Pocahontas KWL Writing Activity

Amanda Welsh
October 9, 2017
 Pocahontas KWL Chart
Reflection:

In my 4th grade class the students had been reading Blood on the River for the past month

so when it came to figuring out a topic my teacher suggested basing it off of Blood on the River.

Since the students had been spending so much time on it, I thought why not, however, I later had

a conversation with my teacher about how majority of the readings done within 4th grade is told

from the point of a view of a male. I realized then that I wanted to do something that was about a

female or involved the perspective of a female. After considering the information I had at hand, I

decided to find a passage about Pocahontas. I knew the students would have some background

knowledge either from what is said about her in the book, from watching the movie, or from

discussions with peers. The passage I chose was from

https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/pocahontas/, which was important because of the

many untrue stories that are told about Pocahontas. I wanted the students to read true, factual

information on Pocahontas because many of them may have seen the movie which doesnt tell

the true story. I essentially had the students reading an informational text about Pocahontas

because it was engaging them with the disciplinary theme of Jamestown and Native Americans

that they had been covering in Blood on the River and social studies instruction. I wanted to

make sure the students had some background knowledge on the topic because I thought it would

be easier for them to make the connections in order to fill out the KWL chart.

When it came time to implementing the lesson due to scheduling conflicts I had to do this

one on one with students and I was only able to do it with three students. I pulled each of them

back one at a time and they were from different reading levels. Two students were from the high

level reading group and the other was from the middle group. When I pulled them back I told

them they would be helping me with my homework like they had the previous week with the
writing assignment. I then explained to them what they were going to be doing. I took the time to

explain what the KWL chart was and what they would be filling in each column. I then told them

they would be filling out the first two based on what they knew and what they wanted to know

about Pocahontas. I then instructed them that they would be reading a short passage about

Pocahontas in which they would then fill out what they learned, if anything. As I was working

one on one with the students, I realized after a few minutes students were struggling to come up

with other things that I knew they knew about Pocahontas, so I began to ask them questions I

knew they could answer. I began to scaffold with the students in order for them to complete the

KWL chart but I knew that needed to happen because in Develop Reading Comprehension it

states, throughout small-group discussion, you will need to support your students participation

by encouraging them to share ideas, scaffold their thinking, and coach their interactions (Stahl

& Garca, 2015, p. 109). After working with the students to complete the K and W portion of the

chart, I then handed them a paper with the passage on it and asked them to read it aloud to me.

When they were done reading all 3 immediately began writing things they had learned from the

passage before I could even ask them to tell me what stuck out to them. I asked them to tell me

what they found out and if what they found out answer any of the questions or statements they

wanted to know. Each student said they liked filling out the chart because it was easy for them to

see what they knew and what they learned. I know within my practicum class that the students

have never done a KWL because my CT told me when I told her thats what I was planning on

doing. Overall, I enjoyed doing the KWL chart because it allowed the students to think out loud

and allowed them to make connections to the prior knowledge they had had about Pocahontas

and build upon it.

 While I dont think my implementation of the KWL chart was unsuccessful, I do think I

could improve it in some ways. After reflecting about what happened when implementing the

KWL, I would definitely want to do it with a group of students rather than doing it one on one

because I think it would create more of a dialogic talk during the discussion of each piece of the

chart. Having the students be able to bounce ideas or thoughts off of one another would create

that dialogic talk rather than the monologic talk that seemed to be occurring when doing it one

on one. Part of the reasoning behind doing high level discussions such as a KWL chart, is

because they increase amounts of student talk, reduce amounts of teacher talk, and improved

students comprehensions of texts, especially students literal and inferential comprehension of

efferent (informational) texts (Stahl & Garca, 2015, p. 105) High level discussion like a KWL

chart would in turn have a more dialogic talk occurring, which is why I would do a KWL chart

with a group of students. I would also show the students what a KWL chart is and how one fills it

out and then I would have the students work with KWL charts in small groups with their peers.

Its important for me as the teacher to show them how one must fill out a KWL chart in order for

them to do it on their own. If the students had had prior engagement with the KWL chart I

believe the students wouldve been able to understand the reasoning behind me having them do it

as a comprehension strategy. I liked doing this KWL chart because I knew it would be easy for

the students to understand since they havent done high level discussions within the classroom.

While the informational text the students had read was straight forward, the students were

able to comprehend the factual evidence supplied to them from the text by completing the KWL

chart, which can be seen in the artifacts.

 References:

Stahl, K. D., & Garcia, G. E..(2015). Developing Reading Comprehension: Effective Instruction
for all students in PreK-2. New York, NY: Guilford.

Women in History: Pocahontas | Worksheet. (2016, October 07). Retrieved October 04, 2017,
from https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/pocahontas/