As I get ready to meet with my team to develop lessons for the start of the school year, I am trying to actively think about differentiation. I do think that it may be wise to keep students all on the same page for a bit at the beginning until they all know the routines in my room, and because I can’t divide up the class based on skill yet — because I don’t know them.
But I do think that teaching Language Arts lends itself to what I’ve decided to call, “informal differentiation.” This differentiation is just a natural part of the lesson. Our first lesson of the year is a name plate. These help students think about character/personality traits right away, and lead to their use in a writing assignment about themselves (a topic they can all be confident they know). Students use these on their desks for about a week, and then we grade them according to a check list (that the students see up front), and we then attach them to the wall. This is a way of saying, “Even thought this is Mr. Heyer’s classroom, this is your class and you’ve already made your mark on it.”
When students create the name tent, they all must have four words that describe themselves, four images that symbolize their values, and they must have their names on the front and on the back, and the style must be different on each. This leaves most of the assignment in each student’s hands. What are all the ways their assignments will be differentiated? When trying to think up traits, students may select from a list we give them, raise their hand and ask the whole class help think of a work, ask a neighbor, or work on their own. When designing their names, they may plan it out first or they may jump straight to ink — depending on their artistic abilities and confidence. When illustrating their values, they may print things out, glue things on, use a minimum of two colors, or use the full spectrum of color. It depends on what their values are.
I am not formally breaking up the class, or having them choose which of a set number of choices they want to take. Students, however, are being met where they are — in countless ways — and each year they enjoy the assignment and are successful!