Entering planning phase

Day 10, 8 April 2011
I am planning my first cycle today keeping in mind the observations, students’ written samples and interviews with students and the teacher. In the next three classes, I will focus on writing skills again, but this time the lesson centers around analyzing information from visual cue or a graphic organizer to summarize, highlighting the key areas and main trends. Considering the two main challenges i.e. the limited class duration and greater number of students, I have to plan lessons in a way that allow for some kind of immediate feedback for the students. I plan to put together a small booklet which will also act as self-help handout of 4-5 pages. The idea is to basically reduce the lecture time so that students get more time to perform or practically do the task in the class. The booklet introduces students with simple steps of how to interpret and analyze graphs/charts and then write about 150 – 160 words. Also, upon task completion students spend some time in peer review and provide feedback. The booklet contains a peer review form on which students give feedback on the first draft and suggest how their peers can improve. There is a separate sheet attached in the handout where students write their second draft once they get the peer feedback. Finally the booklet has a self-assessment form which the students fill up after completing their second draft. The purpose of this form is to allow the students evaluate their own progress from the first draft to draft 2 and identify areas where they think they have improved in the second draft. The form also has some space where students can write about the difficulties they faced and areas that need to be addressed. The tentative time for the writing task and peer review is 20 and 15 minutes respectively. However, I’ll have to wait until next week to see if the lesson goes according to the plan.