(502) 895-9500   |   info@ctlonline.org

The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning
Subscribe to 3 for Thursdays
Shop now
Donate
STRATEGY FOCUS

Block Party

PURPOSE

A Block party is a party in which members of a single community congregate to get to know others in the community. Similarly, the Block Party literacy strategy provides students an opportunity to informally share their specific work or ideas with members of the classroom community.  Students may respond to texts such as poems, quotes, cartoons, pictures, documents, articles or whole books. Their responses to the text may be a thought or opinion, written response, or visual representation.  While sharing, students mingle in the space, self-selecting who they would like to congregate with and rotating to different classmates as time allows.

PROCESS

  1. Provide students with a guiding question or prompt in which they respond by way of  a thought or opinion, written response, or visual representation. 
  2. Instruct students to mingle and take turns sharing their response with another student.
  3. Have students travel to at least three other peers to repeat the sharing and listening process.
  4. Debrief the process.

PROBING  QUESTIONS

CONSIDERATIONS

  • What was the most difficult part of the process for you?
  • How was your thinking similar or different from someone else?
  • How do the skills in Block Party transfer to another part of your life?
  • Introduce this strategy using a topic of high interest so students learn more about the process, rather than the content, the first few times they practice the strategy. 
  • Have students form triads or quads and share responses about implications for the topic being studied.
  • The whole group can share ideas and questions raised by the experience.
  • Quotes and texts may need to be excerpted rather than using the longer text.
  • This strategy can be paired with a Quick Write as the prompt.

SCAFFOLDS

General Scaffolds

  • Provide a sample prompt and do a think-aloud.
  • Model how to write a response.
  • Encourage students to access and use vocabulary resources and tools, such as anchor charts, word walls, word bank, and dictionaries.
  • Provide sentence stems and frames to help students get started with their written responses. Examples:
      • I think…
      • I was confused by…
      • On page___, paragraph ___, it states__
      • The evidence supports ____ by ____
      • The most difficult part is ___ because ___
  • Provide students with sufficient time to think and write.
  • Provide opportunities for students to respond in a variety of ways (e.g., pictures, text, mix of English and home language).
  • Use the Gradual Release model (I do/you watch, I do/you help, you do/I help, you do/I watch to provide scaffolding for students.
  • Model an example of what a verbal response might look/sound like prior to asking students to engage in strategy.
  • Provide sentence stems and frames to help students engage in Academic Dialogue with their peers. Examples:
    • What if…
    • I think I heard you say…
    • What does ___ make you think of?
    • I agree/disagree with you because…
    • Others may say that, but one could argue…

Scaffolds for Multilingual Learners

Entering/Emerging:

  • Allow students to access and use vocabulary resources in order to recount, argue, and explain.
  • Model how to write a variety of responses 
  • Provide examples of what student responses might look like
  • Allow students to respond in a variety of ways (e.g., pictures, text, mix of English and home language, etc.)
  • Provide sentence stems/frames and graphic organizers
  • Provide visual support (e.g., posters, photographs) for students to name and briefly describe objects, people, or places
  • Provide sentence stems and frames for stating main ideas and/or restating details of content-related topics, as well as connecting ideas to one’s experiences (in home language and English). 
  • Provide time for students to think and create an oral response (in home language and English)

Developing/Expanding:

  • Provide sentence stems/frames and graphic organizers
  • Provide examples of information presented objectively with a neutral tone
  • Provide examples of transitions to help students connect ideas 
  • Model examples of paraphrases and summaries that are presented orally
  • Provide sentence stems and frames for questions
  • Provide frequent opportunities for students to participate in both structured and less structured dialogue
  • Provide examples of clarifying questions that students might ask
  • Model how to generate new questions to maintain conversations

Bridging/Reaching:

  • Model how to convey sequence and show relationships among experiences and events
  • Model how to sequence a series of illustrated events 
  • Provide graphic organizer for block party responses

CONTENT APPLICATIONS

WORLD LANGAUGES

 Students ask one another questions about their daily routines in the target language.

SOCIAL STUDIES

 Students create a timeline of historical events.

SCIENCE

After creating an initial model to explain a novel phenomenon, students mingle with one another to share the ideas they represented in their models.

 

HEALTH & PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Students make a list of the physical, social, and mental/emotional benefits of being physically active and discuss with peers.

MATHEMATICS

Students explain how they worked the next step in a formula or an equation.

 

VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS

Students mix and mingle to discuss different types of dances and choreography. 

ENGLISH
LANGUAGE ARTS

Students mix and mingle to share their Quck Write response to a guiding question.

CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION

In a fire science class, students discuss firefighter safety techniques according to different scenarios.  

Sources

Beers, K. (2003). When kids can’t read, what teachers can do: A guide for teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.