Teaching strategies
Set the mood
This unit would have to be started at the beginning of the school year. Each poem presented would take about 20 to 30 minutes to execute. I know that most of my students coming into my class have been singing nursery rhymes in their preschool and/or head-start programs so they might be somewhat familiar with the texts. Because it is an EL class the classroom is not allowed to speak, read or write in Navajo. However, in our school district we have inserted a fifteen minute slot for announcements from Capturing Kids Hearts. Having sheep as the hook for my unit I plan on opening my lessons with a song sung by Radmilla Cody who has translated some Nursery Rhymes into Navajo. She and her uncle Herman Cody have translated a number of Nursery Rhymes into the Navajo Language. She sings Bah, Bah, Black Sheep and Mary Had a Little Lamb on her Precious Friends album.
Listening and Speaking (EL)
The teaching strategy that I will use for my young students is to have them listen to the poems as I read them aloud. I will read to them in a whole group and repeat the reading several times. I will ask my students key details of the story to observe their comprehension of the words. My students then will be given a sheet of paper with the poem on the top half for a text reference and at the bottom half a space for the students to draw what they think the poem means to them. After my students have drawn their pictures we will use a grammar wall to categorize the parts of speech to ensure more understanding. While the words are being moved from the student worksheet to the grammar wall I will ask students to start collecting their thoughts and choose words we have already placed as a group or add more to the wall. From the reading the students will be listening for who the poem is about, when the poem was written and where the poem‘s setting is. The students will also gather key details about the characters to gain a better grasp of why the poem was written. The students would have to generate ideas through class discussion. They would gather ideas and draw pictures about the ideas they generated through the class discussion to find their own voice about the art they are discussing.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary is a huge part of understanding poetry. The words used in the poems set the moods and tones of every thought that has been written down. The words chosen pull the reader into a dimension where they have a sense of getting into the thought process of the writer. Poetry which dates back more than a century would have terms my students would not have heard of in their everyday lives. After we go through the poems the vocabulary words would be identified as a class. I would then ask my students to listen to the words and try to visualize the poem using the definitions we came up with. Vocabulary words would be displayed across the board or by the doorway so my students could refer to them throughout the day.
Free Doodling
I would ask my students to draw a picture of what strikes them concerning the characters of the poems and settings, to give a better idea of what the poet was trying to create by using the vocabulary of the time. I would then ask several students to share their drawings and ideas of what they heard or thought of when they heard the poem being read. These doodles would also be used later in the unit to create a poem that goes with their writing.
“Doodling and scribbling are most often associated with young children and toddlers, because their lack of hand–eye coordination and lower mental development often make it very difficult for any young child to keep their coloring attempts within the line art of the subject.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle)
“According to a study published in the scientific journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodling can aid a person's memory by expending just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming, which demands a lot of the brain's processing power, as well as from not paying attention” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle)
Different or the Same
After the students have completed their interpretation of the poems I would post them alongside each other so as a class we could discuss the differences and the similarities. We would discuss why a student drawings differ from each other. Student background information would be play a significant factor in creating diverse work of arts. The student who created the art work in question would then have the opportunity to inform the rest of the class why they decided to create what they did.
I would then assist my students with the sentences that they generated from the group discussions. We would then share our drawings with a partner to generate additional details if needed or make any corrections. When all steps have been accomplished the students then will be able to share their completed piece of writing by displaying it in the hall for the rest of their peers to see.
Lego Day
Lego Day is when students have the opportunity to manipulate word cards created by the teacher to arrange the words and phrases to recreate well-formed sentences in the English language. The students will use sentence formation clues to recreate their sentences by using capital letters and punctuation. The word cards are cut out and designed to resemble the large Lego blocks that the students play with. The cards would have to be laminated before writing the words on them so that they can be easily updated with each sentence generated. Color coding the Lego Word Cards for each child at each table and storing them in a Ziploc bag would help keep classroom management organized. Labeling these Ziploc bags with names and using them for other writing assignments would also create a routine for the students.
My Idea
To close out my unit I would gather all the writings and art work my students created to display, in order to show my students that everyone has their own thoughts and interpretations. The students should then be able to explain their thoughts and their reasons for the vocabulary they chose or what images stood out and made them feel a certain way. Having a gallery walk allows the students to actively discuss and engages the class to share or continue further to explain their choices. Together in small groups the students share ideas and respond to meaningful questions, documents, images, problem-solving situations or texts.
My voice
My main focus for this unit is to get my students in a safe environment so they feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and express themselves clearly. Showing voice in writing is a very difficult task the Navajo students deal with every day at every grade level. Being able to retell a story or a poem is a task that should be introduced at the foundational levels. The student is expected to recall characters, setting, problems, and the resolution or the main ideas of the text. It involves saying what is important in the story without telling too much. Retelling helps readers recall what is happening in the story, develop a sense of story structure, and become more accurate in monitoring their understanding. Retelling verbally would allow my students to feel no pressure about getting all the grammar correct or limiting what they say to fit within the confinements of the handwriting grids. The students could share with their family what it was they read and share their own perspectives about what they saw while comparing a poem with the visual art it is connected to.
Comments: