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Lesson Planning with IWT

Lesson Planning with IWT. Incorporating Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking in the Classroom. What is the Institute for Writing and Thinking?.

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Lesson Planning with IWT

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  1. Lesson Planning with IWT Incorporating Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking in the Classroom

  2. What is the Institute for Writing and Thinking? • Mission Statement: “To help students think more deeply and to read more challenging texts more closely through writing” (“Bard Institute for Writing and Thinking,” n. d.). • The Institute offers workshops for teachers that prepare them to incorporate the program’s strategies into their classrooms.

  3. The IWT’s Approach to Teaching Literature • Prior to the lesson, the teacher breaks down the text into smaller segments and prepares a series of “Focused Freewrite” topics. • “Focused Freewrite” topics provide students with thought-provoking questions that enable them to think critically about the text.

  4. The IWT’s Approach to Teaching Literature (Cont.) • Teacher prepares students by clearly explaining and demonstrating how to freewrite. • During all freewriting activities, students must write continuously for the allotted time. They need not worry about proper mechanics; rather they should allow their ideas to flow smoothly as they write.

  5. The IWT’s Approach to Teaching Literature (Cont.) • Students in a classroom sit in a circle as they read a text. Teacher sits with them. • Teacher begins by facilitating a general freewrite. Students and teacher will write for roughly five minutes without stopping. The idea is to purge any thoughts participants may have so they can focus on the text at hand. These freewrites will not be shared with the group.

  6. The IWT’s Approach to Teaching Literature (Cont.) • Teacher will begin facilitating the reading. He/she will identify exactly which segments of the text the group will read. During this time, students will read silently. • Every so often, students and the teacher will respond to a “Focused Freewrite.” All participants, including the teacher, will share their Freewrites with the group.

  7. The IWT’s Approach to Teaching Literature (Cont.) • Participants will take turns reading their responses in whatever order they choose. • Participants must read exactly what is written on their page.

  8. Other Techniques IWT Recommends Using • Text Rendering: Students select a phrase they enjoy from the text. During the text rendering, students take turns shouting out the phrases they selected. This technique reviews the major ideas of the text. • Echoing: As students share their freewrites, teacher should write down one important phrase from each of their responses. Teacher will then read these phrases when students finish sharing.

  9. Adaptations for Struggling Readers • Make sure to identify a purpose for reading each section of the text. • Provide an activity for students to complete as they silently read the text. For example, they can sketch the images that come to mind as they read, or they can highlight words or phrases in the text that confuse them. • Define any words, phrases, or concepts from the text that students need to know before reading each selection. Inductive vocabulary strategies tend to work best.

  10. Advantages of IWT’s Technique • Promotes active learning. • Allows students to construct meaning in a text as they read. • Requires all students to share their responses. • Provides teachers with a formative assessment of students’ reading abilities. • Redirects the teacher’s role in a classroom—teachers are participants, not lecturers.

  11. Examples of IWT’s Instructional Techniqes • Lesson Plan 1: This lesson plan uses the IWT approach to teach the first chapter of Walter Dean Meyer’s Monster. It is intended for use in tenth grade classrooms with struggling readers and includes adaptations for inclusion classes. • Lesson Plan 2: This lesson plan uses the IWT approach to review Act II of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar after students have read it. It is intended for use in an Honors English 10 classroom. Unlike the traditional approach, however, which usually works well with smaller groups of students, I’ve divided the students in this class up into five separate groups (I had a class of 32 Honors students when I created this lesson plan).

  12. For More Information. . . For a complete description of the BardCollege’s Institute of Writing and Thinking, along with workshop dates, please visit the following website: http://www.bard.edu/iwt/

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