I want to preface this post by saying that I am grateful to and proud of the students who volunteered to complete this pre-VTS assessment for me. They worked hard, took the activity seriously, and did not even ask the infamous question, "Is this for a grade?" :)
What I noticed: The responses given by my students in the pre-VTS assessments were very similar. Word counts were 59,64,68, and 83, but I noticed the student who wrote the most lengthy observation repeated his initial thoughts. I found it interesting that each student made a total of 6 observations, which were almost all simple observation/assertions, with a couple detailed observations and interpretations/inferences w/out evidence. One students did provide evidence for one of his/her interpretations/inferences. The following are examples from each student:
- "I see two men fishing in the ocean."
- "Two men have a bunch of fish caught on a net."
- "The water looks dirty. There's a barrel floating in the water."
- "You can tell it is a sunrise from the color of the sky."
Kinds of Thinking: In considering the kinds of thinking discussed by Yenawine, my students are using simple identification. Using the literacy development analogy, my students are in the "reading readiness" stage because they use concrete language without creating a narrative for the image. Although some of their descriptions were detailed, I did not see evidence of meaning-making in their observations.
Reflecting upon Housin's descriptions of Stage 1 & Stage 2: I'm not sure my students' responses would be considered Stage 1: Accountive by the description in the reading because their observations did not include personal associations, but they certainly were not making judgments as described in Stage 2: Constructive. I would classify the responses as observations (Stage 0?).
In doing my professional peer rehearsal, I felt the question, "What do you see that makes you say that?" was unnecessary. But now, in reading my students' pre-VTS responses, I notice that is the one question of the three they consistently did not answer.
What surprised me: As a language teacher, I was pleased by the complete sentences and specific word choice students used to describe the image. When responding to written narratives, their responses are not as detailed. I know they are developmentally capable of responding at a more advanced stage, and I suspect they may have been thinking more deeply about the image, but they don't have experience responding to imagery in the written form, hence the literal responses. I am interested to see if there is a significant difference in the verbal responses students will provide during the first VTS discussion.
I, too, am proud of your student volunteers!! They must care for you a lot! Also, their use of simple assertions do put them in Stage 1. If you take their 6 simple observations each, they can be considered listing though slightly wordier (if that's a word!) Love also that you are able to see their writing and discussions through the dual lenses of a language arts teacher and a VTS/art education teacher. This will make for some fascinating posts during the semester, I'm sure! Looking forward to reading more!
ReplyDeleteYour response to this week is really interesting for me to read because I was afraid that my group would dismiss the question (what do you see that makes you say that?), but fortunately they never did. As a language arts teacher, this may be a very powerful exercise for you to give to your students. I feel like this type of exercise could help them improve their writing skills since you said they don’t have as much experience doing that. I think that follow up question (what do you see that makes you say that?) is proving to be more and more critical every week! It really makes all the difference between blunt responses and ones with detailed meaningful connections.
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