Narrative Writing Lesson & Purpose - Having Students Ask WHY

Today I was privileged to take part in leading a lesson on narrative writing and it went really well. As usual I was nervous beforehand but I think when I take the stage....the teaching stage, I just have this voice in my soul telling me to give it everything I have.

The teacher wanted me to read some examples of narrative writing with the students and something that has been continually coming back to me is talking to students about WHY we are teaching them the things we are. I almost feel sometimes that we are raising up mindless students and I want my students specifically to question WHY they are learning the things they are, basically to have a questioning, critical mind and to engage with curriculum first on this level. I feel, somehow, if students understand WHY they are doing or learning something it will help them to do it with more motivation and purpose.

I asked the class why it was important to learn or write narrative paragraphs and a few of them noted the importance of being able to explain information. I also added in our discussions and wanted to explicitly state that they all had voices and it is important for all of them to utilize their voices to encourage, support and help others. They just listened on. Sometimes I wonder when teachers say things like this, if students are really listening or if it just goes in one ear and out the other, but I think it is important to repeat these important "take home" points - for students to hear them over and over again until they understand them. I know even for me, I have to hear something over and over again before I understand it and even then I still forget.

Carrying on, I explained that narrative writing allows us to write about a story from our personal experiences clearly in such a way that our readers can understand and learn from it. The students basically had to write about an experience from the past where they experienced personal growth or learned a lesson.

By God's grace, I was able to find some examples of narrative writing online that my teacher really enjoyed and related to the teaching she was doing, as the examples I found online each stated a moral or lesson that the narrator learned. As a class, we each read one of these samples and after we read each one, I tried to lead a conversation about it. The first narrative was about a person who was impulsive with his friend and ran out into the street and his friend was hit by a car, the second one about a person who was afraid of meeting people from different countries, and the last one was about sharing sacrficially. I found that each narrative allowed me to engage in deeper conversations with the students and even share about my own struggles and difficulties in my own life. From there, the students brainstormed in groups some of the stories/experiences that have happened in their own lives that they can write about and had a worksheet where they had to plan out the paragraphs they were going to write.

I found that a lot of students had problems thinking about certain things they had learned over the years and chose to use examples that we a bit more shallow or on the surface. Perhaps it is challenging for students but they also need to learn the skill of self reflection, growth, knowing how far they have come. It is such an important quality for students to have and certainly something that should also be taught in schools.

Overall I really enjoyed my time in the classroom that day.

Descriptive Writing Lesson & Cultivating Student Wonder

A few weeks ago a had a chance to lead a lesson on descriptive writing in the classroom I volunteer in.

As per my usual style, I like to make lessons a little bit different and exciting for the students by including different forms of learning and stimuli.

The teacher wanted me to lead the students in brainstorming creative ways to express their thoughts as they were starting a unit on how to write different types of paragraphs: persuasive, expository, narrative and descriptive. For this lesson, they were brainstorming to write descriptive paragraphs.

I thought it would be a good idea, thus, to introduce sounds as a foundation to get their thoughts going. I produced 4 different soundscapes: forest ambiance, waves crashing on a beach, "space noises,"and children on a playground. As the students listened to each soundscape they had to write down what they imagined and I also provided a guided description to get their thoughts going. During each soundscape, the students had to write down what they could visualize with their minds eye.

I felt that the students were quite engaged. It took some students a bit of time to fully immerse themselves in the activity, but once they did, they seemed to really get going. After each soundscape, we discussed as a class the types of descriptions they came up with. For example, with the beach soundscape, students said things like they envisioned ice-cream, squishy sand, water, etc.

Before the activity, I advised them to tap into their five senses...what do you smell, what do you see, what do you hear, what can you touch?

I did find that students had a bit of trouble making their sentences very descriptive, creative and a thought does cross my mind that perhaps this technological era has aided in stifling the creative minds of our younger generations.

I feel in a way, perhaps it is hard for all of us to be still and really take in our surroundings and lose ourselves to the beauty of what we see and experience everyday and just appreciate this beauty for what it is: beauty. Why have we lost this wonder for life and why is it hard for youth to cultivate this wonder? Would it have something to do with the fact that a lot of teaching these days is stuck in the classroom or maybe that learning is heavily based in worksheets, handouts and textbooks, rather than perhaps going outside, fieldtrips and creating experiences.

