Work in Progress Presentation and Discussion Notes Feb 2014

GETTING STARTED

I am interested in how students collaborate in the telling of stories. During Story Play Time in my classroom, children plan their stories in partnerships, draw together and dictate their story to an adult, and then act out their stories as a group. I want my students to develop not only strong oral language and story writing skills, but also the ability to work together in collaboration with each other. 


At the start of the year, I wanted to understand what specific skills my students were developing during the acting and group revision process. I wondered how seeing their stories acted out might contribute to better retelling and comprehension. So, I analyzed video of my class acting out stories and discussing them afterwards. The author-directors would choose actors for their play, and I would read aloud the text while they acted it out. Occasionally, we would stop mid-play and clarify parts that didn't make sense, add in key events that were missing, and specify which character did what. After the plays, I experimented with different questions and prompts to elicit discussion. Each time, I was disappointed with the quality of their questions and comments ("How did you think of the story?" ; "I liked the magic pig.")  

After collecting and reflecting on the first few months of data, I realized that this was way too complex for this group of four-year-olds; Transitional Kindergartners are very different from the Kindergartners I had been used to teaching for the past eight years. This data had reminded me that you have to have a solid sense of story before you can ask questions, revise, and retell. I needed to back up and re-examine my process, to take my students stories as the starting point and then rethink my goals for them: What does "story" mean to them? What do their narratives look like and how do they evolve over the year? And why does this matter to me?

THE FIRST YEAR OF SCHOOL

The context of Transitional Kindergarten has changed everything for me this year. I have been thinking a lot about early intervention and the foundation elements that students need for “Kindergarten Readiness.” With the new Common Core Standards, attention is even more focused on preparing children early on for the rigorous demands of school. And with the potential new TK legislation, we may be seeing the number of four-year-olds in public schools quadruple in the next few years. 

This Fall, in my class of four-year-olds, I had many students, like Sharon, who were already speaking in paragraphs and easily retelling familiar stories. They had clearly had many opportunities throughout their early childhood to read emergent storybooks, hear good stories, have conversations with adults and tell their own stories. By contrast, I also had many students, like Marian, who were still learning how to express themselves in clear sentences and retell a sequence of events. I suspected that they had not had the same early literacy opportunities as their peers. Already, at age four, I am seeing that the achievement gap exists before my students even set foot in my classroom. 

We know from educational research that oral language skills in early childhood are key predictors of later success in reading and writing. While children like Marian are not "below benchmark" now, the skills I am seeing suggest that they may likely be among those needing academic intervention in a few years. What can early childhood educators can do to level the playing field for students as they enter elementary school? In Transitional Kindergarten, we have the opportunity to support children before they have fallen behind, to front load these early literacy skills and potentially prevent them from needing intervention later. Some educators and school administrators believe that children like Marian need interventions like longer school days and more intensive academic skills-building. In my classroom, I am trying to understand what I can do for students like Marian to re-create the early literacy experiences that other students like Sharon have had access to for years before they have even started in school. How can engaging students in Story Plays provide a more preventative and developmental approach to intervention that focuses on early literacy foundations, oral language skills and collaborative learning experiences? 

DATA AND INDICATORS OF SUCCESS

I have refocused my inquiry to look at how Sharon and Marian's narratives differ and how Marian's stories change throughout the year. I have been collecting data throughout the Story Play process, looking at the content of their work as well as the process they engage in as they collaborate in developing a story together. 

	DATA SOURCE	LEARNING GOALS	INDICATORS OF SUCCESS
CONTENT (What are they doing?)	story drawings and dictation	Storytelling Skills: Students develop structured narratives	Beginning, middle, end, with elements of character, setting problem solution
		Oral Language Skills: Students use storybook language	Transition phrases (first, then, there was, after that) or story spine (every day, until one day)
PROCESS (How are they doing it?)	video recordings of student collaboration	Collaboration Skills: Students work collaboratively in strategic partnerships	Integration of ideas, joint leadership, Partners taking turns, sharing, and building on each other’s ideas

Once I had used my first four months of data to develop indicators of success, I went back and pulled out examples from the data to see how my focal students were doing.

