In the previous blog, I said that I would have some examples of the poems that my students wrote. Well here they are! I hope you enjoy them. I thought it was pretty good work for 7 and 8 year olds.
Acrostic-Alexis acrostic-ally acrostic-jose i-poem-christian
acrostic-brett acrostic-jane acrostic-justin i-poem-cj
acrostic-jeraldine i-poem-emerald i-poem-emmy i-poem-lauren
i-poem-leron i-poem-mikaylen i-poem-pierson
Here is the lesson I did with my 2nd graders on poetry. We have been studying the earth’s landforms in social studies. Examples of their writing are still on their way…they’re working on publishing and editing them, but I wanted to go ahead and get up the invitation, plan, and rubric.
Where do I even start on this classes multi-genre projects? After many many long days and nights of cutting and pasting and researching and STAINING (oh the amount of tea bags I went through), I was so incredibly with my end result. I never would have created this project without this class, and the writing experience I gained in researching and writing. I was amazed at how many different aspects of Sarah Winchester’s life and time period I gained. This is something I will definitely try to incorporate into my classroom. I was definitely inspired by all of the presentations I saw tonight. It was so evident of the thought, time and consideration put into all of these works. I think the most important thing I will take away from this project is how it forced me to think outside the box. Never in my life would I have taken the time to write any of the poems I included, but once I got started writing, the words just seemed to keep on coming…I didn’t know I had it in me. I know that many of my students could possibly feel the same way if they’re just given that little extra push. Another thing I really liked about these presentations was the huge variety of topics that were chosen. I mean, in what other situation can you learn about Elvis and Loggerhead turtles in one sitting?!? Although we may be a very “Type-A” group, I’ll take that as a compliment, for we presented some of the most amazing and well thought-out artifacts for such a cut and dry assignment. I absolutely love how endless the opportunities are for creativity on this project.
I think somewhere along the way I missed posting on this chapter. But anyway, after reading about writing in the classroom I am surprisingly left feeling confident about what I do. I’ll admit that last year…like the chapter said, I was so focused on teaching writing to the 4th grade writing test that the children felt like they were writing for no purpose and they absolutely hated all of the mechanics of it. But this year, being in second grade is like a breath of fresh air. I had to totally switch gears because I was use to students who already knew how to write and now I had 24 students who were good writers if they got down five sentences. So early on, I started journaling with my students. It started out as just 20 minutes a day where they could write about absolutely anything to me, and I would write back to them. Now it has turned into a full blown writer’s workshop, and I love how I am able to assess each child one on one through conferences during our workshop period. I do want to keep in mind what the chapter said about giving the students a purpose to write about and things to write for a specific audience. Perhaps a special poem for their mothers and fathers for their special days coming up would be the ticket.
This chapter seemed to put into words exactly what I have been seeing this year. When my second graders first came to me at the beginning of the year, they were in no way ready to write a story. The process that a child goes through to learn how to write has become more and more evident as the year has gone by. I feel that one of the most important things I have done for my kids is read to them on a daily basis. This has not only helped them with the sequentiality of stories, but also the canonicity. When students are participating in our writer’s workshop, I am constantly referring back to books we have read as a class to help them move their own personal stories along. I liked the reference in the chapter to almost writing by creating a comic strip by portraying illustrations and emotions of characters. I might have to use this idea before the year is over!
Well, let me first say that these two articles SUCKED ME IN!! I am surprisingly really excited about wordless picture books. I have 2 ESL students in my classroom who are SEVERELY low and have struggled all year long with learning how to read and write. One of the students I am sure also has a learning disability in addition to the language barrier. I do small reading groups in my classroom and with these two students we have been building spelling words, reading emergent readers, and basically just working on the mechanics of writing the alphabet. This is a hard time of year for them to feel motivated and I really feel like letting them make a story to a wordless picture book would be EXACTLY what they need to feel success. I can’t wait to break up their normal routine and do this project with them. I think they will also be extremely interesting for them to see themselves how much they really know about reading and writing. I can already see the looks on their faces when they cut out the sentences to put with the pictures!
What is a multi-genre project?
What are the ingredients?
What is your recipe for HOW you might create a MG project?
