Small Group

When I went over this exercise with the girls, I was expecting to have them really dig into it and make some nice comments and additions to the sentences. One girl did a nice job, but, the others just added a couple words. I think I could have handled this better. I tried to excourage them and pull a little more out. I struggle with this age on what is constructive criticism and what will discourage them. I am not trained in Elementary Education. I know high schoolers, or middle schoolers. They've had a little more experience. I don't know at what point it would be too much as I don't want to 'squash' their creativity.

They were supposed to work together to do the sentences, but it seems that when I was with the other group, this group that I taped, did the sentences separately and didn't work together on them. I should have addressed this. I just had them pick sentences they thought they did a nice job on, and we talked about it. I should have found sentences they did together and highlighted how they were different from each other and what they each brought to the sentences. I don't think this lesson worked the way I wanted it to. 2 of the girls only added a couple words to the sentences. And they were mostly adjectives. Those are easy additions and not really the point of the lesson. I was disappointed by this and tried really hard not to let that show. In retrospect, perhaps I should have voiced my concern and tried to redo them with the girls.

I did think I encouraged them and gave them feedback on the sentences that they did do. I'm not sure it was specific enough and clearly it didn't get them to the point that I was hoping for. In this I'm disappointed and will definitely rethink this plan in the future. I didn't ask them the right questions to get the answers I was looking for. I accepted the answer, gave feedback and let it go and moved on to the next person. THis is something I'm definitely going to have to look at in the future and be mindful of for future lessons.