You are the Instructions

tbarrett — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:16:36 +0000

Last week I was pleased to have another opportunity to teach a lesson that we did for the first time last year. In this blog post I explain about how the literacy lesson worked out this time around, as I don’t think I wrote about it back in 2007. The lesson formed part of unit of work exploring instructional writing that is part of the new Primary Framework.

The idea for this lesson stemmed from discovering the excellent Videojug website that provides video instructions for just about everything, and more specifically the “How to fold a T-Shirt in 2 Seconds” video. You may have seen it on morning television, I just thought that this is a wonderful way of showing instructions; a new digital text that isn’t part of what we currently teach – but which clearly should be.

The structure of the lesson is based upon the children comparing and rating three different sets of instructions for the same process – folding the t-shirt in 2 seconds. After working with each set of instructions for a little while we rated the quality of layout, organisation, clarity and suitability. We used a little grid that you can see below.

We brought in loads of shirts for the children to use and to have a go at the folding technique – however I didn’t explain anything other than that they needed a t-shirt each and to follow the instructions. We began with a written version of the instructions that I made deliberately poor in terms of structure and layout, lacking bullet points or sub headings. The children struggled following the order of the instructions, quickly got frustrated and there was many grumbles about not being able to do it! Clearly we rated the instructions poorly.

The second set of instructions were much easier to follow and the children began remarking on the formatting that was facilitating the process. Yet still a lack of images in the instructions still caused confusion. Most of the children were not reading the first instruction carefully enough and due to a lack of visual clarification started with the t-shirt in the wrong position. Most children made good attempts but none managed to get the knack of the fold without those visual clues. We rated the instructions as being much better in terms of layout but still lacking the clarity we needed.

To the kids surprise the third set of instructions was a film from Videojug. We spent some time looking at the film together and the children began to understand what the written text seemed to be saying, but which they hadn’t made any connection with because of the lack of images to help illustrate the steps. The video made it very clear to them – in pairs they had a laptop with the same film loaded up and they paused and navigated the film as they independently practiced folding the shirts on the floor, tables anywhere that was flat. It was a folding fest!

Fast Folding:How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds – Explained.

It didn’t take long before we had children completing the fold correctly and obviously they were extremely triumphant in doing so. It was from this point on in the lesson that things began to turn golden! I listened and watched as some of the children demonstrated the fold for me – I then told them to teach other people.

There were children who really struggle with reading and writing helping their peers with the tricky fold. They had become the experts, the knowledge bearers and they were empowered by it. Then they would come beaming back to me and say, “I have taught 6 other people and they can do it on their own!” The children had become the instructions and the laptops, videos and written instructions became irrelevant. They proved the best instructions of all – a demonstration from a peer.

By the end of the lesson all of the children could complete the fold and the majority of the children had passed on their knowledge to a friend – the process had become viral in the way it spread through the class. A lovely session that helped the children understand the importance of visual elements in some types of instructions and in which we had loads of fun.

It is a memorable hour in our term so far as it combined practical, written, visual and social strands of communication, it went beyond my expectations which is always good and it empowered some children that often never feel that in their day.

ICT in my Classroom » videojug

You are the Instructions