Mrs. Hodges and I teach English 8, and we are hurriedly preparing our students for the Writing 8 SOL which takes place on March 14th and 15th. We implemented the concept diagram on February 8th to describe essential characteristics of essay writing in written composition. We were very pleased with how engaged students were in the process and the level of critical thinking skills evident by classroom discussion. On the following day, students were able to recall essential essay characteristics resulting from the completion of the concept diagram. In terms of what challenges we faced, next time I will try to ask more open-ended questions during the co-construction phrase with the class. I found I was asking questions that were more guiding in nature. Overall, we are very pleased with the students' level of retention, and we plan on implementing another concept diagram for essay writing in the next week!
