The Art of Writing and Revision

Teaching Strategies

To promote language acquisition, the students need a fostering classroom environment full of support from the teacher and peers. Approaches that can be used in this unit to sustain a supportive learning environment include: cooperative learning; culturally responsive teaching; differentiation; experiential learning;- I Do, We Do, You Do; student-led teaching; visualization; formative assessment; summative assessment.¹⁰ A student-centered learning environment is essential to provoking critical thinking.

Cooperative Learning Strategy

Cooperative learning allows students to work together to learn an objective. Expressing their ideas and listening to others in a group setting encourage oral language for ELL learners. Interactive communication skills are essential for building communication skills. The centers created in the unit will help students increase academic language and reading comprehension skills. Students also will work with partners to encourage communication skills.

Culturally Responsive Strategy

Culturally responsive teaching links student’s background knowledge and personal experiences to new content. Helping students make connections with related cultural environments encourages students to value their own perspective on the content being taught. Students have several opportunities to use their background knowledge of history to create their own story. Students will also have multiple experiences in the 2nd lesson centers to describe cultural food using the five senses. Students will have another opportunity to describe paintings of local Navajo artists using the five senses. This teaching method enhances engagement for students as they learn the concept of adjectives and their power writing.

Differentiated Instruction Strategy

Differentiated teaching strategies encourage the different level of language proficiencies of ELL to learn effectively. An inclusive classroom environment provides a range of support for different learning levels. Since students are working in centers, each student has their unique level of abilities to increase their knowledge for writing.  Students that are pre-emergent level learners write one sentence to describe their writing using the five senses. Meanwhile, intermediate level learners are able to write multiple paragraphs to write an essay. Each student is unique in a center.

Experiential Learning Strategy

Experiential learning strategy focuses on real-world learning experiences. In lesson two, students are applying real world experiences by literally using the five senses in each center to describe each object. Students are asked to write about their experience using concrete adjectives. The hands-on activity allows students to use critical thinking to experience their learning. Engaging activities motivates students to apply their knowledge outside the classroom. Students are able to actively participate and communicate with collaborative groups to accomplish the learning goal. With this method students are able to experience, reflect, analyze, and apply their learning process about the five senses. Most importantly, using language and precise language to describe their five senses.

I Do, We Do, You Do Strategy

The “I Do, You Do, and We Do” (IDWY) modeling strategy is essential for teaching content needed to convey the learning objectives to students.¹¹ This strategy is useful for the students, such as ELL learners, who need strong support with examples of visual models and listening models. Some complex concepts need to be modeled. In the third lesson, students need strong support for understanding how to describe a picture with writing techniques and the use of precise language. The idea is a gradual release of students to independently complete their lesson goal expectations. Students will be demonstrating their writing skills independently after working in a group setting. The more students practice, it builds confidence for each learner.

Student-Led Strategy

Student-led teaching strategy allows students to help other students of different levels than their own. This strategy is used in a cooperative learning environment. The ELL students vary in language proficiency. Therefore, student engagement and immediate feedback is available in center based lessons and student-paired lessons.

Formative Assessments Strategy

Formative assessments strategy  helps me as a teacher to give immediate feedback as I am actively monitoring students during a lesson. Identifying student questions impacts student achievement. Quickly evaluating through classroom discussions, concept maps, sentence frames, and observations allows me to assess student knowledge. I always refer back to the Backward Design Framework questions: What do I want my students to learn? How will I know my students learned? What can I do about students who learned and who need more support?

Summative Assessment Strategy

Summative assessment strategy allows me to measure what students have learned about the learning objective. The assessment allows me to make decisions about student placement and the effectiveness of my teaching strategies. The question is how can I make my lessons connect with students?

Essentially all strategies allow ELL learners to have experience with receptive, productive, interactive, and language skills. The goal is for students to effectively use writing techniques and precise language skills. Other strategies in the lesson include Think-Pair-Share, chunking, graphic organizers, sentence frames and starters, scaffolding. Positive feedback and reinforcement allows a safe classroom environment.