YEAR+7+PLC+-+DP+VP+CF+CD

=**PLC Meeting 1 9/2**=
 * Attendance – DP, CF, CD, VP**

Expectations CF: I want to improve group work. Enjoyed looking at modified work last year. CD: Team-teach. Feels left out of the loop. It would be good to bring classes together. Willing to do it. DP: moving onto the last two critical questions. Interested in doing more with the bottom kids. VP: Again feels out of loop. Working on assessment. Laptop class so using ICT. Lit Circles and getting something out of Lit Circles. Wasn’t satisfied with how it went last year.

CF: Looking at using peer mentoring more in class to help extend kids. Rewarding top end kids for their enthusiasm.

Next week: Examining our letters. CF will bring a problem to discuss.

=**PLC MEETING 2 16/2**= CF presenting a low (Mitchell) and high (Zoe) Two periods to complete in class, then finish for homework. Zoe – really good writer but easily distracted. Mitchell – worked hard in class but didn’t writer much. Did use punctuation and paragraphs with teacher prompting. Used ALL CAPS on ASK ME at the end of the letter. Has followed the drafting format. Appears to have seen a letter before.

CD – Did you show them a model? CF – I did but read it out loud. CD – I gave them a letter from me first. Modeled and helped them get to know me. VP – I didn’t give them a model and got mixed responses. Some were quite detailed. A short one had good paragraphs. Others were less structured but more personal.

CF – about four put paragraphs in automatically. CF – I’ve asked for Mitchell to be tested to see if he should be in lit support.

Pre teaching VP – no pre teaching. Just wanted to see where they were. I told them some things about me. They could tell me what they like. Some, like William, have no structure. Superficial information. Eleni wrote in detailed paragraphs and showed she can be reflective by explaining what she can and can’t write on. Good sense of what they can naturally do. CD – just used the model. Read it out but didn’t go through the structure. Personal information in response to the information I’d given. Said they could write what they wanted. Helps me get to know the kids. CF – see above. DP – I taught capital letters. Most came through but a few over compensated and had capital letters where they didn’t need it.

Low Students CD – Claudia. Poor spelling and expression. Misses class due to auditions. Offers way off answers in class. CF – VP – DP –

Helping reading Can we get more class sets? TH has a reluctant readers list. Check A9 for old books. Wolf On The Fold? Can we get some from old books? Secrets In The Fire.

Grammar work. There are ones in the library. Oxford Big Ideas class set.

__Next time: working on teaching grammar.__

=**MEETING 23 Feb**=
 * Apology: CF**

VP: Have been doing simile and metaphor. Read Roald Dahl ‘Man From The South’ story (Tale of the Unexpected) and identifying similes. Questions on the server. Read aloud with students following on. Stop for prediction. Could use “the Sound Machine’ too. Nouns, verbs, adjectives from the story.

DP: writing fables. Looking to build adjective use in their description of fables and in writing their own fables.

CD:

Spelling - teach rules. Look for resources.

Laptops: Styles guide for submitting work. Worth looking at as a faculty. Check for one in diary? Could be put in for next year. Font size. Font style. Don’t accept work without.

Narrative unit - Choose one text for all teachers to study. - Must identify NOUNS, VERBS, and ADJECTIVES in model texts. - Punctuation – Capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks. - Main ideas in paragraphs.

Writing Folio - Choose a style of writing that all will cover. - Use NOUNS, VERBS, and ADJECTIVES appropriately. Advanced students can use simile and metaphor. - Use correct punctuation - Use correct paragraphing (one main idea per paragraph)

Poetry? Kay Arthur (on the server).

__Next week: bring a narrative to choose.__

DP, CD, CF, VP Created mini lessons for Advjectives and Verbs/Adverbs using the short story ‘Man From The South.’
 * __MEETING 1 MARCH__**

=**__MEETING 8 MARCH__**= DP CF VP CD

DP: using brain pop to introduce adjectives. The quiz afterwards is good for reviewing. //User name: Strathmoresc Password: glamis// VP: Using picture books. Find the YouTube video on Where The Wild Things Are (easy). Chris Van Allsberg (harder – guy who wrote Polar Express). Good for narrative structure. Plotted the story graph off the video. See also The Stranger (in the library). CF: story board/comic strips for fables. Visualizing. Being creative is a higher order thinking skill. CD: punctuation sheet using Man From The South. Stuck sheet in exercise book. Check with people in-group. Peer checking. Rewrote the paragraphing using the correct punctuation.

Jabbowocky sheet. Use as common assessment in Week 8.

Falling From Grace. Folder on the server. Penguin unit. Weather in Sorrento (characterization and plot device).

Breakfast with the other PLC week 9. Collect examples of student learning based on adjectives, verbs and jabberwocky.

CD: simplified grammar rules for English.

Next time: Focus on the mini lessons and improving the quality of their writing. Collect samples of student work.

