Gem Sharing

We were asked to share a gem, a lightbulb moment, a highlight, a moment of rapture in our inquiry over the year to date. My gem was simple. But come to think of it, it was more of a flash of realisation than a gem.

Having followed a very structured writing programme that has scaffolded the writing process for the children in my class, I have come to realise that there is a small minority on my class who would rather not follow the "recipe" they are given and would rather write to the beat of their own drum. It is these beat poets I need to consider more next year.

How can I offer them the support they need as well as provide the scaffold that the majority of the class need?

Our chat also got me thinking a lot about an area for improvement in my teaching, and that is how I use and promote the kids' blogs in class. If the blogs are meant to act as the showcase for the kids then they need to be promoted much more in class than I currently do. Perhaps if the kids really feel ownership of their blogs, then the quality of the work in it will be higher?

Things to consider:

• Blog of the week (celebrated)
• 2 weekly rotations to give FB on work (half of the class a week)  
• (could also be in writing books with the kids given time to read their feedback and and then take this feedback into their next writing as its fresh in the mind)
• Give kids time to read their own blog
• Google Docs - Comments