Upper Levels

3 thoughts on “Upper Levels”

1. Michele

   August 30, 2011 at 9:04 pm

   AP folks…between embedded readings and Scaffolding Literacy (SL), I think that we have found what we need to do. Today I established meaning with kids for vocabulary in a part of a short story that the kids had already heard a couple of times. They knew what was going to happen. We listened for the structures in a song, then we talked about the story in the song, then we acted out a new story based on all that vocabulary, and then we finally got to where we would read the base version of a story. We acted that out and finished up by reading the “real” story in a book adapted to use only 1800 vocabulary words. As you might guess, that 1800 is a little too high, but because I’ve been using the SL format to scaffold the reading for kids, even the one second-year kid in that room said she was at about 80% comprehension. The SL approach is a little too unscaffolded for me, even with my advanced kids. I still need embedded stories in there as a stepping stone, because I want the kids to feel confident that they’ll understand the reading that we’re about to do. It truly seems to give them wings. And the part of SL that follows, which is to do a successively more focused look at a fragment from the story and end up writing it, is also incredibly powerful. It means that writing sessions are not arbitrary, but fall into a flow of lessons that make sense together.
   This response is not very coherant, because there’s a lot to say about how one can flow from using TPRS with embedded readings into SL and back out to TPRS (or, rather, CI) — you can check over on my blog under the category “Scaffolding Literacy,” where I’ve put some of the details from a workshop, some readings, and some classroom notes about our progress. SL is very much like TPRS in many ways, and I am enthralled, because I had been trying to figure out how to make the leap from the simple reading materials that I’ve been creating to the very complex materials that kids have to get to because of the dearth of Russian TPRS books.
   And I really wish that I had asked my observer today to turn a camera on me, because she had some very nice comments about what she learned for teaching to the upper levels. It was absolutely TPRS-affirming. I keep forgetting to tell my kids that they’re doing something unusual. If I can keep this pattern up, we will be absolutely hot by the end of the year. I have only 14 kids in there, so it’s not a normal class size, but they go from level 2 to level 5, and they are all contributing. It’s magical.
   Almost forgot: Amazon has this book. It’s a tiny, thin volume, but it packs a huge punch, rather as Blaine’s does (even though it’s fatter now). http://www.amazon.com/Scaffolding-Literacy-Integrated-Sequential-Approach/dp/0864318367/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1314763296&sr=8-2

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2. Laurie

   September 1, 2011 at 5:41 am

   I am totally jealous, believe it or not, of those of you who are already knee-deep with students.
   This year (we don’t start until next Wednesday) I’m starting off with the question “What were you doing…a week/month/year ago today?
   Our theme for levels 2 and 3 this year is “Now and Then”,( although I don’t have the “correct” Spanish title yet)….so this starts us off nicely.
   I’ll use this to also make the segue into a discussion about Sept. 11. This group of high schoolers is the last group that will actually remember that day at all, so I think that it is important for them to understand that responsibility.
   These two songs were written ten years ago to honor the fallen:
   el Ultimo Adios
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFzsY6kaMt4
   Todo para tí
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smNYWp0irHQ
   So we will listen to those and work with some of the phrases from them. My kids were very into the song “Somos El Mundo” for Haiti and some of the same artists are featured so it will be interesting for them to see those artists 10 years ago. Now for me, 10 years is a blink of an eye, just 1/5 of my life, but for them in is a loooooooooooooooong time… 2/3rds of theirs!!!! So I’ll let that lead into some discussions about childhood and hopefully….take it from there….
   Now, the Now and Then theme goes forwards and backwards, so either during this, or after this…depending on how it “feels” we’ll also be looking at 10 years from now….
   Right now, I’m looking for some lit pieces or segments to use from time to time. Michele has me all fired up about SL and my level 4’s so I might do a little bit w/ threes…..
   Has anyone watched Back to the Future in Spanish?….I’ve got to get that and see if it is a good match….
   I’m very blessed to not only be able to create my curriculum, but to also create it as I go….
   with love,
   Laurie

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3. Ginni

   September 1, 2011 at 7:14 am

   Wow Laurie – great ideas here! Your post really sounds like maybe you are using Conexiones textbook. I am struggling with the adapt my stuff to textbook chapter topic, etc. and as always, new ideas are a treat.

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