Documentation Examples > Examples of documentation to aid teachers' own reflections

In their final portfolio presentations, students had a very general assignment: Discuss one way your reading has improved using evidence from your portfolio; Discuss one way your writing has improved using evidence from your portfolio; Discuss one goal you have for next year; Share a highlight from this class.

I was quite surprised that so many students specifically cited the LOTF note-taking or paper-writing packet as a demonstration of their improvement in this class. For one class in particular, I spent much of the semester wondering if they could handle this unit at all. I have been improving the note-taking packet yearly, but the paper-writing packet is newer, and I have wondered if I was doing too much of the work for my students. From listening to student comments, it seems to have helped the kids to feel like they can do the work independently, and it doesn't seem to have restricted their ability to communicate their own unique sense of what is important in the novel.

What is the balance between scaffolding and restricting? How do I know when students need more structure and when they need less? Have these instructional materials been successful because the structure is clear, but loose enough to allow for a wide variety of responses? I notice that I do not ask any of the typical comprehension and interpretation-type reading questions in these materials. Hmmm.

". . . that goes into one of the best writings I had. . . my memoir, it wasn't nothing compared to the Lord of the Flies, 'cause like, I don't know, I just, I put time and effort in it and it's like everybody had something to say about the book and Ms. Hogue had us, like, write the packet. I like the packet she made us write because it made me understand. Like I said, when I first read the book I was not having - it was SO boring - but it went on when we had to do the packet I understood it more and then the paper was just like, oh, I get this, and the way she told us to write the paper just made it better. . ." ~ Ashley

"Before, if you gave me Lord of the Flies last semester, like if I didn't take this class, and after I finished it and you asked me, like, what the book was about, I just look at you and say, "I don't know." But my reading improved because I learned to talk to the text so I understand it better and I can explain it." ~ Rasmiya

"My reading has improved because, at first, I can remember that I never even opened the book. I would, like, look at the cover and be like, 'Uh-uh. This is boring. I'm not reading it.' Just because of the picture. And then, like, I would never, like, really pay attention to the book - what it was about, stuff like that. So when we had to do something I be like, 'I don't know what this is about. I don't know what to write.' I used to be lost and Ms. Hogue used to look at me like I was crazy. And then when we read the Lord of the Flies book, like, at first, I didn't want to read it, like. And I was looking at it, like, this was going to be, like, not my type of book. But then she gave us our characters to focus on and stuff like that and that was better because we could, like, focus on one character and getting to know the character. So that was something that I liked."~ Laura

"One way that my reading has improved this semester was when I read Lord of the Flies. Umm, before I read Lord of the Flies I usually, when I read, I used to skip pages and not pay attention to what I was reading. Or sometimes I would just go to the questions and not even read at all. But ever since I started reading Lord of the Flies I started reading through the whole thing and it improved my reading." ~ Jared

"One way my reading has improved this semester is also I read Lord of the Flies, 'cause usually if I had to read a book, I'd just read it straight through and not even get the meaning. But this year when I read the Lord of the Flies I was really able to analyze, you know, what the true meaning of it was - what the theme was - and how it connected to history and everything that's going on in our society." ~ Vladimir

"My reading improved this year because talking to the text made the book Lord of the Flies more understanding for me." ~ Alyssa

"One way my reading was improved was doing the reading packet for Lord of the Flies. I didn't really know how to read certain books because they're hard to understand, but when I was doing the reading packet I understand more about it because I had to talk to the text and explain what I thought was going to happen. I understand more about my character so it made it easier for me to understand it. And then when we went over it in class and you all explained about your characters so it made it a lot more easier because I wasn't not only learning about my character, I was learning about other people's characters more, too, like your attitude about your characters, too, so that's why I think my reading has improved." ~ Chris

Sara: "One way my reading has improved is, um, looking for, like, good quotes in the text and an example of this is the Lord of the Flies reading journal because I had to look for quotes to write down because that was part of the homework."

"How did that help your reading?"

Sara: "Because it makes me look at text closer and understand. Like, I really have to look at the book to find good quotes."

Joan:

Students' comments about the two packets that Jen designed - one helped them to engage with and process their reading, and the other guided them through the essay-writing process - reveal that these materials helped students improve as readers and writers: students recognized that they had acquired new knowledge and methods that they willingly employed to help them understand more deeply and to communicate their understandings more effectively. The students described changes in their behaviors as readers - how they'd kept reading even when the text became difficult and less engaging, how they deliberately employed particular literacy strategies to aid their understanding. They also described changes in their personal attitudes: they were committed to reading texts even when discouraged by them because they now believed they could understand literature and that literature had something to offer them. If the slideshow of earlier classroom collaborative work was the tool Jen used to aerate the soil of the classroom garden after her student seeds had lain fallow during spring break, then the reading and writing packets acted as stakes that gave new literary and human understandings both direction and support as they reached skyward.

While students' comments make no reference to the copious post-it notes that adhere to numerous posters around Jen's classroom walls, I feel compelled to mention them as a material crucial to Jen's students' success. So much of Jen's students' evolving thinking - later further developed in their literary essays - is captured in these brief character-centered renderings of text-based thought and questions, which live on the classroom walls, ever available for students' further additions and examination. Pastel flower petals, they flutter in the spring breezes and draughts created by the opening and closing of Jen's classroom door.