Inside the Classroom: Andie Clark - Wilson Middle
Inside the Classroom: Andie Clark - Wilson Middle
Inside the Classroom is a series that visits Northwest ISD campuses throughout the year and highlights the magical moments that happen between teachers and students each and every day across the entire 234 square miles of NISD.
Written-response questions can often feel overwhelming for students, but when teachers find creative and engaging ways to approach them, it can make a world of difference. That’s exactly what Andie Clark at Wilson Middle School is doing.
For this week’s Inside the Classroom, we visited Ms. Clark who is helping her sixth-grade English students break down their responses, building their confidence along the way.
A teacher with five years of experience who is new to Wilson Middle this year, she started by greeting each student at the door with a fist bump, ironically while wearing a “Goose Bumps” shirt.
The class period started with students completing bell work, a warm up exercise in which they read a passage on their Chromebook and answered questions about the text’s grammar structure. Ms. Clark walked around the room and offered positive feedback as students worked.
Ms. Clark then led the class in a discussion about the questions. While discussing, they talked through different strategies students could use to answer similar questions on the STAAR. They used lots of terminology that had been discussed previously in the year, including a fun way to remember conjunctions as “fanboys.”
Next, Ms. Clark set her timer for 30 seconds and students put away their Chromebooks. As she counted down the final five seconds, students returned to their desks and were ready for the day’s main activity, a group breakdown of SCRs (short constructed responses).
SCRs and ECRs (extended constructed responses) are terms used by TEA for forms of written responses on STAAR tests. SCR and ECR questions are found on all STAAR reading language arts assessments, meaning these sixth graders will be seeing them for the fourth consecutive year when they take the test later this semester.
Ms. Clark and the class started by reading a poem aloud and annotating it, a common practice in middle school English classes in which students highlight important words, phrases and ideas.
She then directed students to colored pages in a basket in the middle of their desks. Each page had a question that could be similar to a STAAR question, such as “How does the poet use personification to describe the tree? Give examples from the poem.”
Next, students discussed as a group how they may answer the question, using the information they highlighted while annotating the poem.
Students grabbed a bag full of smaller slips of paper that were elements of an SCR. They worked together to order the elements and form a full SCR. Ms. Clark then led a discussion about the sample response and students compared it to the answers they came up with. They repeated this process for four questions.
“I’m walking around watching you work together,” Ms. Clark said. “And you are blowing my mind!”
Ms. Clark was positive and upbeat throughout the entire lesson, and the students noticeably followed her lead.
On the fourth and final question, Ms. Clark asked one person from each group to leave their group and move to another table to discuss their findings.
After completing this activity, just a few minutes remained in the class period, and Ms. Clark prompted students to complete an “exit ticket.” Students were asked to find additional figurative language in the poem and explain it on a Post-it note, then leave the note on the window as they left class.
After students left, Ms. Clark collected the notes and will use them to see what concepts students are grasping well and which may need some reteaching.
They all left with a stronger understanding of SCRs, but teaching is certainly not only about preparing for a standardized test. Ms. Clark’s positive attitude and belief in her students is instilling a confidence that will benefit them in life beyond the STAAR test in April.
Check back regularly all year as we continue to visit students and teachers throughout Northwest ISD and offer a rarely seen look Inside the Classroom.