar to the way students follow the gradual creation of a pictorial input chart. The procedure thus makes repetition of key vocabulary and sentence structure a bit interesting, helping students get "miles on the tongue" during Designated ELD time.
d. Making sure there was a bigger open ended question that I could use after the lesson to drive a more open academic discussion. I decided to add, "Do you think this sculpture is funny? Why or why not?" after the vocabulary review at the end of the lesson.
What Happened
When you watch the video, maybe you'll see that some things worked and some didn't.
What I see at times is that I have some very short wait times after I ask a question, and that I talk quickly. If I could have allowed more wait times and spoken at a fast walking speed, rather than a run, it probably would have been more comprehensible. That said, I think the gestures and repetition of key words allowed students to understand what was going on. That "message abundancy" is something that Gibbons talks about in her amazing book, Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, so I always try to include strategic repetition of important language when I teach.
I made the decision, after the lesson, to cut out the word "transport." This is not something I did lightly, partly because the 4 to 6 words taught in each lesson intentionally spiral over time, so leaving one out could cause difficulty later.
I took the the word out because it breaks up the theme and meaning of the lesson. All the other words and conversation nicely center around the theme of Picasso transforming the everyday into art, while transport is completely disconnected from this theme. Notice how transform and transport are also very similar in sound, something which also confused many students.
Conclusions
Overall, I felt that it worked well for first grade. The students were interested in the image, and I could see them stretching to find language to talk about the image. That kind of supported language stretch is just what is called for in the CA ELA/ELD Framework.
The technique of "progressive repetition" (let me know if you have a better name for this technique) also worked well.
I only wish I could have had the academic discussion at the end because I wanted to see how students talked about the image, and whether any of the vocabulary learned would come up, or whether they could be nudged into using it. In the end, difficulties with the word "transport" with this group took up too much time.
Finally, I think a slower pace for me would be better, with a bit more listening and pausing to really see and hear what is going on.
Below I include the pages of the lesson, which I like to photocopy and mark up before I do a lesson.
---Mike Ray, OUSD ELD Coordinator