* For me, I have to read about my topic as much as possible and find out as much as I can about a topic. In my case, I’m more than likely going to do my project on a person, so I need to find out as many facts about my person as possible. The next thing for me to do is to look at all of the different types of genres. I have to decide which genres fit the information I have gathered about my topic and go from there. Depending on the major events in a person’s life, I will choose different forms of writing. When you think back over the course of a person’s life, there are several defining moments in which there is a form of writing to be presented. Its my job to make these writings share the information I’ve gathered about a person.
WHAT TOPICS ARE YOU CONSIDERING FOR YOUR MG PROJECT?
* Sarah Winchester
* Cleopatra
* Howard Carter
* Molly Brown
How might you begin in your classroom?
What genres would you add to the list?
* In thinking about the people I might use for my project, a marriage license came to mind as well as a deed or last will and testament.
Which genres have you already taught?
* In my 2nd classroom, children are beginning to explore the different types of genres. So far this year, we have discussed fiction, non-fiction, fantasies, tall-tales and legends, historical fiction, and biographies.
Which might you choose to focus on in your classroom?
* Based on the interests of my students, the two genres that I would more than likely focus on is non-fiction and historical fiction. My students are so curious and hungry for information that my fact based books are generally the first off the shelf. They are constantly wanting to know more about a topic or about how things work, etc. I love how historical fiction incorporates so many fact based stories, but give the children a twist that they are able to relate to in some way shape or form. The girls in my class are very into the American Girls series and it is so neat to overhear their conversations of what life was like back then. They are constantly pretending to be Samantha on the playground and they even have tea parties and make sure they’re sitting with their ankles crossed and sip their tea with their pinkies up! My boys are mostly into books about animals and machines. I would love to explore these genres a little more deeply with my students so that they could potentially begin writing in some of these genres on their own when we have our free write time.
Think about one genre tin particular that you may introduce to your students.
* I am working with my advanced group of students on American Tall Tales and Legends. Each week we read a new tall tale and discuss the different aspects of the story. I also assign a “novel” idea to help extend their learning. This week, my students are learning about Kana which is a tall tale character that lives in Hawaii. (I’d never heard of this one before). Their novel idea for this reading is to create a travel brochure for Hawaii. They have to include places to visit, the culture, the food, etc. To gather the needed information for the brochures, I’ve reserved time in the library for them to check out books as well as time to look on the computer. Once they have gathered all of the information they can find, they will compile it all into a presentable brochure. I can’t wait to see what these students come up with, they’re generally pretty creative.
Here is a link to the revision of my journal invitation…If you want to see the front cover, I didn’t change anything on that and you can click on the previous link below in the first journal invitation blog.
This is my revised I poem…Let me know what you think please!
I love the idea of multi-genre writing. I really like how the kids have the opportunity to express what they have learned through several different formats as opposed to just the one cookie cutter research paper. After reading the Moulton article, it was interesting to see how this concept was taught to a glass of undergraduate English majors. I liked how the writer expressed the problems that the class encountered as they were engrossed in their work. It helped me see that even though problems arise, its good to work thorough things together to make grading and format decisions. I liked how a set number of genres were required and how if there was any question about the repetition of genres that the students were asked to incorporate another genre. On the flip side, after reading the article, I was somewhat confused about multi-genre writing simply because of the problems that were discussed. After reading the pages from Writing Without Boundaries, I was much clearer on what was expected of the students. I feel as if this is something that my 2nd graders can get really interested in. Especially my boys who are obsessed with football and baseball. I would love to be able to see how my students are able to express what they have learned in their own unique and creative ways. In addition to this, I found myself getting excited about our own multi-genre project. I honestly can’t think of a time where I have been told to choose a topic OF MY OWN INTEREST and read everything I can find on it. The only problem I seem to be having now is to narrow it down to just one thing! The other thing that I think is nice about something like this for adults is that its like a “time-out” just for you. Read something that you’re interested in, learn something you’ve been wanting to learn more about, but have never taken the time to do…show how you personally would present this information…the opportunities are endless and I LOVE IT! Its almost as much of a stress relief as the found poems were. It should be very interesting.
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