EAZ Case Study Proforma (Seth Sergeson)
Topic (eg Literacy, ICT); Literacy - Authorial Intent
Please could you answer the following questions:
What was it like before and why was the work undertaken?
Please provide a detailed description of the context, background and the rationale for this work.
Throughout the schools with KS 2 across the zone, after completing unit analysis, two areas of weakness have been identified over a number of years, the areas being that of 'inference and deduction' and 'Authorial intent' - in both use of language and also their purpose. These weaknesses relate to the 'Reading Assessment focuses', numbers 3, 5 and 6.
Assessment focus 3 - 'deduce, infer or interpret information, events of ideas from texts'.
Assessment focus 5 - 'explain and comment on the writer's use of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level'.
Assessment focus 6 - 'identify and comment on writer's purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader'.
In response to this, during the previous academic year a pilot 'On line Author' activity was created. This involved the use of a non-fiction text and fictitious author, then via a web forum, pupils were able to interact with the author, respond to his questions and receive feedback on their answers, and also ask questions of their own relating to the article used. This project proved to be very effective and pupils were engaged in the process of a drama-based reading activity. The feedback and results were very encouraging, with schools in the pilot showing an increase in their 2005 SATS results in English overall.
It was decided this year to develop the project further to work on fiction.
What was planned?
Initially we planned to use video conferencing to replace the web forum, for pupils to ask the author - Seth Sergeson about his writing. In return, Seth would also ask questions of the pupils, to provide him with feedback as to how children understood his writing. These questions from the author would be aimed at improving the pupil's use of inference and deduction and also authorial intent - in relation to language used and also his purposes and viewpoints.
The author, ensuring appeal to both boys and girls, wrote three fictional stories. The stories featured the same characters, and were based on the author's own experiences. Within the stories there was deliberately room for improvement, character development, editing, describing settings more fully and each story was written with an open, cliff-hanger ending, thereby providing scope for writing activities based on the stories. The pupils would focus on one of the stories, and through video conferencing would interact with the author.
We planned to pilot the work in one of the zone schools, with three Year 6 classes, each class focusing on a different story, and then cascade the work into the other year 6 classes throughout the zone.
However, due to technical restraints, and a limited time period to enable the project to be utilised as an effective learning activity, it became apparent that we would not be able to make use of video conferencing. The nature of the pilot was reconsidered, and developed into a drama based activity, which would take place with the author and his editor visiting the classes to interact with the pupils face to face.
What was done and when?
Please provide a detailed narrative of the work undertaken including examples of the work (i.e. the stages involved, examples of what did and did not work, how actions were prioritised; timescales of various actions and an assessment of the way in which the practice has been developed and implemented).
An initial pilot programme was undertaken in one of the Zone schools targeting all the Year 6 classes.
A meeting was held with the teaching staff, to discuss how the activity would work. They also had a Teacher's pack, the three stories and 'Student editing packs', to enable them to carry out preparation work in advance of the author and editor's first visit to the classroom.
In preparation for the author's visit, the pupils looked at their editing packs. These included an author profile, character planner for Jake Jackson (main character), a copy of one of the stories, a story planner, 'blurb' for the book containing the three stories and tips on editing stories. Prior to the first visit from the author, the pupils had read the author profile, the story and planning notes and prepared questions to ask the author.
Each year 6 class received 2 sessions. In the first session the editor explained the purpose of the exercise to the pupils. This being that as a new author with new material, we had to put it out to a 'test' audience in order to gain feedback and ascertain if indeed the material would be well received and therefore worth publishing. In this way, the pupils were included within the drama and had a clear role in the activity themselves.
As part of the first session the author was 'hot-seated' by the children, asking the questions they had prepared beforehand. They then undertook a shared writing activity, which involved the author or editor modelling a process and then pupils working individually or in pairs to produce their own piece of writing, supported by the author, editor and class teacher.
Within the second session, the pupils worked through a series of questions posed by the author and editor, and techniques in locating evidence in the text and developing full answers were modelled. Once the pupils had worked through their responses to the questions, they were discussed as a class and feedback was given from the author and editor. These questions were specifically targeted to children's learning in the areas of inference and deduction and also of the author's intentions.
As part of the sessions, a writing activity was included, as pupils identified some areas for development within Seth's stories. One of these included developing some of the secondary characters more fully. In order to do this, we presented a grid with headings on and modelled how to use this to jot down key words / phrases related to one of the characters, the pupils then completed their own character plans and used these to develop full character studies. They responded extremely well to these activities and had a clear sense of audience and purpose for their writing, as they received feedback from the author, and were told how they would be incorporated into the stories.
The children also worked with their class teachers to produce an ending for each of the stories, as they felt unsatisfied by the way they ended on a cliffhanger. One of the classes has also gone onto produce a film script for the story and intend to act this out and record their version.
In another school, where they have begun their preparation work for the author's first visit, they have focused on the feelings and emotions of the main character, Jake and produced a diary entry following a memorable incident in one of the stories, allowing the pupils to show their understanding of the story and also write from an alternative perspective, in the first person.
Throughout each of the sessions in all three classes, the pupils were motivated and participated fully in the both the reading, writing and drama aspects of the whole activity.
As the activity was trialled in the three classes, the use of additional whiteboard resources, such as question menus, were developed to supplement the original resources and these meant the activity evolved throughout the pilot.
The ICT based resources developed to support this project include:
white board big books that allow children to highlight and make annotations to the text on the screen, a model answer presentation that provides the paragraph in the text for children to analyse and the author's model answer, and supplementary presentation was prepared with video clips of the author discussing the text and his intentions when writing the text. (See below)
What has been the impact and how verified?
Please produce evidence about improvements due to this work being carried out.
Initial feedback from the three pilot groups was very positive, with teachers reporting an improvement in children's written work, understanding of author's intentions and engagement and overall motivation.
One teacher commented that some pupils had surprised her and those who would not have normally participated and produced work to that standard did, and were very motivated by the whole project.
Hard data will be available for the whole cohort in year 6 after the SATs and publication of their results in 2006.
Is this work sustainable? How is this work embedded?
The work is sustainable in the short term with all the Zone schools planned to undertake similar sessions in all of their year 6 classes in the first 3 weeks of the Summer term.
This work fits in well with the Year 6 objectives as set out in the NLS and therefore could become an integral part of teacher's medium term planning for literacy, particularly with Year 6 Term 3 - 'study and compare work by the same author'.
It also provides further evidence of the use of ICT within Literacy to enhance teaching and learning. The teachers can use each of the stories to provide further work on the identified areas of weakness through using the ICT support resources, which are available on as a CD Resource pack.
The pupils benefited from very clear modelling of techniques to locate information in the text and discussion about their answers to questions and how to improve these, making their points much clearer. This style of questioning and modelling these techniques could also become an integrated part of guided reading activities, where schools are seeking to address similar areas of weakness.
What has been learnt and next steps?
To analyse data from 2006 English SATS and specifically consider the areas of inference and deduction and authorial intent to enable a full evaluation of the project.
It is planned to undertake a similar event next year but use video conferencing technology to impact on more children for longer in a visual and high impact way. The possible use of an e-mail or forum based sharing of texts between the children and the author.
Having access to the author, either in person or via video link adds that element of audience and purpose, which motivates pupils and improves the quality and standard of their work.
In future years it is hoped to offer units in both fiction and non-fiction and to develop and extend the ICT support resources available. Including a range of writing frames, skeletons, and templates which have been successfully used will also be added.
