Exemplar 2 Seeing Writing Poems as a Self-Empowerment Process

This exemplar will help you understand:

1. how jigsaw reading and discussion can be used to create opportunities for students to study in-depth and benefit from the diversity of learning content in your lessons; and 2. how choice boards can offer immediate feedback to you and your students about their

readiness, strengths and weaknesses.

Lesson Piloted by: Ms Jesuszette DE GUZMAN, Shung Tak Catholic English College Level of Students: Secondary 1

Focused Differentiation Strategies: Jigsaw Reading and Discussion, Choice Board, The HEROIC Questioning and Feedback Loop

Aim: The lessons aim to develop students’ knowledge and skills of writing poems with the five senses and associations.

Core Objectives (for all students):

By the end of the lessons, students will be able to:

1. be familiarised with rhymes and the use of the five senses in poetry; and 2. draft poems about food for a promotional purpose with the techniques learnt.

Extended Objectives (for high ability/gifted students):

By the end of the lessons, the high ability/gifted students will be able to:

1. elaborate, evaluate and synthesise ideas and thoughts with a sense of autonomy as they produce draft poems based on criteria.

Lesson Flow:

Objectives Learning Activities/Procedure Materials 1. Warm-up and pre-assessment

• Play the game “Routes of Rhyme” (See Appendix 4.1.2a). Have students read aloud the routes they discover.

Encourage them to find out the longest route.

• Have students share their routes and name the rhymes. Highlight the different kinds of rhymes. Clarify and correct the names/terms where needed.

• Ask the class to respond to an open and goal-directed question: Must a poem rhyme?

• Put students in groups according to their prior knowledge of rhyme and responses to the goal-directed question. Groups such as an

I-think-more-is-better group and an I-think-less-is-better group can be formed.

Stage I of Heightening Anticipation:

To empower students to orientate their learning towards an open and goal-directed question for advanced study

Appendix 4.1.2a

This student found a route of 65 rhymes!

• The game is for pre-assessment purpose.

Based on their prior knowledge, all students should be able to identify some rhymes and form a route of different length, depending on their sensitivity to rhyme.

• Higher ability students may be able to form a route, including different rhymes such as full rhyme, half rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance.

2. Differentiated Activity I – Learning a powerful way of visualising images in poetry: rhyme in the five senses

• Divide the class in five groups. This is a planned number of groups to facilitate the coming discussion for the five senses to be well-covered. It will have to depend on students’ readiness though.

• Each group chooses to study a poem featured by the presentation of meanings through the use of a sense. See Appendix 4.1.2b for suggested points to guide students to make informed choice according to their readiness, rather than merely personal preference.

• Conduct the jigsaw discussion and sharing. Appendix 4.1.2c offers suggested questions to guide students to learn from the focused jigsaw discussions, reporting and presentation.

• Each group presents.

Stage II of Deepening Expectations:

To diagnose challenges from conventions

Appendix 4.1.2b

Appendix 4.1.2c Differentiation is a way for you to guide students to learn about the meaning and joy of self-directed learning if they know how they can make choice to their advantage of learning.

Jigsaw can be an effective strategy to foster productive learning in mixed-ability classrooms in the following ways:

• It offers opportunities for students to access a diversity of texts or resources around a common question, issue, or theme in a limited time.

• It allows a mixed ability class to have in-depth study of a topic or application of a skill at their level of readiness.

• It creates flexibility for you to arrange collaborative learning for gifted students working in same groups or cooperative learning for students with different abilities working together, depending on the specificity of students’ roles in groups defined by teachers subject to students’ readiness.

3. Differentiated Activity II -- Bringing out the flavour of your favourite food through poetry

• Ask students to think of a favourite food item and describe it in detail. Groups brainstorm on taste, sight, smell, touch (texture) and sound based on their vocabulary repertoires. Encourage them to ask you for vocabulary support when needed. See Appendix 4.1.2d for suggested vocabulary as reference. Tell students to show their choice of sense on the Choice Board when they make up their minds.

Appendix 4.1.2d

• Demonstrate to the class an authentic example of how poetry is used to achieve a purpose in life and discuss the advantages of using poetry for that purpose.

• Counting on what they have just learnt to analyse purposes in a real-life situation, students work in groups again, following the self-help guide provided as in

Appendix 4.1.2e. Have students produce poems as a way of promoting a chef’s recommendation to achieve the purpose of a given scenario.

Appendix 4.1.2e Using a Choice Board here is to:

• develop an ambience of expectations among peers of what they are going to produce and learn from others; and

• provide you with immediate feedback on which of the five senses your students feel most comfortable with as they practise the techniques in writing poems. From their choices, you will also find out which of the sense(s) is/are less attempted, implying that might be students’ weaknesses.

Such information will facilitate your instructional planning.

The students were energised by their own participation and shared ownership (above, left, and below).

• Celebrate group poems. The class votes for the most persuasive, creative or entertaining piece and explains why.

Appendix 4.1.2f collects some students’

works and voices.

4. Consolidation

• Discuss how a writer moves the reader with the five senses, associations, and rhymes through poetry. Gather students’

standpoints or principles to answer the goal-directed question as a whole.

Stage III of Extending the Learning:

To develop perspectives as a foundation for further study

Appendix 4.1.2f

The differentiated classroom embraced experiences of learning from success AND failure, which was realised by a flexible learning environment in terms of content and atmosphere.

Notes:

1. Molloy, M. (2015). Tesco goes the extra mile with poetic reply to disappointed students.

The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 September 2015, from: http://goo.gl/Vvas96

Appendix 4.1.2a