=**MEETING March 15, 2012**= DP, VP, CF APOLOGY – CD

DP & VP - did the verb mini lesson. Some students struggled to identify the verbs properly. Need to do a bit more work on verbs. Something to reinforce throughout the year. More repetition required. The language convention NAPLAN results will be interesting. Their comprehension of what they are reading is fine but they struggle to break down the language being used. Need to focus on syntax as well as parts of speech.

VP: //The Water Tower// by Gary Crue.

Assessing Narrative Study. What are we assessing them on? We developed the following rubric to assess student learning in this unit.
 * **Criteria** || **Skills demonstrated** || **Class work/activity** ||
 * **Reading -** || * Identify moral/message
 * Understand the purpose of a narrative text
 * Identify narrative structure (orientation, problem, climax, resolution, coda/moral/denouement)
 * Identify the role of characters in the narrative
 * Identify the author’s use of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and noun to portray character and setting.
 * Understand how the chosen audience influences vocabulary and language choices. ||  ||
 * **Responding -** || * Reflect on the author’s use of character, setting and plot.
 * Respond to a text by explaining its aesthetic or social value.
 * Explain the way text structure and language shape meaning in a narrative.
 * Demonstrate and explain how making different language choices change the meaning of the text. ||  ||
 * **Use of vocabulary -** || * Use correct metalanguage (narrative structure and parts of speech) to discuss and explain narrative texts. ||  ||

=Meeting March 22= DP - apology

DP's input: I'm giving my Year 7s this as a test of the Narrative rubric above. Are there other activities we need to complete?

Attendance: TT, CF, KM, CD, DU, VP

Minutes taken by VP.

Other Year 7 group doing fables as well.

Discussion re Wikispaces - great because it can be used at home.

VP - Concerns with students creating their own narratives that they are too long (one of VP's students has written more than 25 pages), don't mark this much as it's too much work. DU - reading and writing the focus of parent teacher feedback - not just reading for homework but writing as well? CF - can write as a response to wide reading, choose a passage and comment on it in their reading journal. VP - GoodReads as a reading resource? www.goodreads.com. It is 'open' as such, not a closed network, but students need to learn the skills of how to deal with problems on the net anyway, so this is a good, safe place to start? KM - email addresses? Do the students have them? DU says no, Gary says coming soon but who knows. Premier's reading challenge? Discussion if this is worth running - DU says can recommend good readers to do it with the library.

Concern with library periods and core teachers not being able to take their own classes in the library for wide reading. Very difficult to manage and supervise reading without this. Can this be changed for next year?

=Meeting April 26= Apology: CD

**Falling From Grace**
CF - Pre-teaching.Three already read the novel.
 * Vocab - words they don't use everyday. 'unfamiliar words.' Kip. Writing prompt - A time I felt unsure... (based on pp22-24). Writing using metaphors. Parents try to help him stick with swimming, rather than quit because he doesn't like it.

VP - activities with the front cover. Starting reading. Some already understood inference (and sub text!). A lot of already read the novel. Students like it, smart kids are a bit indifferent and find characters annoying. Might like it by the end of the study.
 * Teacher reads for 15 minutes. Started to get restless when I went for 20mins. Different activities/questions. Character profiles. Vocab lists (clarifying). Laptop class - find images and maps of Point Nepean. Harold Holt. Flute music - reference to the pied piper (jazz music that Ted is playing to attract children).

DP - starting Monday.
 * vocab notebook. 2 column notes. Previewing-Questioning-Summary-Response. Self perspective/others perspective as a theme. 'Pressure' as a theme.


 * Excursion -** TBC.

Practice tests to familarise them with format. Clarify some of the terms on language conventions. Push writing
 * NAPLAN**
 * persuasiveness
 * paragraphing
 * ideas - working off a prompt
 * fluency

FEEDBACK
DP - coming from observations I realised that Year 7s don't have a good understanding of what feedback actually is, making it difficult for them to provide considerate and effective feedback. As a result I develop a lesson to focus on defining feedback (see attachment below). I started with a story about installing sprinklers over the holidays. The main point of this story was to show that I needed three forms of feedback to improve my ability to get these sprinklers to work. The first was my own thoughts (self reflection), the second was approval from my wife (peer reflection) and the third was from my father-in-law who had installed similar sprinklers before (expert feedback). This lead to a discussion about how we can get these levels in class 1. Self reflection Eg: review my own work. 2. Peer feedback. Eg:get my table partner to check it and comment. 3. Expert Feedback. Eg: submit to teacher. They were then able to state why people need feedback (it is to help you improve) and how (need to stop and ask questions to get help). Interestingly, the Year 9s I did this with focused on how feedback is used to 'criticize' someone so they improve. This distinction is pretty important in their understanding.

=**PLC Meeting 10/5/2012**= Minutes taken by VP DP - PLC conveners meeting feedback and evaluation form filled in with group. Common assessment with Falling from Grace unit to be developed using the 'two question' format:
 * How do we teach a particular topic or idea?
 * How to we check students' understanding of this idea?