Learning Goals and Indicators of Success	Focal Student – Marian	Focal Student – Sharon
I: Oral Language Skills Students use storybook language: Transition phrases (first, then, there was, after that) or story spine (every day, until one day) vs. picture description	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence of student learning/thinking: There’s two cakes. This the swimming pool where you get in…After the party, we gonna party and stuff and have pizza, pasta, pepperoni, macaroni and cheese and chicken. Then we gonna have a picnic. After the picnic, we going to a birthday party. (1/22/14)	X Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence of student learning/thinking: We went to the animal farm and every day we visited the animals and gave them some food until one day their farmer came back and then we went on a field trip. (11/20/13)
II: Story Skills Students develop structured narratives: Beginning, middle, end, with elements of character, setting problem, solution	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence of student learning/thinking: Then we keeped going home and the cheetah keeped following us. And Sharon and I run too but the cheetah kept catching us. (11/20/13)	X Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence of student learning/thinking: There was a pig and a barn and the pig was walking on a path. The little guy was like, “Moo” and it was not a cow it was a pig. And he run to a person named Joe. First, he turned backwards and the pig was jumping on him. Then he turned around and said, “How did you get to here? You’re supposed to be at the barn!” The pig jumped in a pile of mud. (10/16/13)
III: Collaboration – Students work collaboratively in strategic partnerships: Integration of ideas (vs. parallel stories), Joint leadership, Partners taking turns, sharing, and building on each other’s ideas	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence of student learning/thinking: (10/16/13) Both contributing, working on same, integrated story, listening to other’s ideas (10/30/13) Pattern of S always beginning and M listening, then adding on. (11/20/13) S starts, but this is good for M who listens and adds on in appropriate, integrated way every time (1/22/14) Starts off as two separate ideas, E trying to engage M with pool idea, but M not focused, later tells her own party story, then added in pool, managed to integrate into one story; cooperative drawing, but minimal interaction and conversation, each sticking to their own ideas ; this is the first time M has started dictating the story but she does  incorporate E’s idea from planning time.

QUESTIONS

What stories and story-telling skills do my students have before I have done any explicit instruction about story writing? Then looking at student data after this instruction and some strategic re-pairing of partners. What develops through carefully planned and delivered instruction? What develops through collaboration with peers?

What teaching strategies do I use? 
Anchor charts and explicit instruction is not helpful, she doesnt pay attention, but Stratgically painring her with kids who she can hear telling good stories does seem to be useful. Data so far shows thaht she has a lot of the key elements of good stories and even some of the language of stories, transition words in a sequence of events. But what do I need to do to help her join all these disjointed pieces together? More opportunities to read and hear good stories? More opportunities to practice telling her own stories.

REFLECTIONS

Looking at this data has reinforced for me the power of the Vygotskian strategy of having my students work with a more capable peer. In the classroom, when she has multiple opportunities daily to look at books and be read to, to talk about stories and hear others talk about them, Marian is learning about how books and stories work. And when she has opportunities during Story Plays to write her own stories, paired with a more capable peer, she is learning what make a good story and how she herself can be a storyteller. 

Looking at this data and Marian's progression of stories side by side through the year, has helped me to realize that there has actually been growth in these past few months. Marian started off not having many original ideas of her own, but listening to her partner and adding on a related idea to the already started story. In just a few months, however, she was able to move towards having her own original ideas to share. Though her stories are not easily integrated with her partner now, I will be looking for this in the coming months.  

There is a clear progression of her identity as a story-teller

- FOLLOWER, parallel stories, unrelated to partner

- FOLLOWER integrated story, adding on to leader's story start, but no original ideas

- LEADER, original ideas but parallel, not integrated with partner

- COLLABORATIVE, integrated stories 

In the most recent story plan, Marian has developed in that she is now adding her own ideas to the narrative (rather than simply following). Still having trouble connecting it, though - parallel stories. The next developmental stage for her might be finally beginning to integrate her narrative with Ellen's. Progression of skills!

High level students like Sharon are also developing; she begins to use language like "every day," "until one day" - referring back to explicit teaching. The story play process allows all students to grow regardless of where they are starting out developmentally.