AQA English Language and Literature B PLCs for questions 1 and 2

PLCs (also known as personal learning checklists) have proven to be an essential tool in improving my KS5 students' understanding of their own targets and areas of strength. The PLCs below strive to give each student an idea of which band they're on whilst clearly signposting their next D.I.R.T targets.

Question 1 Students simply highlight what they forgot to do by looking at the band above the one they achieved.

Question 2 PLC Students tick each skill according to the band they feel it is at. This enables students to oversee their overall band and to identify which skills they need to develop in order to achieve their highest band potential.

Literacy peer-assessment checklist

Here's an example of a literacy peer-assessment sheet I developed in order to increase my students' consideration of their literacy skills. I will improve this sheet by linking it to our department's literacy marking codes and by providing a literacy 'cheat sheet' (a literacy map at the back of the sheet) in order to assist the peer assessor with the assessment of their classmate's literacy skills.

#markingdirt

Dirt stands for:

• Directed/dedicated 
• Improvement/Independent
• Reflection 
• Time

We very much value our students completing their D.I.R.T work (as a result of good marking).

However,there's another area we could improve on:

The marking of our students' D.I.R.T responses.

 I believe that it's important to promote student self-reflection and peer assessment as it goes along with the cherished motto of: brain, book, buddy and boss.

As a result, I've created a D.I.R.T marking sticker/hand-out for my students. It's still in its draft stage and I intend to gather feedback on how best to adapt it for my students' learning.

It's a D.I.R.T Check up:

It encourages the student to evaluate their D.I.R.T effort and level of understanding for the D.I.R.T task as some students don't actually understand what the D.I.R.T task is or how completion of the DIRT would develop their learning. By ensuring that the students are able to answer the why questions (what's the point of completing this D.I.R.T task?) we're one step closer towards a higher standard of progress.

Feel free to download your own copy, of the D.I.R.T check up, here!

 

Twitter treats!

I've adapted the following resources thanks to ideas from the following Twitter people: @HeadofEnglish, @ACCooke5 (Mega Hexagons) and @globalsolo:

Mrs C Spalding's starter idea worked a treat with all of my Key Stage classes. I adapted it so that it became a main task rather than a starter. See my version here! It promoted discussions and my students were supporting each other as I wanted them to answer different discussion questions about the same text. They filled in the blanks for their own essay question and a variety of insightful answers were appearing across the classroom.

 

 

Mega Hexagons:

 

 

 

They're a great way of engaging students with the idea of higher level thinking - visually. Each layer has a different focus. Here's a simple version of the Mega Hexagon. The inner layer focuses on the main character and the outer layers encourage the student to identify, describe and to explain a particular literary feature.

With language analysis in mind: I've adapted this fantastic idea here!

I will continue to incorporate Solo thinking skills and tie it in with DIRT time for PEARL paragraphs.

My classroom's extension tasks wall, stuck wall and peer/self assessment sheets! Promoting independence!

Media Studies self-assessment sheet for AQA MEST1 Section B essays

Section B of the MEST 1 exam paper caused a rush of panic in my students' eyes as they had to move away from the comfort of short Section A responses.  Armed with their independent research and their long argumentative essays, I created the attached self/peer-assessment marksheet for them to assess their strengths and areas for improvement. It's based on the mark scheme, the examiner's report and student feedback!

Follow the link here!

End of Term 3 target setting sheet

End of term reflections!

I decided to create a target setting sheet for  my Key Stage 3 and 4 English classes. I wrote a list of WWW and EBI comments for general reading and writing skills. It's more important to remind our students to question HOW they intend to achieve their targets instead of just identifying their areas for improvement. As a result, I've set up a list of strategies for my students to choose from in regards to how they intend to reach their personal reading and writing targets.

Students simply have to highlight two areas of strength and two areas for improvement from the writing and reading lists. Furthermore, they're also encouraged to re-read their highlighted targets and to summarise them into their own words in the last page of the document.

My students have reacted very well to the sheets as they recognised that there are several ways to revise for English - breaking down the shocking myth that "you can't revise for English!".

Follow the link below for the target setting sheet! :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzOKbcWyKF4kbkxrQ0lqbWtZb2s/edit?usp=sharing