Final piece is to be a scaffolded 'essay' style assessment with paragraphs. What about leading up to this? CF - Write three phrases in three minutes, brainstorm style. Come up with as many three word phrases that relate to the theme as they can in three minutes. From Terri Campbell, powerpoint. CF to send around. DP - How do we assess this? CF to bring copies of student work next week. DP - this activity sounds good because some students had trouble with persuasive writing because they got 'stuck' with what to write.

CD - Excursion date? MX wanted to discuss possible dates. Week 6 was originally proposed but that is too soon? 19th, 20th and 21st proposed which is after Reports.

NAPLAN preparation, see the website for sample assessments.

=17 May 2012= //DP, CD, VP, CF// CD - Spoke with MX. Last week of term, only two days available. 2 classes at once. Total 5 days out. Could run in first week back. Is it worth doing this year with that in mind? Train ride. Historical museum. View of the Point. Could be done first week of Term 2 next year. Bring own lunch. __We will plan for this to take place in Term 2, 2013. It will be better to have it when we start the novel.__

CF - Dogs assignment (issues oral). Easy planning. CF sending around.

Other PLC is working on a scaffold essay.

CD - creative narrative on them being lost. sharing their feelings and thoughts. using figurative language? How will we teach this?

How will we check understanding?

DP - single paragraph on a topic to do with the novel? Goal - **"Reflect on your opinion about a character in the novel"** //How do we teach this?// Give students a choice of these questions. Teach TEEL. Write a model paragraph on '//Why is Annie's dad upset with Kip?//'
 * Q: Is it Annie's fault that Grace went missing?
 * Q: Why does Kip lack confidence?
 * Q: What does Kip see in Ted?
 * Topic sentence
 * Explain why
 * Evidence from a scene to support their why
 * Link back to the topic

//How will we check understanding?// Ideas - an empathetic approach to characters (rather than just yes/no). Use of evidence - able to correctly select a part of the book to justify their reason.
 * Collect a paragraph and bring to PLC next week.**

=**24/5/12**=
 * DP, VP, CF, CD, TE (special guest)**

Using the holistic scale from Spandel.
 * Moderating paragraphs**

add the question from DU's sheet. Either use the dot points and students can find quotes or get them to brain storm and then cross check with the dots points. Use CF's planner as a draft.
 * Essay task - FFG**

Use the dogs sheet or get them to use one of their NAPLAN practices.
 * Persuasive Oral**

Video shown by VP as a news report on Grace's disappearance.

=31/5/12= DP, VP, CD, CF VP - feeling time is running out. Missed a lot of periods. Start the essay next week, CF - I'll finish the book today. Start the essay tomorrow. DP - I'll finish the book next week. CD - Finished the book.

Seems to have been a number of disruptions. Finding it hard to get through the course before reports.

Students seem to lack empathy for the characters. They don't like Annie (whinges too much), they don't like Ted (creepy) and they don't like Kip (kind of weird - and creepy he keeps hanging around Ted). How do we develop empathy for characters? DP - try this routine. It helps students to think about a topic from other perspectives and could be used to get them to think like the characters. The prompts are fairly straight forward and could be adapted for Year 7s. CD - this could be used for the issues oral too. Could they study something on whether taxpayers should pay for search and rescue?

=14/6/12= VP, DP, CF moderated two pieces from Claire's class. moderated one piece from DP's class moderated two pieces from VP's class

=26/7/12= Feature Articles - CF Teaching scanning and summarising. Remove the headline. Get them to examine the photo and scan the article. They need to come up with a headline based on their brief summary. They can also write a short summary at the end.
 * Combined meeting - DP, CD, CF, TE, TT, KM, Colin**

Modality. Important to teach in Year 7. CF has a sheet that is a follow up to the feature article. Students need to identify modal verbs in the feature article they have read.

Colin - DU left a persuasive article on Dogs. Students need to do a summary of the article and then write a response.

Colin also shared a sheet on proof reading for spelling errors. Worth working through with our classes.

Lit Circles - recommendations for books (Flush by Karl Hiaasen, Trust Cottage by Anthony Horowitz). TT wants Cathy Freeman and Black Snake turfed. DP - Siggy and Amber didn't seen appropriate. Boy Overboard is done in a lot of primary schools. Might be able to use Year 8 lit circle books now that they aren't being used. We will follow up next meeting.

=2/8/12= Giving feedback to Nadia on PLCs.
 * DP, VP, CF, KM, TE, Colin, Nadia**
 * **+** || **-** || **Interesting** ||
 * * good to orientate new teachers
 * get support for troublesome classes
 * feel part of the faculty
 * moderating student work has been awesome
 * good opportunity to sought out curriculum docs
 * sharing material
 * common assessments || * 6 on days become a bother
 * no homeroom
 * kids have ended up a bit 'off' by the second half of lunch.
 * kids come the usual time
 * mornings problematic for some || * how could we create further opportunities for team teaching?
 * Should meetings be longer but once a fortnight? ||