How to Create and Implement a Robust CI Classroom-Craig Sheehy

This session was for teachers who have material they have to cover because of a textbook or vocab lists or whatever.  Craig broke down how to take that information, those lists and make them work in a CI classroom.  I took notes, but I am fortunate enough that I don't really have anything that I have to teach beyond high frequency structures.  And, lucky me, we are working as district French teachers to get away from the textbook (again) and make our curriculum more about what kids need to know vs what the textbooks tell us they need to know.

Anyway, here are my takeaways from Craig's session:

Steps to create a CI-friendly curriculum when you have vocab lists you are supposed to teach:

1. Put the cognates in a column.  Those you will not have to teach because the kids should be able to figure them out very quickly.
2. The rest of the words go into three columns, MUST KNOW, NICE TO KNOW, and SUPERSTAR WORDS (for those crazy words like scuba mask that end up on vocab lists for some insane reason).  Also look at what grammar points you are supposed to be hitting and think of some target structures that you could use to kill two birds with one stone (vocab and grammar at the same time)
3. Take your MUST KNOW list and break it into chunks of 3 or 4.  That group will become your key structures for your story.
4. NICE TO KNOW words can be used as detractors (Did Joe walk to the door or the pencil sharpener?  In this example, door is a high frequency word that kids will need to know, but pencil sharpener does not necessarily need to be taught.)  You can also use these words in your set-up, extra details, etc.  Your main story will focus on the MUST KNOW words, but you can throw in some NICE TO KNOW words every once in a while.

The three steps to a story:

1. Background info: this is where you talk about all the things that aren't actually a part of the story.  Maybe our character just returned from Disney World and that is why s/he is calling her grandma.  You can use this for character development, to teach adjectives, or to teach weather.
2. Problem: The character has a problem (duh!)
3. Solution
4. Add a parallel character to compare/contrast/get extra reps.

Craig teaches on a block, and he teaches with LICT.  This is his schedule for each story (3 stories per chapter of the book).

Day 1 (and 2 if you aren't on block)-Establish meaning: could be through PQA, TeacherTalks (Phototalk, Proptalk, MusicTalk, ArtTalk, CurrentEventTalk, CultureTalk, StudentTalk, MovieTalk, ActorTalk, Gestures), or whatever you want to use.

Day 2 (or 3 and 4)-Ask a Story: Find your character, Create Background information for the story, Use parallel characters, Explain the problem, Use multiple locations, Think of potential props.  Your core story (what you re-tell, circle, etc) should not be more than 15 sentences..  Anything else that you add for interest or repetition of structures is good for students to hear, but you don't have to repeat that information.

Day 3 (or 5 and 6)-Reading: students could read the same story from class, a parallel story, an embedded reading, a prepared story (like what's in the book), or a fairy tale that uses the same structures.  This reading does not have to be exactly what happened during class, but it should use the same structures and be 98% comprehensible.

I really liked that Craig pointed out that our core story is what we should worry about drilling into our kids' heads.  Those 5-15 sentences are the ones that we want to pour out of our kids' mouths.  Anything else that I added (like a detail that the mother is secretly jealous of the dog) is just for them to listen to and to add interest to the story (unless I'm creating an embedded reading).  

Good stuff!