Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #4b: The Dawn Raids skill building

After learning the content around the Dawn Raids, we looked at how we could apply our learnings in an essay.  To do this, I wanted to reinforce the importance of planning to write and to use what they've learnt in a logical way.  In the past, I haven't spent too much time scaffolding the context in such a way, as I've felt as year 9's, kids might get overwhelmed with the structuring of an essay and get bored so I've tended to stick with telling them what they need to write about and not so much on how to write about what they need to write about (if that makes sense).  I've realised the more time I invest now in teaching them how to write an essay, the less time it would take when they get to senior school.

PART TWO:

Learn … the skill of essay writing

We started the skills lessons by brainstorming everything we knew and had learnt about the Dawn Raids.  I allowed students to add to the board if they remembered something later on.  This took about 15 minutes to do.

We created themes and decided that these would become our paragraphs and then we put them into a chronological order of when they had occurred happened.  

Then I went through how to write a good essay by breaking down the question and using the T.E.X model for the paragraphs and a hamburger model for the essay that they know.

Then for each theme, there were at least 3 key points which essentially gave them 3 points to write about.  I tried to create a flow chart of the process below using a students example (link to work here).  These 3 points turned into small T.E.X paragraphs.

Create… the essay.

After building the blocks, students then created the essay. 

Reflection

For those who stuck it out, they did really well, there were some really extraordinary essays.  But I probably gave them too much to do and to think about which meant I lost a couple of kids along the way.  Many kids started, but didn't finish which is something I need to look it more closely.  I'm going to revisit this model during the year, as I've learnt again, that less is definitely more with regards to how to structure an essay.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #4a: The Dawn Raids Content

In year 9 Social Studies, I decided to introduce learning about the Dawn Raids as part of our migration unit.  In the past, I have left it for the seniors to learn about but I felt it was a good example of an ‘intervening obstacle’ that made life difficult for Pacific migrant groups in the 70’s.  It also allowed us to explore the social actions that led to the apology by the Government.  This part of the unit took 8 periods to teach, including learning how to write a good dawn raids essay.  I have divided this blogpost into two parts: The Content and the skill building.

PART ONE: 

Learn…the content

Through a series of in-depth lessons about the Dawn Raids.

We started by revisiting our 7 key concepts and making links to the 'intervening obstacles' created by the Dawn Raids'. 

We then explored the social action and the lead up to the apology.

 

Create…a presentation to show your understanding (individually and in groups)

Students worked in groups to discuss and create a powerpoint to show their understanding of dawn raids to New Zealand history.

Individually, students then created a document that allowed them to further explore the dawn raids and how a group of people presented a petition to parliament that caused the government to apologise. 

Share…a blogpost

Students wrote about their thoughts and views around the Dawn Raids and why they thought it was important to learn about.

Reflection

I tried to use a variety of mediums to capture and engage students through videos and discussions about how people were feeling at the time.  I think my kids enjoyed these more than me trying to teach and talk them through the events of the time.  We pointed out vocab and words we weren't familiar with reinforced them throughout the teaching so that kids would become more and more familiar with them.  Engagement wise, I felt the kids enjoyed the lessons.

Linking to my inquiry

Creating contexts that kids would want to learn about.

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #3: Connecting learning to context.

After our initial introduction to concepts, it was time to apply those concepts to real life learning.  The migration model is a simple visual that connects all of the concepts that we have learnt together.  I explain the model and physically move like I am being pushed and pulled in different directions. Then we apply the model to a real life story.

Learn…about the context.

We discussed the need for migrants who came to New Zealand to work and I shared my parents migration story as a narrative.  I told the story verbally and students had to identify all the concepts using a blank migration model template.  This forced them to listen and essentially push their brains to work.

Create…a migration model for Ms Apelu’s migration story.

Share…their own migration stories

Students read one or two more stories using the model. Students were then encouraged to identify someone that they know, either family or friends, who have their own migration story.  This was done for homework.

Reflection

I found the students were engaged and listening when they knew what they were listening for.  I also found that they were respectful and polite because when it comes to talking about families they know that they are important.  By sharing my parents migration story, they could relate to someone who knows someone who identifies with the model we’d been learning about.  They were also free to ask more questions if they needed to.  I know that kids need to see connections to what they are learning about because it makes it less foreign and more real to them. 

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of connection to the learning by hearing a relevant real life story.

Links to the Tapasā.

(Characteristics of a good teacher pg 7:  Incorporating stories, legends, myths, events, activities and symbols that I understand and are relevant to me when teaching). 

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #2: Balancing content and skill.

For year 9’s this year, I am looking at the less is more approach: less content but with more in-depth learning on specific contexts and less ‘just writing’ and more scaffolds to support the learners to craft their writing.  The reason for this is that I’ve found that students weren’t providing enough quality writing that showed their understanding of what they’d learnt because we spent a lot of time on learning about content itself. 

Our year 9’s learn about 3 theories of Migration and have to identify and describe which one could be the most true and likely theory, based on the information provided and their own research.  We had 2 lessons for the learning of the content, one lesson for the learning of the skills of writing a paragraph and one lesson for the creating and sharing of their learning.  Students could also work on their paragraphs for homework.

Learn … about the theories

We went through a discussion of each of the 3 theories (Hawaiiki, South America and Asia) and I tried to provide the same amount of learning time for each.  I allowed for questions to be asked and for students to discuss their ideas with their peers.

Create … paragraphs that show their understanding of the theories

Students were then encouraged to use key bullet points from each of the theories to write a paragraph to share with their peers.  At this point I decided to teach about the  skill of writing a paragraph writing using our T.E.X model to help scaffold the students writing using a template that supported essay writing in Social Studies.

Share …their learning in a blogpost

Students were to create a blogpost about their learning.  Unfortunately we ran out of time so I had hoped to get them to blog when we have time.

An example of the change in writing before and after using the TEX model

Reflection

Normally I would have taught this part of the unit in two periods but because we had an extra 2 periods to craft their writing and to allow them to process and create their understanding of the learn, they were able to produce some good paragraphs.  

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of achievement by providing enough time for everyone to get the paragraphs done