Engaging Writers
​By:  Carrie Johnson

Project at a Glance :

Students have been tasked with identifying strategies to increase engagement during our writing sessions.  By partnering with our writing coach, and analyzing on task behavior, students will be able to see if their identified strategies/plans worked.
       
Driving Question:

How can we foster engagement in our writing classroom?       

Standards:

• ​ RL5.2 - Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. 
• W5.2 -Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
• SL5.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• SL5.2 - Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Team / Culture Building:

• Values Cards
• Hopes, Fears, & Norms​

• Creative DNA

​Entry Event:

• Bug List - brainstorming on sticky notes what bugs us about our writing block.

Stakeholders:

• Students
• Teachers
• Parents
• School administrators
• Writing coach

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholder Maps​​​

Empathy Maps - designed around various stakeholders.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Research articles
• Author Interviews - interviews with authors of the favorite classroom books from this year, reading about their process as writers.

Incubation:

• Anti-Problem Protocol - What would our classroom look like/sound like if it was the worst writing classroom ever​

• Mind-Mapping - After reflecting on what had been done so far, students workin small groups, to brainstorm possible ideas related to the driving question.

• Top Ten List - after sharing out, look for overlaps in groups and create a class wide top ten list.​​
• Combin-ide-ation - look for areas to combine ideas and narrow down further.

Checking in:

• Harkness Circle - nearing the end of  Investigation Stage, allowing students to verbally share out and process what they have learned so far.  Encourage them to decide if we have enough information to move on to Incubation
• Tell it to a Toddler Protocol - use tell it to a Young Kinder (our buddy classroom) to make sure students understand what they have learned this far, and have digested the information presented.

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Solution Building:

• Poster Session using one of the Top ideas​

• I like, I wish, I wonder feedback
• NUF test
• Dot Voting

Critique and Revision: 

• ​Fireside Chat protocol
• Seeking Skeptics 
• Sharing their ideas with another classroom teacher for feedback.
• Elevator Pitch to small groups of classmates.

Authentic Audience:

• Writing Coach
• Classroom Teacher

Final Presentation:

• Students did Elevator Pitches within small groups, and then shared with the full group.
• Students had voice and choice with author articles, which partner they worked with on their solution, and how to present their pitch.  Some created videos, some created slideshows, and some did a written presentation with their posters.​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

Reflection and Feedback:

• Smiley face rubrics
• Observation & Writing rubric
  
• Mrs. Trenary, the literacy coach, came in and did an engagement check while students were working on their writing. She interviewed students, and calculated time on task for our writers. We reviewed this data as a class to see if our plan to improve engagement actually was working.

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Carrie Johnson has been teaching 5th grade at Lakewood Elementary for the past 25 years.

     "PBL allows me to connect learning to real world experiences, and gives students a chance to solve problems that can have long term impact on their community."