PLC2015-CF_DU_AW_GY_PT

=__**Welcome to the 2015 PLC for Year 8 English**__=

Members: GY(c) (8D2), CF(8S1&8S2), DU(8B1), AW(8A1), PT (8C1&8C2)

__**Week 2 - Establishing Norms:**__

__**Norms:**__ We will begin on time and be flexible with finishing time in order to allow proper preparation for morning classes/coordination/other duties Stay fully engaged during each meeting Maintain a positive attitude during meetings - no complaining unless we offer better alternatives Listen respectfully to each other Contribute equally to the workload Make decisions based on consensus Encourage one another to honour our commitments and candidly discuss our concerns when we feel a member is not living up to those commitments Fully support each other's efforts to improve student learning Take minutes and send them to appropriate party Note in minutes agenda items for the following meeting Begin meeting by revisiting previous minutes

All members to suggest a standard that we think is the one we will focus on.
 * Agenda items for next week:**

__**Week 3:**__ Choose:
 * Agenda:**
 * a standard to focus on
 * a teaching strategy to implement to achieve that standard
 * discuss resources/methods
 * Set a SMART goal

Standard to focus on: Create  imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and including digital elements as appropriate [|(ACELY1736)] (whilst also addressing others, particularly the analysis of these language features (standard 1543) as a formative assessment/teaching process)

Resources/methods: As the format of a traditional magazine is becoming more redundant for students, and the incorporation of digital elements is part of the standard, we will utilise tools like Prezi, Storehouse (iPad app), blogs/wikis, Wordpress. See the year 8 English wiki (TH and JP's page) as they have utilised this format already. There is a worksheet called 'Profiling magazines in the "Before" folder that helps them to analyse magazines features. There is a powerpoint in the "During" folder called 'Persuasive logos and pathos and other issues" and another powerpoint called "Planning a persuasive piece" with an accompanying worksheet also titled 'planning a persuasive piece" There is another powerpoint and worksheet called 'using loaded language' Most of these have also been added to the common resources folder on Compass.

Setting a SMART goal: Commenced, will resume next week

__**Week 4:**__ Agenda: Finalise SMART goal Nominate a teaching strategy / inquiry question

Finalise SMART goal: (Full details with GY) 'To have ALL students improve in informative and persuasive writing by at least 10%" Strategies/action steps:
 * Formative assessment task for persuasive writing & indentify areas for improvement
 * Teaching purpose and audience y analysing an comparing/contrasting magazine covers and magazine features
 * Teaching logos and pathos

Nominate a teaching strategy: Similarities and Differences - comparing text types, visuals, layouts, arguments etc.

__**Week 5:**__
 * 8 English PLC - 26/2 || Time ||  ||
 * ** Item 1: ** Review last week’s minutes || 2 mins || **__Week 4:__**

Agenda:

Finalise SMART goal

Nominate a teaching strategy / inquiry question

Finalise SMART goal: (Full details with GY)

'To have ALL students improve in informative and persuasive writing by at least 10%"

Strategies/action steps: Nominate a teaching strategy:
 * Formative assessment task for persuasive writing & identify areas for improvement
 * Teaching purpose and audience y analysing an comparing/contrasting magazine covers and magazine features
 * Teaching logos and pathos

Similarities and Differences - comparing text types, visuals, layouts, arguments etc. || -most show an awareness of audience - all show an awareness of purpose -signposting arguments
 * ** Item 2: ** Examine some formative assessment samples and identify/discuss strengths/weaknesses of student work || 20 mins || **Doing well:**

- Persuasive techniques used: rhetorical questions, anecdotes, loaded language, use of ‘you’ to suit speech to year 8s (but make sure they’re aware to vary for aud/purpose). - Arguments suit audience

- Overuse of rhetorical questions - Use more logos - Intros - Commonly misspelled words || __**Week 6:**__ Develop formative assessment task for feature articles. Adapted a previous task that has a powerpoint and worksheet and is available in the shared resources on Compass. Includes comparing and contrasting between news reports and feature articles, as well as comparing with the previous persuasive writing.
 * Areas to improve:**
 * ** Item 3: ** Check our action steps and resources are on track & finalise further action steps and resources for persuasive writing || 15 mins ||  ||
 * ** Item 4: ** Check resources are available for teachers on compass || 2 min ||  ||
 * ** Item 5: ** Discuss ‘action steps’ for informative writing. || 2 min ||  ||
 * ** Item 6: ** Set agenda for next meeting || 1 min ||  ||


 * Week 7:**
 * 8 English PLC – 19/3 || Time ||  ||
 * ** Item 1: ** Review effectiveness of formative assessment task for feature articles || 15 || Students needed a lot of support to figure out what to do. Sheet could be clearer. Maybe we should have the Sam Worthington example of news report and feature article on the sheet to see as an example.

Many students get the difference between news reports and feature articles, but don’t know the selfie/twitter topic well enough to confidently write about it. Perhaps give them a different topic to work with, as they don’t get an opportunity to research it, or provide another news report about a related event for them to draw examples from.

Those who are still writing news reports should be given good sample responses, and try again with the boom gates example.

If not in Lit Support, refer to PRTI ||
 * ** Item 2: ** Moderate formative assessment test || 20 mins ||  ||
 * **Set Next week agenda** || 5 || Upload resources for Trash to Compass and discuss a SMART goal for term 2. ||

- Review current resources for Trash, and upload to Compass
 * ==**WEEK 8** - Year 8 English PLC 26/3== ||  || Present: PT, GY, AW | Absent: CF, DU ||
 * Item 1:

- Upload assessment tasks and current formative assessment tasks to Compass || 25 mins || PT has most Trash resources from server on his computer. GY has some resources too.


