So I have written about reading in the hallway with the one word images (OWI) in a previous post. This year I took it a little further and incorporated it into the quarter assessment.
Each class had made at least three OWI. I had the students to go into the hallway and spend three minutes on each character and take notes. The students could only write notes in the 'notes' section and around the character picture. Since the writing is only in the TL there was no translation. The students focused on what they knew best. Then they had one minute in which they could 'steal' vocabulary or story ideas from another character. Students loved the idea of stealing vocabulary or ideas from the stories from other classes. It gave them the chance to read more!
We then returned to the classroom and discussed the three characters and our notes for five minutes in the TL. While they discussed they could take notes on what others said as long as it was in the TL.
After the discussion the students had a total of thirty minutes to write about each of the three characters. I let the students know each time ten minutes passed so that they could stay on track.
The result was fantastic. I had three writing samples from each student. I could see what they understood in reading from the notes and what they were able to do with the language. The hardest part was assigning grades because I could SEE how much each student had grown. I was so proud of them.
So take some time and put those beautiful OWI up in the hallways. Then use them!
