2015+Year+7+PLC

26/11/15

19/11/15
 * Lit Circles
 * 8 weeks for teaching Lit circles – unit was too short
 * We need to give students another chance to show they understand skills
 * Could we could use library, session for Lit Circles throughout the semester
 * We need to take the organisation away from them a bit so that they can focus on the skills.

PLC 12/11/15


 * Vocab we have taught not in the responses
 * Maybe need to look at this in the editing stage
 * Most students get TEEL
 * I-pad when they are typing is effective spelling
 * Compound and complex sentences not really present


 * 2 weeks time look at grades to see how many students are proficient

Next week


 * Lit Circles – how do we get students to have deeper discussions?

5/11/2015


 * Lit Circles discussion
 * Writing Folio – needs to be taught for the whole year
 * What can we take out/condense
 * o Start with memoir?
 * o Oral in semester 2?
 * o Shortener fables unit.
 * o Media unit – cut review?
 * Next week - moderate 'Mr Fox'

PLC 8/10/15

-Due to student free day next Thursday, lit circles will not be in full swing till about week 3. In the meantime, teachers are working through the FMF unit, specifically TEEL, formative assessments, essay writing.

-It’s estimated that the final essay for FMF will be due end of week 4/beginning of week 5.

-Consensus that the scrap book seemed a better way to run Lit Circles instead of Edmodo because it allowed a variety of activities such as illustrations needed for visualising tasks

-Conversation moves / sentence stems – ways to move a conversation in specific directions. Skye to produce flashcards with the sentence stems. A small group model how to use them; each group then practises using them; then each group is assessed on how they use them. Fun, quirky questions could be used to stimulate the conversation (eg. If you were on a desert island, which character would you choose?)

-No time to fine-tine rubrics from media unit

PLC 17/9/15


 * Fantastic Mr Fox
 * Term 4 – student free day and Melbourne Cup Day
 * Reports due week 10
 * 9 weeks of teaching

Lit Circles

- need to start reading week 2

Writing Folio

- biography – Cathy to contact some oldies

- excursion?

- Karly to create formative assessment for ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’

Media Unit

- rushed


 * o three text types too much?
 * o Can we cut an assessment?
 * o Change the review to the end of Lit Circles, or make it part of Wide Reading
 * o To follow up
 * o Rubric needs work. Not a clear progression
 * o Reflection for unit – how well did the use the learning process

New rubrics on the server s

10/9/15 - looking at Fantastic Mr Fox – SMART goal and how we are teaching it. - Embedded clauses – how to use in a sentence - Topic sentences and intros good places for this - Peer assessment – looking for these clauses
 * o Although
 * o While
 * o Despite

- Formative assessment ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’


 * o Two stills from Fantastic Mr Fox, two quotes
 * o Test what have these characters learnt, how have the characters changed.

- Look at creating a resource for teaching embedded clauses.
 * o There are a couple of grammar worksheets to teach this.
 * o Sky is going to create something more Fox specific.

Next week: Look at creating grammar resources. Creating/how to.

27/8/14
 * Fantastic Fox!
 * Looking at standards
 * What can we teach in terms of our SMART goal?
 * o Recognise and understand that subordinate clauses embedded within [|noun] groups/phrases are a common feature of written [|sentence] structures and increase the density of information [|(ACELA1534)]
 * Teach as part of analytical writing

Term 4
 * Could we get students to interview old people
 * Could be members of the community or their own families

20/8/15
 * Editing Checklist **
 * Reading out loud to a partner word for word
 * Can your partner answer these questions?
 * o What is my argument?
 * o What are my supporting arguments?
 * o Do I sound like an authority on the issue?

Persuasive text
 * In your own writing highlight **
 * Persuasive techniques (at least two techniques)
 * Modal verbs/ adverbs

- teach top 5 issues - Get students to think about 3 arguments for and against - This becomes the basis of their comments on the blog - Possible Topics
 * o Violence in video games
 * o Uniforms
 * o Gay Marriage
 * o Game Hunting

Modal verbs/ adverbs

6/8/15

31/7/15 > __SMART Goal__ > > > To have 75% of students reach proficiency in writing. > > > Specific - Using Vicky Spandel’s writing traits as a basis to improve curriculum > Measurable - it will be evident in the unit outlines, rubrics, draft of students work. > > > Attainable -Goal allows for those who have learning difficulties. > > > Results Bound - See improvement in the quality of writing. look at student writing at the end of the unit and check proficiency. In the long term, improvements in NAPLAN. > > > Time bound - unit by unit. Track student writing throughout the year. Look at final assessment to see if we have met the goal. > > > Next week - look at persuasive writing rubric, see if Karly’s mad idea might work > >

23/7/15
 * News reports, looking at language
 * Persuasive writing next week – looking at purpose of this writing

16/7/15 - talked about how to teach the body of the news story. Students need more scaffolding about what goes in body - Looking at rubric for Newspaper - The Writing for form and audience and use of vocab is too similar

Vocab use - Looking at using specific object formal language - In third person not in the first - Clarity – clear direct language as it’s a wide audience

Quoting - Introducing person who the person is their title eg: Police Officer… - Using said, tell, told, stated, alleged at the end of the vote

Next week – keep working on the news rubric

19/2/15


 * Use aps to get them to turn fables into comic life, focussing on the parts of the fable
 * Getting them to create a script out of a fable, act it out with the same moral message
 * Arnold Lobel – modern day fables TH to order from Library
 * BN, GC, TH – to choose a modern day fable and create lessons that start to tie in characterisation and word choice. By Monday morning.

Minutes 12/2 - We set a SMART goal - **By the end of the unit, 75% of our year 7 English students will understand and be able to apply effective word choice and correct language conventions**. - We agreed to increase rigour in the Fables unit by focusing on 2 traits of writing: word choice and language conventions. - Based on Karly's 6 lesson schema for teaching word choice we distributed planning of learning activites in this way: - what are verbs, adverbs and adjectives and how to use them to create a character - TH, CD, BN - (mostly for extension kids) how similes and metaphors can deepen characterisation - ED  - how personification and allergory can deepen characterisation - FV  - alternatives to 'said' - already covered by CD and TH  - These learning activities to be shared at the next 2 PLC Thanks, Fiona

25/7/15 Media Unit
 * Norms – we did well except for punctuality
 * Keeping better track of our minutes, TH will take notes and put them on the wiki
 * We have been working towards our SMART goal all term. Our resources and units are more closely linked to word choice and conventions
 * We need to get better at measuring where students are at so we can use the data.
 * Data collection - Guttman Charts, kinda like what TH is doing. We could use this as a resource for how to track and record data.
 * Grammar, active and passive voice. Modal verbs.
 * You need to use ‘said’ in news report.
 * Focus for first PLC back – grammar focus? How do we test?