Using Inquiry Circles to Teach Content Area

Back in December I wrote about how I have been experimenting with inquiry circles.  You can read that post here.  I have continued implementing ideas I learned while reading the book, Comprehension & Collaboration: Inquiry Circles for Curiosity, Engagement and Understanding by Stephanie Harvey and Smokey Daniels.  During the winter I began an inquiry unit on slavery and the Underground Railroad.

First, I would like to say that this topic is not part of our official third grade social studies units.  So, why did I choose this topic? Over the years that I've taught elementary school I have noticed a lot of confusion surrounding African American history.  I've had numerous students after reading about Martin Luther King Jr, ask if he "freed the slaves". While reading various picture books that either focus on an African American or a topic in African American history I have many students ask questions during the reading that often surprise me.  One such question is, "What is a slave?" And while I always answer these questions I have been surprised at how many of my students are either confused about or don't know just a little bit about our African American history.  Their knowledge at best is very superficial.  And when I do answer questions I often feel like I am just skimming the surface and there is so much more I would like them to know! Every time I share books or talk about Martin Luther King, Jr and the civil rights movement I have felt like there was a big piece missing.  So that question that so many of my students had: "What is a slave?" or "What is slavery?" turned into an inquiry circle.  It wasn't long until that question morphed into "Why was there slavery?".

I began by reading several picture books to introduce the topic of slavery in America. One of my favorites was Now Let Me Fly: The Story of a Slave Family by Dolores Johnson.  It is a fictional story about a young girl kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery. It is not a pleasant story and doesn't have a happy ending, but my students were riveted, shocked and had so many questions afterward. This is exactly what I wanted - they had bought in and wanted and needed to know more.

I decided to use the Underground Railroad Scholastic website for our internet research.  It it well put together, in chronological order and used a lot of primary documents as well.  In addition, it gives students the ability to listen to the text as well.  This was important since there was so much new vocabulary and the text could be challenging at times.  Students would work in partnerships to read, discuss and take notes on each section of the website.  Each partnership used one computer.  This kept them focused on collaborating. This portion of the research took a LONG time due to limited access to computers and the fact that they are 8 and 9 years old!  There were many lessons on collaboration - how to listen and have a conversation. There were lessons on how to read and understand the text - how to reread, how to notice when you are confused, noticing important vocabulary, asking further questions.  There were note-taking lessons - using 3 column charts to note our new learning, questions and important vocabulary, learning to reread our notes often.  Periodically, we had whole class discussions about our learning and questions.  An important idea that we explored was noting our misconceptions.  As students began to read about the Underground Railroad I knew it would be difficult for them to understand that it was not a real railroad.  There were several days of discussion before most of the class began to realize it was a symbol or metaphor for escape. (They did not use those terms!)

When we weren't in the computer lab or using the chromebooks with our school librarian, we were reading the book, If You Lived When There Was Slavery in America by Anne Kamma.  This is a great non-fiction books for third graders because each chapter or section has a question as the title.  Students were divided into cooperative groups.  I gave each group a different set of chapters from the book to read together and take notes on.  Later each group taught the rest of our class their sections of the book.

As our research started to come to a close I began thinking of ways my students could share what they learned.  I decided to have them write slave narratives.  Each student would tell their story as an escaped slave, writing in first person.  In addition, I decided to have them do this in a Google document.  This would be the first time they would type a long piece of writing in Documents. Prior to this they had only used Google Presentation and Draw, but this had provided the practice they needed to get familiar with the keyboard.  They clicked away with one or two fingers fairly quickly! A link to their slave narratives is available on our class blog.  Just scroll to the bottom of the page.

During the time I was planning this inquiry unit a discussion began on twitter and other social media regarding the depiction of slaves in the book, A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall.  I read all the tweets, blogs and comments surrounding the book and hope I have learned a lot and am a better teacher because of these discussions.  But I will admit that I was even more nervous about teaching this unit!  What if I did it wrong?  I am white.  Do I have enough understanding of the topic to teach it to my students?  Yikes! But then I thought back to the 8 year old Debbie, back in third grade, in 1968, living and going to school in a suburb where everyone looked like me.  That little girl went to the library and checked out a book on Harriet Tubman.  That little girl cried and cried over that book.  That little girl wondered why she hadn't learned about Harriet in school. That little girl went back to the library to learn more.  It's with that little girl, that little Debbie (pardon the pun) in mind, that I tried to create an inquiry circle that would encourage my students to learn more.  

