Instructional Issue #2: Students have trouble adding sufficient text support to their Brief Constructed Response (BCR)

questions. Objective: After completing a series of blogging sessions with peers and the teacher, students will be able to produce a main idea BCR with a score of 2 or 3 on their own. Materials: Computer lab access 1:1 laptop access Wireless internet access Moodle account Document reader Wireless printer Kid Blog Account Reading comprehension stories (www.havefunteaching.com) Microsoft word BCR Assessment Pre-assessment BCR responses Reflection sheet

Class Period 1: 30 minutes during the Writing block This class lesson will take place in the Computer lab. 1. Using the document reader, as a class, we will revisit the BCR responses from the preassessment. Using the BCR rubric, we will score each response and discuss the reasoning behind the score. This will allow the students to see why BCRs are given a specific score. 2. The students will then blog a new response for the pre-assessment BCR. Class Period 2: 30 minutes during the Writing block This class lesson will take place in the Computer lab. 1. As a class, we will again revisit the new responses (written yesterday) for the pre-assessment BCR. Are the BCRs more successful now that they have been revised based on yesterdays discussion? Each student will be responsible for posting a response to another classmates blog. The response will discuss one thing that they improved from their first BCR response. The class will begin whole group for the revisiting of BCR responses. The students will then work independently to communicate their ideas to their classmates via blogging. 2. The teacher will later respond to each blog about the new response and give each student a score based on their revisions. This will help the students see how making revisions improved their BCRs as well as allowing them to see any other changes that should be made.

Class Period 3: 30 minutes during the Writing block This class lesson will take place in the classroom with the 1:1 laptops. 1. The students will pick one of the stories saved as a PDF file on the student G drive under Ms. Greers Class. (They know how to access this already). The stories are from www.havefunteaching.com. The first story is Housebreaking Herschel. The second story is The Great Banana. Giving the students a choice allows them to read the story that interests them more. The students will read the story they picked or use the audio read aloud tool to listen to the story being read. 2. The students will then blog a response to the BCR questions being used for this project. Give the story a new title. Using details from the story, explain why your new title is a good choice. This will be done independently. Class Period 4: 30 minutes during the Writing block This class lesson will take place in the classroom with the 1:1 laptops. 1. Today the students will use a BCR rubric to score other students BCRs. They will have access to an electronic copy of the BCR rubric posted on the G drive. We have already modeled how to score a BCR using the rubric in Class Period 1. The students will be responsible to scoring at least 3 classmates BCRs. They will complete the form and copy and paste the form onto a blog response to a classmates BCR answer. 2. Once the feedback session is complete, the students will each complete a reflection sheet in Moodle. This allows the student to reflect on the scores that their classmates gave them and will help to make improvements. Class Period 5: 30 minutes during Centers, 20 minutes during the Writing block. This class lesson will take place in the Computer lab. 1. During centers, the teacher will conference with the students to discuss the scores they were given on the BCRs by their classmates. We will also discuss the reflection sheets to see how the student felt they did. 2. Today the students will complete the BCR Assessment in Moodle. Each student will be assigned the assessment. They will have 20 minutes to read the story and answer the BCR question. They will have the rubric available to guide them with their answer.