Wordscapes to support Literacy

 

What is it?:

An activity which allows pupils to display their understanding of a key concept in a unique way, whilst supporting/improving literacy.  Wordscape = a landscape made of words. Wordscapes are a blend of written words, phrases and images. An example within the wordscape would be to use the word 'sad' drawn like a frown. 

 

How's it work?:

Wordscapes are often used in Geography to promote literacy and develop pupils' ability to describe places using extended details and phrases, however this activity can easily be adapted to show a freeze frame of a concept or key idea in any other subject. 

 

First you have pupils investigate a key concept or idea.  Next you have them write down 15-30 words or phrases that describe or link well with the concept they have explored.  Then explain to pupils what they will create with those words - I usually show this using the idea of a slum dwelling made of wood and corrugated iron.  I draw the words slum housing, corrugated iron roof, and poorly constructed in the shape of a typical slum dwelling.  I emphasise usually at this point that spelling is very important in this activity and offer pupils the opportunity to get their spellings correct using textbooks or myself.  I also offer pupils an image on the board to act as stimulus for the 'landscape' element.

Variations:

Use www.tagxedo.com or try using the wordfoto app for iphone/ipad for a digital version of this activity (@johnsayers has an AMAZING example of wordfoto used to describe sand dunes - https://twitter.com/JOHNSAYERS/media)

 

Where did this come from?:

I first came across the idea of using wordscapes while looking through a dog eared copy of 'Thinking Through Geography' - but I know the use of it predates that book as well.

Purple Pens of Progress

 

What is it?:

A way for pupils to improve their work and overtly show PROGRESS before/during/after a lesson. 

 

How's it work?: 

1.  Get at least 16 purple pens (KCS sells multi-coloured pens in plastic candy jars which include purple pens as well as orange, green, teal, pink, red and black, or individual, cheap purple pens can be found at Wilkinsons).

 

2.  Provide time within the lesson for pupils to respond to feedback.

 

3.  Explain to pupils how purple pens of progress work - they must respond to any marking comment made by the teacher or by a peer to show their understanding of how to improve their work.  Then, pupils must make the improvement(s) suggested using the purple pens to show a difference between their previous work and the improvement

. 

 

What does this look like in a real lesson?:

This worked a treat when helping year 8s understand how to describe and explain survey results on peoples' perceptions of India. 

 

The focus of the lesson was to take the data presentation of survey results pupils created in a previous lesson and try to analyse what their results meant for how people viewed India in the UK.  In Geography our experience has been pupils struggle to extend beyond the descriptive when looking at data, so the entire lesson was devoted to drafting and improving their analysis. 

 

I modelled describing and explaining and then I set pupils off to describe and explain what their results meant in 10 minutes.  Then pupils passed their analysis to a peer who had a green pen and a pink pen for feedback (green for what they did well in their analysis and pink for what they could improve on and any spelling or grammar mistakes their peer marker could find).  Pupils had 7 minutes to read their partner's work and provide peer feedback (feedback techniques were modelled before pupils attempted this technique, to ensure the feedback was accurate and constructive).  Pupils then received back their draft analysis with peer comments, which they had to respond to using the purple pen - responses from the year 8s were mostly very good, examples included: 'Thanks for your feedback, I'll try harder to use better grammar next time' to 'I thought I was explaining clearly, but now I know I have to look back over my work to see where I went wrong.'  One pupil, without prompting, went back and extended one of his paragraphs of analysis, acting on his feedback that he needed to provide more reasons to back up his explanation.  Pupils then reflected on what the results overall meant for our key enquiry question 'How do people in the UK view India today?'  When I took their books in for marking I was so impressed with the results - their analysis was far better than what I expected based on experience with the previous year 8 cohort.

 

Where did this come from?:

I found this idea while checking out the following website - http://magpieandtry.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/26-purple-pages-of-progress.html.  Have a look to see how much further this idea on showing pupil progress can be taken.