I’m not sure whether it’s the smaller group size or that I’ve become especially well oriented to the VTS/Boy Writers routine, but I feel like I’m building individual relationships with the boys in ways that I didn’t last year. As a small example, W walked in a few minutes late, after Ms. F had already begun to prep the boys for VTS and I whispered, “Hey Will” as he walked by me—to which he gave me an equally quiet “Hey.” As I mentioned before, W has been pretty reticent so far, so it felt important to make an extra effort to greet him even though other activities were occurring to which he needed to begin giving his attention. For me, the ability to recognize students as individuals and the opportunity to share in their tastes and talents is a huge part of teaching, so that I already feel this developing makes me feel extra excited about the year ahead with these boys.
Ms F began the session by leading us the boys through a VTS with another samurai image. She seemed particularly energetic today and her facilitation was very commanding, keeping the boys on task and the conversation moving forward. That said, I have to admit I was a little relieved to see that even our resident VTS expert had some trouble getting the boys to adhere to the “What’s happening” as opposed to “What do you see” formula. But Ms F was persistent, asking them to reformulate their observations and quickly moving on from the ones who refused to move on from the listing format. Something else that Ms F did differently was to ask the boys not to physically point out their observations, reminding them that their vocabularies will benefit from the descriptive exercise. Last year, we allowed the younger group we were working with to come up to the Smartboard and point and we had carried on this practice so far this year but I think it’s a good idea to move these boys beyond that because I certainly think they’re capable of “using their words.”
After the VTS, Ms F reviewed some of the historical/contextual info that I reviewed last week along with a few additions she had made and particularly some extra images of Samurai armor and helmets. From there we transitioned the boys into the helmet making activity and Ms F modeled with a piece of paper held up to the wall as she led the boys through the origami steps. Most of the boys were able to transpose the steps as shown to their own piece of paper on the table in front of them but Ms. F, Mr. T, and I hovered around the tables to provide any additional support. After the hats were made, we showed some example helmets and had the boys begin to decorate their own using markers, crayons, or colored pencils. Most of the boys jumped into this without much hesitation but B3 (who, it should be noted was energetic but way more focused and working on his own than during the last class—so, I guess the ADHD med patch was refreshed) became fixated on recreating the eyes exactly as they appeared on one of the example helmets. I brought him some scratch paper to practice the eyes on and placed the model helmet up on a board so that it would be visible to all of the boys. He became frustrated and asked me to draw the eyes for him repeatedly but he toughed it out and came up with a very good approximation.
B2 worked on scratch paper for most of the period and I felt like he was allowing O to distract him again, so I think I’ll ask Mr. T whether we should switch up their seating arrangement a bit before the next session.
With 10 or 15 minutes remaining, we stopped the boys and I reviewed a slide or two on adjectives and introduced the writing prompt—to create a catalogue-type entry describing their helmet. The boys seemed to grasp the concept pretty readily but I wound up wishing that I had prepared a varied set of adjective examples. One of the last words I used to model adjectives that they might use, ‘fierce’, wound up as a central feature in some (all?) of the catalogue descriptions.
I totally agree that this year feels differently because of the relatiohshps we are forming with the boys. For me, I think the space is figuring into the equation. We were in such tight quarters in that room off of the library/media center that it was difficult to move about and impossible to sit down next to a student and discuss his ideas and imaginings. Also, I think Mr. T is more comfortable with us and stepping back a little. For me, that has helped. J is an older boy that I'm enjoying getting to know. He frustrates and cries easily; knowing that plus his name makes it easier to talk him through those challenging stalls this year and I think his ability to persist despite frustration is beginning to happen.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that #1) I am trying to quicken the pace of the VTS in my /VTS facilitation in an attempt to energize the boys
thinking and meaningmaking (It doesn't hurt, either, that I watched two taped VTS facilitations by two of my VTS I students; one energetic and fast paced, and the other more reflective, pensive, and painfully slow. Guess which one I got swept up in? Reflective teaching is a life-long requirement of the profession! Also, #2) Some students insist on listmaking, not matter how long you have done VTS. I hope I repeated and stressed the first VTS question when this happened. If I didn't, thank you for bringing it to my attention! I'll definitely work on that! =0)
As far as greater insistance on getting the boys to "use their words" as opposted to pointing, there is a two-fold rationale for this. First, "creative production" for our study incorporates speech, drawing, and writing. I've noticed some laziness from the boys when they are allowed to get up and point at the picture, so the speech portion of their creativity does not get exercised. This requirement will give us the opportunity to scaffold vocabulary expansion, too, with our paraphrasing. I've also noticed that once one boy gets up and points, they all feel the need to and detracts from, or at least slows down, the discussion. So, let's reserve allowing them to get up and point for times when all else fails!