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Again, Jessica, you are making this your own! Of course, as a music teacher your time to work with texts is limited, but integrating it in this way through poems, lyrics, etc is a golden opportunity, as you put it, to help your students dive deep into sentence structure and vocabulary.
Jessica, I’m just so impressed and thrilled at how you are grasping these ideas, and making them your own. Linguistic skills are powerful, and when your students have a better understanding of how language words, and you integrate this with your content, you are building up your students’ abilities.
I think these 3 things are EXCELLENT ideas. Start with a short text – yes!! Analyze sentences! Go slowly, and give your students a chance to dive deep into the structure of the sentence! My motto is ‘less is always more’!
Don’t be embarrassed Cristine – teachers are dealing with a lot and the important thing is that you are motivated to teach more vocabulary! I would analyze your first unit of the year – determine what the 3 most important concepts are, target 10-15 high level academic words to teach throughout that unit, and help students break them down morphologically. For example, if the unit is on interactions between molecules and atoms (and I’m not a science teacher!!) I would think that the kids must understand the concept of gravity and electromagnetic attraction or, repulsion. So right there – you can do some hands on kinesthetic activities in class using magnets, etc, that demonstrate these concepts. From there, the kids can learn some new words: gravity, attraction, force, etc. Help them pronounce the words, understand the different forms of the word gravity – gravitation – gravitational, underline the words in text, use the words in a sentence to respond to an important question. Just make this one change in your instruction this year, and nothing else, and see where it takes you!
Hi Liza, I will share my 5 day planner with you, so you can analyze it for your own needs. Remember that vocabulary instruction is a beast!! It’s necessary for everything! Content knowledge, reading, and writing! So, the more you can organize vocabulary instruction and be intentional – meaning you plan out the ELA units with themes, and target words attached to those themes, and make sure the kids are getting exposed to those words from the start to the finish of the unit, by listening, speaking, reading and writing with those target words – the more advances you will see the kids making.
Personally, I would like to see 2 20-minute morphology lesson during the week in ELA that are based on target vocabulary. So, for example, if the kids are learning the word ‘activism’, we would be taking that word and studying the base word ‘act’, the suffix ‘ism’ and related words like ‘activist’, active’, ‘action’, and relating it back to the text with sentence writing.
Liza, I love your insights into this topic. As a future AP, I would say you are in a unique position to help the teachers analyze the curriculum units, zero in on themes (even if the particular curriculum isn’t necessarily theme-based), and implement “background knowledge building” into the beginning of a unit or text. Teachers could spend a number of lessons doing activities like See Think Wonder, share slides with pictures, decide on 10-15 words to target over the course of the unit and give the students repeated exposure to those words in speaking, reading, and writing activities. In this way, students are not only reading and learning new words – they are learning more about the world, which is going to expand their ability to pick up a random text and be able to comprehend it.
Wow Cristine! I’m so excited that you’re already planning for this coming year! And you are so right – this kind of background knowledge building is critical for Special Ed. What we’re learning from research is that good, quality pedagogy that builds knowledge and vocabulary, that is explicit and repetitive is not just for Special Ed or ELLs – ALL students benefit! It’s just that ELLs and Special Ed students need MORE of it!
Your AP assignment sounds very interesting and wonderful for the students. I like that the Hochman article gave you some ideas. Your edits/revisions could focus on sentence expansion using coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
Examples:
My collage focuses on identity.
My collage focuses on identity AND represents…..
My collage focuses on identity BUT….
My collage focuses on identity BY VERB-ing (by showcasing, representing, highlighting, etc.)
While I was creating the collage, …..
After I finished the collage….
In order to create the collage, I ….I think it would be helpful to explore very concrete sentence stems in this way with your students, so that they understand how these conjunctions expand the meaning of the sentence. Since you’re working them up to a 2 paragraph statement, it would also be helpful to practice writing a topic sentence with them, so they understand that their paragraph should identify for the reader what they’re going to talk about, followed by two or three details, as well as a concluding sentence.
