Forming Partnerships

In last year’s pairings, I discovered that some children had a very balanced and collaborative style of co-writing whereby each partner contributed more or less equally to the story, either by alternating telling chunks of the story or by alternating sentences. In some cases, partners were so collaborative in their storytelling that they were able to finishing each other’s sentences mid-way as they jointly told their story. In other groups, however, I noticed that some children took a stronger leader role, telling most of the story on their own, while their partners tended to follow along and contribute much less. When I later re-paired the children in new groups, I found that some who had previously been followers took on a stronger voice and worked more collaboratively when paired with other children with more similar personalities and styles. Basically, in the second round of partnerships, I found that previous leaders paired well with leaders and previous followers paired well with followers, allowing for more balanced storytelling.

This year, in forming partnerships, I wondered whether I should focus again on pairing children based on leader or follower tendencies, or whether I should focus on something entirely different such as home literacy backgrounds (based on information from Concepts about Print assessments). I also wondered whether I should pair children with similarities or differences in these areas. Although I did not have time to test out a variety of pairings before forming the groups, I did have a month to get to know the children and observe their independent and collaborative reading and writing habits during Readers and Writers Workshop each day. This class is also unique in its extreme range of students, from the special needs child with two-year old-level communication skills to the 4^th grade-level reader who learned to read at age two.  After observing several weeks of buddy reading and listening in on conversations the children were having about books and stories, I decided that the Story Plays partnerships could be most fruitful if the children were matched with partners  placed in similar pairings.

I started by pairing my four students with special needs with partners who had something in common but qualities that would hopefully compliment and support their partners. Sean and Romel both struggle with comprehension and communication, but are playful and eager to engage. Adrian and Forrest are both older with a year of Pre-K experience and more familiarity with writing. Josslyn and Anieli are both strong personalities who require a lot of social and emotional attention but, when focused, can fully engage with stories. Yair is able to match Arden’s extremely advanced academic skills but also able to be understanding and supportive of his difficulties in social situations.

The next four groups consisted of students with relatively high academic skills. I paired them based on similar personalities and what I had observed of their leader/follower tendencies during buddy reading. I matched quieter and more accommodating students together (Emiko with Brody and Madeline with Samara) to give them a chance to take more leadership and have their voices heard in their partnership. I also matched stronger and more independent styles together (Ben with Eden and Sierra with Ariana) and I am hoping that this experience will help them develop skills in working collaboratively with others and sharing ideas.

The last two groups consisted of similar personalities (all followers) but with mixed skills levels. These two groups I chose as my focal students.