Empathy for our Students
Role Play
Once again we joined our buddies from the 5 Whys task as they knew our focus the best and could help with the role play.
I nearly burst out laughing in the middle of mine. Sarah and I had organised that she would be the student writing the typical weekend story.
Such as: In the weekend I went to the pools. I got wet and then we had lunch. Then we went home.
As I walked around the group of teachers watching I took a bit of liberty and asked another teacher what she had written and she said
"In the weekend I..."
As I hadn't discussed the conversation with this teacher.
I said, "Keeping writing, we will come back to the beginning shortly."
Learning my lesson I carried on to 'my student' and asked again.
"In the weekend we went to the shops," Sarah said proudly.
I asked, "How did you get there?"
"We walked."
"Could you start the story with Walking to the shops.."
I think this happens as children often write about their weekend to help build up writing mileage and it is an easy beginning to help younger students focus. I believe we need to teach them other ways to start writing by using verbs, onomatopoeia, questions...
Without these deliberate acts of teaching, we are expecting students to read our minds and guess the criteria we are using to mark their work against.
I nearly burst out laughing in the middle of mine. Sarah and I had organised that she would be the student writing the typical weekend story.
Such as: In the weekend I went to the pools. I got wet and then we had lunch. Then we went home.
As I walked around the group of teachers watching I took a bit of liberty and asked another teacher what she had written and she said
"In the weekend I..."
I said, "Keeping writing, we will come back to the beginning shortly."
Learning my lesson I carried on to 'my student' and asked again.
"In the weekend we went to the shops," Sarah said proudly.
I asked, "How did you get there?"
"We walked."
"Could you start the story with Walking to the shops.."
I think this happens as children often write about their weekend to help build up writing mileage and it is an easy beginning to help younger students focus. I believe we need to teach them other ways to start writing by using verbs, onomatopoeia, questions...
Without these deliberate acts of teaching, we are expecting students to read our minds and guess the criteria we are using to mark their work against.
Our focus is on WHO?
Who has the problem? Why is this a problem for them?
We had to think about the students what to help. Who are they? What characteristics, strengths, dispositions do these people have that you presume will contribute to this situation.
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