December 6 - Part 1

1. What question are you thinking about?

How can students' word consciousness help them improve their vocabulary. 

2. What specifically do you want students to learn and be able to do?

I want my students to be able to use their awareness of words to help them improve their vocabulary.

3. What is something that you have learned about your focal students’ learning that has surprised you or been unexpected?

I have learned that they all like to be challenged, and will figure out a way to challenge themselves when given the opportunity.

4. Look at the work you brought today, what do you notice? What do you wonder?

I wonder how to incorporate the word lists they're keeping into a tangible teaching activity for the non-focal students (as well as the focal students)

Dec. 2 - an update after lunch with the ladies!

I just had lunch with my 3 focal students and they were quite cute.

I talked with them about how to take their word collections to the next level and "L" said that she wanted to do something more challenging than just making lists.  (I agree.)

"I" likes to write stories, so she suggested that.  "S" agreed, but I wanted this to be something more fun and less work-feeling.  I suggested a cartoon or comic book and they seemed lukewarm to that idea. Then, we suggested a crossword puzzle.  "L" said she learned how to make them in 4th grade, so there they sit (as I type) with "L" teaching the other 2 girls how to make crossword puzzles, with the agreement that they'll have theirs finished in a week at which point we will all get a chance to fill in each other's puzzles!

LOVE 5th graders! :)

12/1 Update (a bit early)

    "Here's what I'm planning to do on my inquiry between now and the December meeting ...."

 

I have identified my 3 focal students and each has received a notebook to use as a "word notebook".  They are writing down any word that interests them during the time I read aloud (about 15-20 minutes daily).  Before the December meeting I plan to have a lunch meeting with these three students to talk about what they wrote, why they chose the words they did, what questions they have, and generally talk about words.  I plan on video taping this meeting so I can review it several times and watch for growth and changes in the words they choose or the reasons they choose them.

     "One thing I'm wondering about is ..."

 

What I'm pondering now is how to take the data collection deeper.  I think I have to wait until I meet with them to hear what they have to say.  I've glanced at their notebooks and the words they are choosing are varied, so I'll be curious to hear their reasoning.  On student, the student who is ELL and struggles with English, has written "What does it mean?" and "vocabulary" all over the cover of her journal.  She so wants to know what all words mean!  

11/8/11: Part 2

Something I think I could collect is …

I am planning to give my 3 focal students notebooks to write in while I'm reading aloud (I do this daily for enjoyment purposes).  I want them to listen for and write down words that are interesting that they hear while I'm reading and perhaps write what they think the meaning is or write down why they thought the word was interesting.  Then I can plan to chat with them on a biweekly or triweekly basis to talk about the words they wrote down and have discussions about why they chose them and perhaps also include conversations between the 3 of them about words.

What I hope that would help me know about my students learning is …

I am hoping to develop their word awareness, which is one of the 2 key components to word consciousness.  I am also thinking that this collection of vocabulary can evolve into more specific types of words to listen for (or phrases) such as onomatopoeias, similes, or idioms.  But I'm sure this will evolve as the year moves forward and I see what develops from this first step.

Because I am very explicit about the books I read aloud and want to make sure they're challenging to all learners (I have a particularly interesting group of 5th graders who have reading comprehension skills at the 10th grade level), I think this might be really interesting.  I'm planning on reading books such as A Wrinkle in Time and The Phantom Tollbooth and hope that they elicit some good responses and ideas from the students.

What I’m thinking now about my inquiry is …

I'm more excited!!!!!  I'm considering removing the section about "content areas" in my question, but I'm not going to change that NOW....

I feel like I have concrete data to collect now after talking it through with Anne and that's a good thing because when I walked in this evening and listened to all the discussion about data that can be collected I was feeling really discouraged.

11/8/11: My data collection

1. Describe briefly the data you collected since the last time we met:

I have surveyed my students about their experience and understanding of English, what they know about how words are built, and their interest in learning more English and questions they have about words in English.

2. What are your first impressions of what you can take away from looking at these data?

I thought it was interesting that my 5th graders had a lot more interest in language, words, and word play than my 4th graders did; my students have a deeper experience with other languages than I knew about and yet, some students who use another language in their home lives did NOT include it in their survey; about 1/2 of my students have further questions about words in English while the other 1/2 don't have any.

Saturday, 10/15/11 What I'm thinking now...

...I have too many questions and too many interests in how students use words, are aware of words, play with words, learn words, understand words and their uses.

I have to find time to do more reading and thinking about the data that will help me as well as finalizing my survey questions because I think the survey will help to guide me in the process of narrowing the question and my interest in what the students know and can do related to words.

And, yet, it's good that I have so many questions because I'm interested in my topic and that will keep me going throughout the year -- and through the long and rainy winter! :)

Saturday, 10/15/11

What I really want to know is …

• How can students' word consciousness (word awareness combined with interest in words) help to facilitate vocabulary growth in content areas such as science or social studies? 
• And how do students use this new vocabulary in their speech (both everyday and subject/content related) and writing?  How does this get produced by students?
• And how does student knowledge of words help them to build their own vocabulary?  
• Does one's interest in the subject influence vocabulary development and on the flip side, does student's ability to use the higher academic vocabulary influence their interest in a subject?
• What do students do with words "just for fun"? Ie: jokes, puns, riddles, double meanings, etc.
• What do students enjoy about learning words?

This is important because … 

• students need to have a 50,000+ word vocabulary by the time they graduate from high school and students who do not are more likely to drop out.

Therefore my question at this point is …

• How can students' word consciousness (word awareness combined with interest in words) help to facilitate vocabulary growth in content areas such as science or social studies?