I like your routine, especially the fact that you’re returning to an image 2 or 3 times. Multiple exposures to a concept or an example is critical for ELLs. Just focus on vocabulary and meaning and you’re good to go.
Jen, as an art teacher you obviously are not expected to do Close Reading or teach grammar, as an ELA teacher would. I think the best, most concrete, and concise way to do this to support your learners is to read very short but academically rich paragraphs, e.g., about the life of a famous artist. As you’re reading, the students can underline some targeted words, e.g., Picasso and cubism. You can orally prompt students with comprehension questions around the 5 Wh-words. Who was Picasso? What did he do? When did he live? Where was he born? Why is he so famous? The students will need to listen carefully to the text, think about vocabulary, activate their background knowledge based on your previous work with them – and voila! You just did a Close Read with them. Because you have so little time with them, don’t do more than a short paragraph, or even a caption associated with an interesting photograph or picture. The point is: they have to make sense of the information – whether it’s oral or written; they have to reflect critically on the information; they have to apply the information and reflection to their own art.
Hi Linda Lee, having been a language learner yourself makes you naturally empathetic to your students! Just try one strategy at a time and get a feel for how the students respond! You will find what works for you – don’t give up.
Jessica, I love how you’re thinking about this and reflecting! Yes, it’s easy to forget words when we haven’t been exposed to them for very long and then don’t need to use them – don’t beat yourself up!
Think about your units or projects throughout the academic year – what are the ‘big picture’ concepts you want to teach? For example: concept of an orchestra, concept of harmony, etc. Decide on 10 really important words. I really love the musical glossary from the University of Michigan here: https://wmich.edu/mus-gened/mus150/Glossary.pdf
Explicitly teach those words throughout your unit, make your students talk about the musical concepts using those words. For example, for the concept of orchestra they would need to know ‘strings’, ‘percussion’, ‘conductor’, etc. Warm up your subsequent lessons with a quick vocabulary matching to a picture or definition activity. Make them write a sentence or read a short paragraph with those words. Make them give a performance or presentation where they have to orally describe using their words! Just keep your target words in mind and hammer away at them week after week, building each month of school. By June they will have so many important words in their vocabulary!
I love how you’re questioning things because what we need most is for teachers and administrators to critically reflect. I think for your population, experiential learning through tactile and kinesthetic experiences would go a long way. Conducting experiments in the classroom, going for nature walks – I know it’s idealistic but what if students could be taught content and vocabulary through hands-on experiences, and then be exposed to an academic text where they had to answer a critical question about what they just learned. We know from research that visual/auditory/tactile/kinesthetic or “multi-sensory” is what WORKS for Special Ed!!
Liza, your post is inspirational!! The key words you used was “systems’ and ‘structures’. When you have quality systems and structures in place, everybody can be on the same page and work toward the same goals. The first step is AWARENESS. What system/structure does our school currently have? What’s working and not working? How can we implement evidenced-based practices of
1. knowledge-building across the WHOLE SCHOOL
2. explicit vocabulary instruction for ALL
3. a weekly schedule that supports teachers to build skills from Mon-Fri starting with oral language/vocabulary and building toward reading/writing – so we can see content/language/literacy goals happening every week?
4. Time for staff to reflect on what’s working and how to make it better?
Finally 5. How can we as a school emphasize FOUNDATIONAL skills of decoding, handwriting, spelling, and sentence structure?
When we have administrators who can study the big picture like this – the sky is the limit!For the groups that are grasping things quickly – give them more, more, and more – as much as you think they can handle. For the ‘cats’ 🙂 model, model, model then do mostly a guided practice with them – create the art and think about it together. If the two groups are in the same class (which they usually are), model for everybody with a concrete example, and the steps to achieve it. Then offer one or two examples for guided practice. Then group the learners with higher skills together and give them a challenging task that they’re not going to get bored with. During this time, do an extended guided practice with the students who need it. You are differentiating. It’s really hard, just do your best.
