Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

Instructional Inquiry Plan Rachel Davey University of New England EDU 743

Instructional Inquiry Plan This unit consists of students working collaboratively with a peer to choose a writing topic and to create a word poem. They will then use the website Wordle to present their poem.
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Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

Students will also be involved with developing a rubric that will be utilized as the criteria they will be graded on. This plan will incorporate both collaborative and creative writing along with technology. This unit will also include instruction based on making the most of descriptive language in writing. Students will also be instructed on how to revise and edit their word to create a satisfactory final product. Finally, students will set expectations and criteria for their work.

Time Frame This unit will take approximately seven to eight days to complete all aspects. Throughout these days students will be guided through eight mini lessons. The mini lessons will be delivered through a shared writing piece produced with the class. After each mini lesson students will follow the same procedure with their partner and the writing piece they are creating. There will also be days that are student workdays with a shorter mini lesson reviewing previous skills introduced.

Resources Required In order to execute this unit we will require access to computers and the Internet, specifically to Wordle.com. Most importantly students will need their imagination and cooperation. Learning Objectives The objective of this unit is for students to learn to write collaboratively utilizing the website, Wordle to demonstrate their final writing product. They will need to work through prewriting, rough drafts, and revisions cooperatively with a partner. They will also need to use

Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

tools, such as a word wall and knowledge from previous lessons about adjectives and verbs to enhance the vocabulary used in their poems. Finally, the purpose of this unit is for students to set their own expectations of their work and revise their written pieces based on the criteria they determined.

Instructional Activities Lesson One First students are involved with a shared writing experience of listing possible writing topics for a class poem. I talk to the students about choosing topics that we all know about and not just one person has a wealth of knowledge about. After generating a list all together students then are told to create their own list of topics that they would be interested in writing about with a partner. They then go around the room to interview each other and find someone with a topic that is on both of their lists. I also made sure to tell students prior to the interviewing process that they needed to make good choices about their working partner and to choose someone that they may not normally work with. I also explained to them that if they demonstrated that they made a poor choice about their partner I would have to intervene. Lesson Two For the second lesson we take a look at our class list of topics and choose one to write about together. We chose recess. Then we began our brainstorming by generating words to describe recess using sensory words. I divided our paper into five sections for the five senses, which allows students to visually see where we need to add more words; I have students do the same thing in their writing notebooks. After creating a list about our class topic, students then work with their partner to settle on a topic and to compile a list of sensory words to describe their topic.

Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

Lesson Three- Our shared writing piece now has a plethora of descriptive words to describe recess. I have the students now choose the words that they think best describe the topic. They then go through this same process with their partner. Lesson Four Now that we have chosen specific words from our list to describe recess I have students give input about how they think these words would sound best put into a poem. I stress to students that todays work is a rough draft and they are just getting their words into some sort of order, they will not be doing any revising today. Lesson Five During this lesson we go back as a class to reread our shared poem. We reread it several times together and students give input about how they would like to rearrange the words to make it sound better. The class also notices that there are some words in our poem that dont really go with the theme of our poem and they decide to eliminate these words. I tell them that during their writing time today I want to them to reread and make sure their words sound satisfactory to them, to look for words that are boring, or eliminate words that dont fit. Lesson Six Today students will continue with their revisions, but before they begin we discuss how they can enhance their poems. I tell students that I expect that their poems are comprised of at least ten words and at least seven words need to be adjectives, verbs or onomatopoeias. We review adjectives and verbs before they are sent off to work, we check our shared writing piece to find what types of words we have included in it. We also look at our Banish Boring Words word wall that includes synonyms for overused words. Finally, we talk about onomatopoeias and generate a list of some that would fit into our poem. We then look at our shared poem to see what revisions we can make and to be sure that it includes the word limits and expectations we discussed. Then students are given time to work on their poems with their partners.

Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

Lesson Seven- During todays lesson I work with students to create a rubric that will be used to grade their completed Wordles at the end of their project. I remind them of the expectations I set for them yesterday about the word limits and types of words that should be used in their poem. I also am looking for students to include in the rubric that they need to use sensory language, use correct spelling, and be creative. After we have established the expectations for their poems students are given time to revise their poems based on these expectations. Lesson Eight This is the final lesson of the project. To begin this lesson I first demonstrate how the Wordle website works. I demonstrate this using the shared poem about recess that we created as a class. I point out to them that they should be creative with how they enter the words into the program and they can capitalize words that they want to accentuate. After students have seen the Wordle program demonstrated I give them one last chance to revise their work and to discuss how they will use capitals to stress certain words in their poem. Finally, we go to the computer lab and I walk students through the process of entering their poems into the Wordle program. I then show them how they can change the layout and color of their poems once they have typed in all of the words. Students work with their partner to put their poems into Wordle and to agree on a theme for their poem. While they are working I walk around to assist, answer question, and to ask questions about the themes they choose and their appropriateness for their topic.

Assessment Students will be assessed based on the standards they have established for themselves with a rubric. They will also assess themselves using a self-assessment; this tool will be used for

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them to gauge their work as part of a partnership. This will also let me know how they felt about the process of working collaboratively. (Please see Appendix A for a copy of the selfassessment.) Differentiation Differentiation was provided for students through individual conferences with partnerships. I guided students to the tools necessary to assist them with generating words about their topic or to enhance the words that they had come up with, these tools also served as a guide to assist with spelling. The class did a fantastic job pairing themselves up with appropriate partners, which really helped all students to be successful.

Appendix A Name Partners Name

Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL INQUIRY PLAN

Self-Assessment Wordle Collaborative Writing Project

Please use the scale below to answer each of the questions. The numbers on the scale will be used as shown in the table below.

4 This went great!

3 This part went pretty good.

2 This part could have gone better.

1 This didnt go well at all.

1. How would you rate how it went for you to interview others to find a partner to work with that had similar topics on their list? 4 3 2 1

2. How did it go working with your partner to choose a topic from your lists? 4 3 2 1

3. How did it go working with a partner to create a list of words about the topic you chose? 4 3 2 1

4. How was it working with your partner to actually create your poem from the list of words you had generated? 4 3 2 1

5. How did the revising process go with your partner? 4 3 2 1

6. How did you like working with a partner on a computer to create a Wordle with your writing?
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7. Overall, how did you like working with a partner to write? 4 3 2 1