10 day, random acts of writing, challenge!

10 DAY CHALLENGE

I've been seeing quite a number of 30 day challenges on the internet lately (thanks to Pinterest). Wouldn't it be great to create a 30 day writing skills challenge for our students? Perhaps we could create a 10 day random acts of writing challenge list. Well then, no time like the present! So here's a challenge list I made earlier. It will grow into a 30 day one soon. I intend to hand it out to my students before the summer holidays.

Download your copy of the 10 day challenge here!

Zooming in and out and Zones of relevance!

First post...

I was recently inspired by @ASTsupportAAli and @LearningSpy.

I created the attached resources as a result of blending some ideas from David Didau and ASTAli (Twitter).

I adapted Ali’s great 'Is it Relevant?' idea by applying it to PEARL (PEE) paragraphs instead of general questions. I’ve used David’s fantastic Powerpoint slide definitions of analysis and evaluation.

So I created the Zones of relevance target sheet and Powerpoint (attached).

The process:

A quote is analysed starting with the ZOOM in process (analysis of language techniques/structural devices in the quote). Students then use the ZOOM out process (evaluation) to notice how the surrounding information (setting, motifs, foreshadowing) influence our interpretations of the text/character as a whole.

The zone tasks increase in higher levels of analysis/evaluation with each inner circle.

I noticed that some students didn’t know where to start with analysis and this seemed to help their understanding of how to analyse a quote. I got the Year 7s to draw their zones of relevance on their tables with chalk pens.

They thought it was great fun. They also completed a hexagon sheet with several points about what they’ve analysed from their selected quotes.

You could adapt the Zones of Relevance sheet to assist all key stages!

My colleague, Mr Peel (@mrpeel) adapted my Year 7 Powerpoint for Year 9 and he used sticky notes instead of the hexagons with excellent results:

http://jwpblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/1869/

I highly recommend that you use this strategy for analysis and evaluation of poetry, prose and non-fiction texts.

:)