Passion Projects as a LIteracy Programme

I've been devising a change for my literacy programme for my Year Six class - I don't know why I do this... well, actually, I DO know (it's because I am always trying to fine-tune my class programme to give the pupils the very best possible learning experiences...) but I have come up with (to quote Blackadder) "a cunning plan" to incorporate reading and writing by using the Passion Projects idea in a different way, one that will suit the way I operate...I'll try it out and see how it goes at least!

You can read my overview of intentions and term overview of topics here: click this link!

Basically, the plan is that at the start of the term I will offer up five different topics for literacy sessions - pupils will indicate which topic they are most interested in.  Guided groups will be developed from that, and I intend to incorporate relevant writing tasks alongside the reading tasks eg read an article about animal cruelty, write a letter to the SPCA commending them for their work - pupils may come up with ideas for writing as the unit progresses too (I want them to be guiding the direction of some of their tasks too...)

I need to have some aspect of control over the topics offered to the pupils as if I want to stay sane while building up the resources and lessons for four or five different groups I will need to keep certain limits on what is offered, while still giving pupils choices).  I have broken down some different topics into four terms - topics that twenty years of experience has shown are popular with pupils, while also trying to use topics that have relevant application to their world in 2015 and to have topics that will provide a good range of reading materials and writing contexts.

I have also aimed to cover a range of curriculum areas, with the topics being based on non-fictional themes, but choosing topics for which I will easily be able to find and incorporate fiction texts (ie in School Journal) that fit the theme as well, for instance in the unit about team sports we might read a narrative story about sportsmanship. I have also thought about topical events eg the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli and the Rugby World Cup.

I have thought of a range of EOTC experiences for the pupils to take part in at the end of their unit as incentives for completing a great range of tasks during the term. I have a goal to involve more parents, whanau (family) or community members as part of my class programme, so to have a couple of parents take a group of pupils for a morning fishing or to visit an exhibit at the aircraft museum, will be a good way to increase those connections.

For each unit, once I know which pupils are in that group, I will select the most relevant reading and writing learning outcomes to address, based on pupils' ability and next learning steps - these will be presented to the pupils for their comments and reflections on progress.

Wish me luck! I am off to start building up a class blog-post of online resources for each of Term One's topic units, as well as a Google Drive page for each unit (where the pupils of that group can look to find their independent task list, and I hope to also use the Google Drive for collaborated reflections and other shared tasks for each group/unit).