Knock me Over Please

It's Saturday afternoon, cold and gloomy, typical Ohio weather first week of November. Winter is knocking on our door and letting me know it's right around the corner. Grocery shopping is done. Laundry is started. Dinner is almost ready for the oven, and I'm anxiously awaiting The Ohio State game tonight.  It's time to delve head first into grading the first round of persuassive essays.  There are 23 of them in a pile stapled together with their rubric, rough draft, peer editing, revisions and parent signature as the final editor.

First I read through them all quickly to get a feeling about the final paper. I have conferenced with every student at least once and most of them twice on this piece of writing.  It is considered a short piece with a strong lead and a strong paragraph with research to support their claim. We have already focused on research earlier in the year and created a persuasive poster with several different types of research. The lead was the focus for this piece and for most students their leads were excellent. Their research not so much.

Knock me over please (with a feather) I have preached and sermoned and explained and restated and what ever else I could say that research is NEW learning.  The focus word NEW. Not something you already knew. Research involves NEW facts that support your claim or can support what you thought you knew about your topic.  Stating the source is important.  As I finished grading, I realize where I need to begin next...with their own essays as their own mentor text. Giving them back their own writing and start with the same focus question: What is your NEW research? What didn't you know prior to writing this topic?  Hopefully they will knock me over with new insight about what research really means?  Any suggestions - I would love to know how you help your students with this issue.

Wonderful Word Wednesday: Snowmen at Night

One of my favorite things to do in teaching is to have professional conversations with new teachers.  I am very lucky this year because there are three new teachers to our school, and we have been meeting to discuss word study. I enjoy our conversations for many reasons.


*I LOVE talking to them about how to integrate word study into their entire day. They happen to teach 2, 3, and 4th grade so I have enjoyed thinking about WS from a primary perspective as well as sharing my intermediate experience.


*It is fun to walk by their room and see a display that we discussed or better yet when one of the teachers comes back to my room to tell me how they changed the display to meet their own classroom needs.


*Another positive for me is how I learn many new ideas from them because two of them have just graduated as well as all three of them have lots of energy which is contagious!
  
One of them gave me Snowmen at Night for a Christmas present to thank me for working with her. This was a new book for me and as I read it over the holidays I realized what a marvelous mentor text it will be for our class in 2011.


*Starting with the title I automatically had questions because I never thought about showmen at nighttime which is exactly what Caralyn Buhemer the author wants you to do as a reader. We will record the questions and search for answers.  


*The perspective of this book is perfect for Writing Workshop because we are focusing on persuasive writing, so I will use this book to reinforce points of view of snowmen which will be very fun for the students.


*It will be a great text to reinforce parts of speech, and I will use it primarily for adjectives with all the changes that snowmen go through as well as the creativity of designing their own snowmen.  As I read Katie DiCesare's blog Creative Literacy I thought it might be fun to allow the students to design their own 3D snowman since we will be having many indoor recesses.  Thanks Katie for idea.


I found this You Tube video of Snowman at Night which my class will love watching as a culminating activity.