I will close with one last story.  As students were peer editing their documents I heard this comment. "Your narrative is so good, it makes me want to cry." 

Google Drive in Third Grade

My school district has recently introduced Google Apps for Education. I've used google docs myself for awhile now, mostly to share with teachers I meet through my twitter account.  I've never used it with students.  This year I moved from second grade to third grade.  This required a move to an intermediate grade 3-5 school, which has a computer lab.  I was excited to be able to explore ways we could create, share and communicate using technology!

In our district each student has been assigned a username and password for Google Drive.  The username is very long and includes our school district name - Comsewogue - which I imagined would be a challenge.  I created an index card for each student that included their username and password.  These cards are held in a small basket which we bring to the computer lab.  Their first assignment was to just sign in to their account.  For most of the class this took nearly the entire 40 minute period.  It took several students a couple lab periods to sign on to their account.  After a month or so some students have their information memorized and most can sign-in fairly quickly.

A ROCKY START
For our first experience I thought would share a document with them and teach them how to chat using the commenting feature.  We were going to begin a new read aloud chapter book soon, so I thought instead of doing the introduction and predictions in the typical fashion we would do it through a google document.  Students were so excited!  The first problem happened when I failed to mark comment only on the document.  So even after modeling how to comment correctly, students began to type on the document, delete items and even make bizarre comments.  It was actually hilarious to watch on my screen in real time.  It was a great teachable moment for both myself and students.  The following day I showed them how we could look at the history and see what got changed and who was responsible.  The nice thing was that only their user number appears, not their actual name - so no one was embarrassed.

GOOGLE DRAW & PRESENTATION
Next, I introduced Google Draw.  I showed students the different functions and just let them do a free draw before assigning any particular projects.  I think of Google Draw like I would a poster, or a page in their learning log.  It has both drawing and text features, so I could see endless possibilities.

In math we had been working on multiplication so I decided to introduce Google Presentation and have each student write a multiplication story problem using 2 slides.  The first slide was for the story problem and the second slide was for the answer to the problem.  Presentation has many similar functions as Draw so students were able to transfer their understanding easily.   I taught them how to use the research tool to find clip art to go with their story.  I thought learning how to share documents would be a challenge, but most students had no difficulty.  To make it easy for sharing I shared a document with a list of everyone's account numbers, including mine.  You can view our completed slide show with our Multiplication Stories here on our class blog.

COLLABORATING
For the next project students worked in pairs to create a Circle Thinking Map for the main character, Albie, in our read aloud, Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff.  They used Google Draw and learned how to draw objects and move them to the back to create layers.  When they were finished we printed them out to hang up in the classroom.

Most of my students don't have a lot of experience with technology beyond using their parents' smart phone and playing video games.  Some have access to ipads and computers at home, but many families do not have computers or Internet access beyond their smart phone.  These students come from a primary building that is restricted to 2-3 desk top computers, so I knew there would be a wide range of computing abilities depending on experiences at home. Other than the difficulties with signing on my students caught on very quickly.  In fact, computer "experts" emerged quickly and instead of waving their hands in the air and waiting for me, they started helping each other out.  Most naturally figured out things like how to use the tabs in Chrome to toggle between documents.  Using the computer was very motivating and those students that often need lots of redirection in class were very engaged in the assignments.  Of course the biggest challenge is that I was only able to sign our class up for 3 periods a week in the computer lab. (We have over 17 classrooms, so I am lucky that I got 3 periods.)  Just like any other classwork there are those students who lag behind and need extra time to complete work.  This is an easy fix in my classroom, but challenging nearly impossible in a computer lab setting.  I tried creating a "catch up" day, but that means that these slower working students often don't get to do all the assignments.  While they catch up, the rest of the class is trying something else. I want every minute of our computer lab time to be productive for all my students, so I am still working this out.  Of course I know what you might be thinking!  Students can use Google Drive at home and finish their work.  In a perfect world this might be ideal.  However, most of those students that need extra time also need extra help.  And like I mentioned earlier, my students don't all have access to the Internet at home.

There are so many wonderful tools for students to share, create and communicate using technology.  Google Drive is just one option for my students.  I would love to hear how you have used Google Drive with your class, especially if you are an elementary student.