We're going to take it up a notch with respect to our ongoing EQAO prep each Wednesday starting this week. Moving forward, every Wednesday, students will receive actual EQAO stories/articles and a set of questions.
Not only do these workshops show the boys and girls what to expect from their EQAO booklets, they give us a wonderful opportunity to have really rich discussions about our writing in both Math and Language.
By using the Smartboard/Document Camera, we're able to work together through the article/story and questions. We can think out-loud and talk about different approaches to the questions and explore what works and doesn't work in terms of suitable responses.
I like that our discussions aren't just about "EQAO", but rather about what good writers do. When you only have five lines to respond to a question that asks for evidence from the text, you have to choose your words carefully. I'm so pleased that my students see how we have to think about our writing on a higher level.
We have to consider not only the correct response to the question, but our word choice, actual letter size and other important factors. It's a lot of critical thinking that goes into responding to these very thick questions!
This week, we looked an article/presentation about the Venus Flytrap plant. The boys and girls are writing a paragraph about why this is a unique plant using evidence from the text and their own ideas.
You can read more about this article at an older blog post found here: Venus Flytrap 2017
Next week, the boys and girls will read a story about a class that goes on a field trip. The story is called "Where's Ms.Mitra". They will have to use their knowledge of irony to answer one of the questions and then consider if someone did their job well or not.
They will also complete a set of multiple-choice questions based on the story. The irony question has been a tough one in previous years, but now that students have an understanding of how irony works (this year is only the third time I've attempted to teach it), they can better articulate their thoughts.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the students take what they've learned about irony and apply it to this writing opportunity.
