Symbolism and the European Union

Year 7 and 8 are currently improving their Literacy through learning about the European Union. This week we've been looking at symbolism, particularly in flags. We've also enjoyed reading The Mystery of the Golden Stars, which we're using as a springboard for other activities such as a debate.

Here are some examples of our symbolism work, laminated ready to go up on the wall:

Punctuation

Punctuation is always an ongoing area of focus in my classroom for all year groups, no matter what topic we are studying. My T.A. has helped me produce these punctuation booklets for discrete practise.

The activities all focus on Capital Letters, "Speech Marks" and Commas for Clauses (e.g. My dog, who is called Pickle, likes to bark in the garden.) Pam Hook , the SOLO Guru, has kindly offered to send me a table which will explain how I can 'SOLO-ise' punctuation, as I'm still confused about that at the moment.

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives... part 4

Okay so some more blogging on Learning Intentions. Year 9 have just started a huge project: "Spoken Language of a Public Figure". Here is an example of an exercise students completed which examined how rapport can be built with the audience. This particular student is getting towards the top of the group. I've also included a close up of my SOLO Taxonomy Learning Intentions for the project:

 

 

 

 

Any feedback concerning my SOLO Learning Intentions is very welcome, please contact me via my Twitter: @teachesliteracy .

Using highlighters to check punctuation progress

An ongoing focus in my classroom is improving our use of punctuation. To check on individual progress I had students copy a mini-story from the board, and they had to put in capital letters, commas and speech marks. We then peer marked the work. Markers had to highlight the things they thought were correct, incorrect or missing in three different colours. I could then quickly see how both the original student and the marker are getting on. Plus the highlighters emerging from the cupboard always seems to send a stir of excitement around the room!

What's my SOLO Level?

For those of you who'd like to download a free copy of my SOLO Level Assessment sheet, you can find a PDF here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5wKj1KHNZvSQ0xMYjIxdGVwRnM/edit?usp=sharing

If you share this, a link back to me would be appreciated!

Update on yesterday's punctuation lesson with Year 9

Just an update on yesterday's punctuation lesson with Year 9. Here is an example of the work that was produced (this student is in the middle of the group):

 

Now I just need to figure out how to assess this under SOLO... Any advice/suggestions very welcome! 

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives...part 3

I modified my creative writing Year 9 Learning Intentions today so that they were aligned with SOLO Taxonomy. The focus was on using a variety of punctuation with accuracy. Here they are:

I found this really difficult to do, because the SOLO verbs don't seem to easily lend themselves to demonstrating correct use of punctuation in my mind. I'm not particularly satisfied with my second Learning Intention and I want to change it, but I don't know how! I need to have a longer think about it; any suggestions for how to improve number 2 would be extremely welcome. You can find me on Twitter! Also I am still, as ever, interested in seeing your Learning Intentions/Objectives!