 * Assessment task** is based around skills: Summarising, Questioning, Visualising, and writing TEEL paragraphs about "big ideas"/author's message.
 * Document name on Compass:** TrashTest assessment

1. Pre teaching "third world" ppt - compare/contrast 2. Pre-teaching rubbish work (pre-teaching dump images) 3. Chapter 1 & introducing question types 4. Corruption infosheet and introducing summarising (Summarising pre-test?) 5. Chapter 2 & reviewing question types and summarising 6. Using similes to describe characters (trash similes worksheet) 7. Part 2 question game 8. Questioning formative assessment task 9. Analysing symbols 10. Part 3 Review - homework task (use as formative assessment?) 11. Questioning Task for chap 1 & 2 of Part 3. 12. Part 3 Question game 13. Analysing newspaper articles 14. Visualising task 15. Quotes worksheet - connecting to themes 16. TEEL paragraph task with sample 17. Past student sample of DVD cover to use as model 18. Assessment Task || GY made a sheet last year that had students select different activities each week - will find and distribute Plans to make Wide Reading folder on Compass. || Make plans to reflect on achievement of previous goal ||
 * Resources:**
 * Item 2: Discuss new SMART goal for term 2 || 1 min || Postponed til all members present ||
 * Item 3: Discuss progress of Wide Reading || 10 mins || PT to use edmodo with one class to do journaling
 * Item 4: Set new agenda || 5 mins ||< Set new SMART goal

Present – GY, AW, CF 16/4/15 ||
 * PLC – Year 8 English
 * Agenda ||  ||
 * Discussion of new Smart Goal || **Idea for SMART Goal:**

Trash is based around skills summarising, questioning, visualising and TEEL paragraphs

We would like students to improve the complexity of their ideas in their writing by using summarising, questioning and visualising, and use their TEEL paragraphs to assess whether their ideas have improved in complexity.

Unsure whether better to use all skills to improve complexity of ideas, or just questioning.


 * Ideas for formative assessment / pre testing tasks**

Some exist. May not be suitable for testing complexity of ideas. ||

Present – GY, AW, CF Apologies – PT Absent - DU 30/4/15 || Basic strategies: || 75% of students will achieve Proficient or above for complexity of ideas (Author’s Message on the criteria) Through teaching skills in summarising, questioning, visualising, TEEL paragraphs, and complex sentences. ||
 * PLC – Year 8 English
 * Agenda ||
 * Setting of new Smart Goal

Present – GY, AW, PT, DU Absent - CF 21/5/15 || specifically: PLC – Year 8 English Present – GY, AW, CF, DU Absent PT 25/6/15
 * PLC – Year 8 English
 * Agenda ||
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reviewing smart goal action steps
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">teaching TEEL and ways to incorporate technology || <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">TEEL strategies
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">sorting
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">categories quotes
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">using 4 walls of room to post parts of teel - students gather parts to use by taking photos, then go back to table to put those together.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">using diagrams to organise ideas about a theme
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">use of poplet to brainstorm ideas ||

Reflection on semesters work.

Creative writing – dystopia. (mood/word choice, sentence structure) Where can we extend students? How can we modify the task? What models do we have? How can we incorporate technology? Grammar to link to task.
 * PLC year 8 English Agenda/Minutes – 16/7 **
 * 1) Look at assessment tasks for The Giver

**Grammar** GY – teaching word choice and mood before they begin task. - Sentence length for impact as part of editing process. Will aim to create a comparison model. Where one piece of writing has not made purposeful use of sentence length, and the other has. DU – Text types writing guide for students – available on Learning Field – good for models.

DU – next year’s students might need more modification – e.g. a cloze activity
 * Modifying students **
 * - ** Creative writing task doesn’t need to be modified too much – weaker students can have shorter word limit.

**Technology** DU - With writing, could create a wordle CF – Padlet for collaborating – can begin with some questions Make them sign in so you can see who is writing what.
 * 1) Essay (teel paragraphs, collecting evidence, essay structure)Where can we extend students? How can we modify the task? What models do we have? How can we incorporate technology? Grammar to link to task.

CF – thought last year it worked well to use the same rubric and use different colours to mark their different TEEL paragraphs so they can see how they are improving and to engage with the rubric. Extension – Animal Farm resources - So many issues in the media at the moment to do with censorship, surveillance, etc. **Extension essay question:** How does //The Giver// reflect issues we face in the modern world? Compare examples in the text to real life examples of censorship, surveillance, etc.
 * Modifying task **

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

__ Essay task __ **How will we modify for weaker students?**
 * PLC 23/7: **

- Two existing scaffolded essays – part cloze. Emailed to PLC members. Extension students DU – recommends Candor as an accompanying text.
 * Extension essay question: ** How does //The Giver// reflect issues we face in the modern world? Compare examples in the text to real life examples of censorship, surveillance, etc.

**How can we incorporate technology?**

CF – Padlet for collaborating – can begin with some questions Make them sign in so you can see who is writing what. PT – has created an iBook for the Giver and an iTunes U course iTunes U – not the cleanest interface, but they manage iBook created for first TEEL paragraph – about whether rules about ageing are fair. EJEWEKZE If interested, PT can send copy.

**What grammar can we link to the task?**

**What models do we have?** Above two points to carry over into next week's meeting.