This past week we were asked to do a five minute Writing to Learn (WTL) demonstration. I did mine on Point of View Guides (POVGs).
To begin preparation for this I looked at the description of POVGs in our text book. I read about them. I found out that POVGs are used to look closer at a theme/idea/concept to get the students deeper into the text. POVGs use role play to give a situation and pose interview-like questions to which the students respond. They get students speculating and elaborating on ideas, and they are great at relating the text to the personal lives of students because there is no way for students to role play and not include their own experiences. Besides learning about POVGs for my own knowledge, I read the examples. I thought of different examples teachers could use in different content areas. I got myself comfortable with the concept behind POVGs and with trying to explain them to people who have no clue what they are (my roommates). And finally I chose a POVG I wanted to work on: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
When it came to actually doing the lesson, I worked a lot on scaffolding. I had the students pair up and work with the title, discussing a time they took the road not taken. After that I handed out half sheets of paper that gave a situation and posed questions for the students to answer. They were given time to write their answers and afterwards (if we had time) we would have discussed the answers and actually read the poem. I tried to structure a slow entrance to the world of the poem, starting with the title and then moving to the main idea, before we actually read it. And I feel like that whole scaffolding worked really well.
I think my classmates took away that slow entrance approach. One of the Pat on the Backs said she liked how I built curiosity. I worked on getting the students personally related to the poem and I think that personal meaning really stuck. Before we began the activity I gave a bit of background knowledge of POVGs and I spoke about how versatile and adaptable this WTL activity is. I think my classmates were able to see how they would use this activity in their own content areas.
However, if I could do this differently I would most definitely address the modeling part. I do not know how that slipped my mind, but unfortunately I did not model this activity for the class. Next time, when scaffolding out the instruction I would make sure to interject my own examples so that the students would have an idea of where to go.
Literacy for Language Lovers 