PART 1: Student Visual Annotation Exhibition Gallery Talk PAUSING, REFLECTION & CELEBRATING The first half of the class was dedicated to discussing the polished visual annotations and celebrating the tremendous creativity and critical thinking. To contextualize our discussion, we reviewed the sequence of learning experiences during our unit on The Hero's Journey in the second trimester. HOW OUR HERO'S JOURNEY UNIT UNFOLDED: 1. We began with an animated video presenting Joseph's Campbell's The Hero with A Thousand Faces 2. Students selected a novel of their choice and formed a book club. 3. Each student in the book club selected a role to focus on as they read and studies their hero's/protagonist's journey (personality, conflict, relationships). 4. Students actively read and placed post-its on passages connected to their role and resonated with them. 5. They embarked on visual annotation and became more skillful at following the sequence of visual annotation steps to delve deeper into the text. 6. A series of book clubs meetings were held. Students discussed the book, their visual annotations and asked questions. A synopsis of their meeting was filmed and critiques. 7. Individual and group conferences were held with the teacher, highlighting impressive aspects and identifying next steps in the visual annotation process. (Formative & Summative Assessments) 8. Students were asked to select 3 visual annotations and revise them as they would constitute the "body paragraphs" of their essay. 9. Using the "paragraph formula" presented, students explored their thinking, experimenting and taking risks through a series of "think alouds" using each revised visual annotation as a body paragraph. 10. Students then scribed their recordings in the literary essay document. 11. They revised their first draft, received peer feedback on their second draft and then revised again for a third draft. 12. The third draft was accompanied by an audio recording. (Summative Assessment) 13. As a final piece, they polished ONE of their revised visual annotations, enlarging it to create a kind of visual annotation work of art to be hung in our hallway gallery. (Summative Assessment) | During our gallery talk, we discussed the following questions: 1. Do you remember your thoughts, feelings and experiences at the beginning of the unit when you completed your first visual annotation? 2. How do the polished visual annotation pieces truly unlock the meaning in the passages? How have students visualized text? 3. What emotional landscapes have they visualized? How? 4. What have you learned about visual annotation? How might visualizing text expand our thinking? 5. Now that you have experienced visual annotation, how might you thinking be shaped differently? 6. What is your experience now when you read literary texts? Do words appear differently? 7. How do you understand the role of symbolism, empathy and the hero's journey? PART 2: Collaborative Assessment on the Polished Visual Annotation Piece Students participated in a collaborative assessment activity in small groups, listening to a student reflecting on his/her piece and sharing "stars" and "wishes". The group then used the rubric to evaluate the student's work. The teacher assumed a supportive role, guiding and facilitating but essentially listening to the students critique and asking clarifying questions when needed. PART 2: Final Revisions on LA Learning Artifact Script While the group of students and the teacher were engaged in the collaborative assessment, worked on final revisions of their script for their T2 reflection video. |