I think in many ways I may have lost some wonder I once had, or perhaps never had a chance to cultivate wonder for certain things. My mom has a hummingbird feeder that she keeps in our back patio. She fills it with nectar water and hummingbirds come to feed and while I think it is really wonderful that she does this, I feel that I do not have the awe and wonder in seeing these beautiful creatures that she has. My best friend, when she came over, was so enamoured by the fact that we own one of these that her family bought one for themselves, and it was really nice hearing from her and her excitement when she saw hummingbirds coming to her feeder that it created in me a type of shared joy. Certainly this reflects God's glory.

Today as well, on my way to volunteering, I noticed that there was snow on the mountains and it was stunningly pretty and another day driving to work, the moon was a juicy yellow-orange and so penetratingly huge that it frightened me in awe. I feel that it is very important to create and cultivate wonder in students. A lot of them have lost this wonder for the world or perhaps never really created it. What makes us lose our wonder when the world is so full of it? If wonder is not the thought that runs through our minds when we experience this world, what other thoughts are replacing it. I am finding that a lot of the students in the classrooms I enter seem very tired, disconnected, disinterested or distracted. How do we ground them into the things that will activate them and make them feel alive and why do they always seem to be so tired? How can we ground them? How can we ground them? I keep asking myself this question and I keep toying with different answers.

I think if I was to make any alterations to this lesson, I would want to take the students to these different soundscapes so that they could actually hear, touch and see with their own eyes, and write descriptions of what they are actually experiencing in that moment.

Overall it was a good experience. At the end of the lesson, I had the students try their best to make this sentence more descriptive: the car stopped at the sign.

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I saw this posting below from a page I follow on Facebook: Youth Launch Initiative: Helping Parents Navigate Through School and Beyond

If we can agree that education is not simply the filling of an empty vessel but the ignition of a flame inside a vibrant soul, full of its own potential...

Then where do we start?

We start with intrigue, curiosity.

WONDER.

At the world around us. At nature. At numbers. At connections...

What IS the moon? What is beyond it? Look at all those stars...
It is easy to get overwhelmed with program plans, homework and curricular requirements.
Don't forget to take as much time as you need with your kids to observe and admire all the beautiful and mysterious things around us.
Wonder and awe are not experiences relegated to the forest or the night sky, but an attitude with which we approach ALL of life.
All kids start out with this amazing appreciation for curiosity and intrigue... it's our job as parents to help them treasure and keep it ❤

Active Education

One thing that has been on my mind this week is cross disciplinary education. For example, I think it would be interesting to do a crossover of English (paragraph writing) and physical education. I find that students are often restless in the classroom and while there is of course a host of reasons, one reason is that students are sitting in most if not all of their classrooms (besides physical education).

It could be beneficial to students, not only to engage their minds, but also engage or activate their bodies. I feel somehow, that activities that captivate the mind and body may increase concentration levels and reduce a lot of the mindless chatter and off topic distractions.

This week in one of my volunteer classrooms, students had to write "How To" paragraphs (which I thought was really genius by the way) where they had to practice writing an expository paragraph where they teach their reader, step by step, how to perform a certain task. Students had very creative ideas such as teaching their readers how to take care of pets (turtles, rats), how to avoid fighting with siblings, iPhone use, making eggs, etc.

While certain students had trouble coming up with both topics and ideas, I found that it was challenging having students stay on task for any given amount of time.

Sometimes when I write, or brainstorm ideas, I like to get up and move around, even write ideas on a paper that I have taped to the wall. I think therefore it could be a good idea to combine certain writing activities in English classrooms with actual active games where students have to move around and quite possibly work in teams. I have been brainstorming some ideas that could possibly work. Here are a few:

Human paragraph
Divide students into groups of 5-6 and each person will represent a sentence in a paragraph. One person is the introductory sentence, 3-4 people are the supporting detail sentences, and 1 person is the concluding sentence. Students can brainstorm and work in their groups to come up with their sentences. This could take a relay race type of structure where two teams are paired against each other. Each person is given 2 minutes to write their sentence on the board and then they have to pass the chalk/dry erase marker to the next person in line. The point of this activity is to work in a team and have students get better of thinking up ideas quickly. Teacher goes over each paragraph and shares with the class. Or can have the students read their paragraph to the class.

