Jocelyn Washburn, SIM Professional Development Leader, provided us with valuable feedback via the Concept Diagram Implementation Checklist and Concept Diagram Device Checklist.
See below:
Here
are some strengths:
- Thorough “Cue”
- Great example of team
teaching
- Strong positive
reinforcement of student contributions
- Teacher voice showing
true partnership with students
- Many different students
were involved
- Your Concept Diagram
provides a strong visual to clarify the many components of essays.
Areas
for growth:
1.
Flip-flop what you have written in Box 1 and Box 2. Your main concept is
actually Essay, and your overall concept is actually Writing.
2.
Use symbols to designate characteristics and examples provided by students when
they were brainstorming in Box 3 Key Words. So you would use a solid underline
for the Key Words that turn out to be Always Present Characteristics, a
squiggly line for the Sometimes Present, and a dashed line for Never Present.
3.
When you go over the Examples/Non-examples, match up example with the different
types of characteristics to justify WHY or WHY NOT an example is fitting.
4.
Minor adjustment- use verbs next to each characteristic. For example, “has a
thesis statement”. This is a technicality that is on the device checklist, but
I don’t think it changes the effectiveness of the device if you leave it the
way you have it.
5.
You don’t have to record everything a student suggestions, if it is not quite
right. For example, when students kept providing examples related to sentence
structure (e.g., comma splice, run-on, needs punctuation), then you can
categorize their answers into "complete sentences” rather than writing so
much detail. Also because you want them thinking a bit more broadly about the
overall characteristics of an essay and not get stuck on just sentence
structure characteristics. This way they feel you’ve validated their answer,
but you still get to record what is most essential for the whole class.
6.
Finally, here is a suggestion for your Box 5 Definition: As essay is a type of
writing that has a thesis, uses complete sentences, includes details/examples,
and has multiple paragraphs.
