Rich discussions

Rich discussions have been an integral focus of my inquiry. At the beginning of the year Jannie worked with my class in making connections and building on in conversation about texts and social conversations. 

Recently I took a stocktake of a discussion my target group had about their current novel study. The whole group are currently reading Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. Throughout the discussion, I had to note down how many times individuals shared their ideas and also what the ideas were. 

I noticed the students were inferring more from the text. Their confidence to locate information to support their ideas have definitely improved. Throughout the discussion, the students were able to build on their ideas collaboratively to unpack and deep dive into what they have read in the novel. 

Private Peaceful is a novel which my target group are enjoying. It is a hard read for some of the students but during the discussions I have observed these students who are struggling with reading the novel are listening intently to the ideas being shared and also sharing what they understand from the novel. 

Using multimodal materials

My class and I are currently preparing for our school camp. We are travelling to the Bay of Islands to learn about the history of New Zealand and the Treaty of Waitangi. We will also learn a lot about early settlers who travelled in the seas to settle in Aotearoa and how the Maori lived before and after settlers arrived.

Through our learning we have used a lot of multimodal resources. We have integrated our inquiry learning with literacy which has been effective in gathering information and for the students to understand more about the history of New Zealand.

In Writing group discussions today, I realised the students now have a lot of understanding about the Treaty of Waitangi. They are able to express their personal views about the reading materials they have been reading.

In our novel reading we have been reading a book called A New Song in the Land by Fleur Beale which the students have followed with great interest.

We have watched videos reenacting what happened before and after the treaty was signed.

We have also been reading materials on different sites as well as reading books about the Treaty of Waitangi.

The use of multimodal learning materials stimulated interest and created different learning opportunities for the students.