Stations
Class can be divided into stations based on paragraph structure. For example, there would be one station for introductory sentences, another station for supporting detail 1, 2, 3, another for concluding sentence. This may work because it puts demarcations and borders surrounding each tasks and breaks things down nicely. I think that element of quickness helps students to stay on task more easily.

Paragraph Hamburgers
This is based off of the paragraph writing model that is in the structure of a hamburger. Each time a student finishes a sentence, they have to go and stick it onto their burger. They write their introductory sentence, and stick it onto their burger. They write their first supporting detail and go and stick it onto their burger. They do this until they have finished making up their burger completely. This activity can be done in partners or groups.

This is just a start but I think combining writing and active activities could be a good way to get creative juices going.

Distracted Students

One of the things that I have come across in the classrooms I am volunteering in are distracted students. Whether it be cell phones, peers, or simply the inability to concentrate on the task at hand, it is very easy to notice many students who are not able to focus or work on the current lesson.

I have tried to understand or brainstorm the reasons behind this behavior. Is it that there is a growing wave of apathy in general among youth these days? Is the material or method of learning not stimulating enough? Are students lost because they question the relevancy of the material to their own current lives? As educators are we failing in drawing connections from the material to the student's life so that they understand the significance of learning about these topics? Is technology (cell phones - social media, youtube etc,) altering students' attention spans? Are students tempted to look at their cell phones in the classroom? The answers may be found within all of these questions, not to mention there are many factors surrounding the student themselves - their personality, home life, routines, physiology (ADHD, Anxiety, learning disabilities), etc.

Here are a few suggestions I pose from my own ruminations, which I have also noticed on websites on the same topic.  


Instructional 

Directly connect the lesson to the students' lives

Instructional material appears dry to students. While the material is infact interesting and does directly impact their lives, perhaps students have difficulty making the connection on how the topic directly influences their lives and perhaps as educators we need to teach them this how.  As educators, I believe it is our role to create those bridges and connections for students. For example, I was reading with a student and the main character in the novel meets a student in his class who is deaf. I think it is important to draw connections for the student by example, asking the student if they have ever interacted with a person who is different from they are and perhaps what the benefit of such encounters would be. Another example is studying with a student on the Industrial Revolution and how it changed the nature of agriculture and food production. I was able to ask a student if he ever thought about where his food came from. I feel that this is just the beginning but perhaps rooting or grounding the lesson within the personal lives of the students and drawing constant connections helps to keep them engaged. I also enjoy activities that connect students not only to themselves, but to their peers, teacher and the outside world.

Keep it simple

Perhaps concepts or readings are beyond student learning level in the sense that students do not understand what they are reading/learning and thus "check out." I can see this a lot in ESL classrooms, where students do not completely understand what they are reading and perhaps have not developed the capacity at this point of their lives to persevere through the material. I think in this case, maybe it is best to focus on one or two ideas or concepts and only stick to teaching those.

• Break up lessons so that students are not working on one thing for long periods of time - students become restless 
• Hands on learning involving movement, getting out of ones desk
• Active participation - students are not to be passive in the class but may be called at any time to answer a question or participate in an activity

I visited a few websites and they also discuss some good ideas for keeping students focused

Organizational

• Planning - creating a plan for what the class/students are to be working on for that session and maybe have charts or checklists and even exit slips to monitor their work...."by the end of the next 20 minutes, I would like to see that you have completed 3 sentences..."
• Seating - best to have students sit with people they do not know, but still to encourage an atmosphere of community. Sitting with friends, I have found in a lot of classes increases the noise level and lowers concentration levels
• Goal setting - have students, especially distracted ones, create goals for their learning and attentiveness. Have them be honest about their strengths and weaknesses and create goals to improve their weaknesses especially as it concerns being distracted.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/15-strategies-managing-attention-problems

https://www.learningliftoff.com/study-finds-school-distractions-affect-student-learning/

https://www.impactteachers.com/easily-distracted-adhd-students/teacher-tips