Allison’s Update: In the Beginning

Oct. 16, 2007
TUESDAYS

Yay!!!! After having been in school almost once a week for the last month, finally, I was able to start teaching this week. There were some last minute surprises and issues, of course, but finally I am underway. The upper grades now have smaller class sizes and they welcomed a new teacher, Ms. Pogue, in to teach a mixed 5th/6th grade class. This was supposed to happen before October, but happened early last week, and initially another teacher was hired. I went in and met with the first hire and gave her all the Springboard info., etc., only to come back in this Monday to find a new teacher. So I began again, but luckily, Ms. P. seemed quiet excited to have me come in.

And then Tuesday I began. My first class was to be with Ms. V.’s special ed. class. I have worked with students in special ed classes for the last three years, but I have always had them mixed with other classrooms. Ms. V. advocates hard for her kids to have the same opportunities and she asked me if I might be able to fit them in, so I worked out a short class (40 min) with her students. I was actually very excited for this group. Ms. V. and I spoke at length about their issues and what she would like to see done with them. She wants them to complete short book reports each week about their library books. The forms are comprised of finding info. about the books and then writing short summaries and recommendations. She says she can get almost nothing out of them. So I drew up a whole plan for thenext few weeks building up to working on this, though I figure to get started we have to get them excited about reading. To get them excited about reading, they need to be excited about the power of words and to do that, they need to have a better command over the words they use. So we are going to focus on the building block of words.

This Tuesday, they came to me late, so my ideas were a bit truncated, but we did have time to discuss what we would do in the room (to much excitement for all these first-timers) and begin to introduce ourselves. I borrowed Sally’s idea of the Animal names, though I did not yet introduce the concept of alliteration. Even with basic sounds, they were having some troubles. I asked what animals started with an A, and the first answer I got was “crocodile”, which was interesting, because the thinking was right. I repeated the directions for an A animal and heard “monkey”. but we eventually got to alligator. Slowly, they got the idea. R. and T. took off running with it and had their names immediately and then turned to help their classmates. It was a great way right off the bat for me to see their vocabulary skills, their social skills, and begin to gauge their reading level. I think I am going to have to plan on wide activities that can be completed at different levels so as to allow for them all to succeed and be challenged appropriately. But we will work our way up to those book reports. They were so excited, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to work with basic literacy with them. It will look different from what I usually do, but should be great.

My second class on Tuesday was 1/2 of Ms. W.’s 6th grade, the group slated to do the Biography Project with the guest speakers. She put a lot of thought into who would be in which group and we had discussed some ideas and directions for her students throughout the year. That group came in (11, which will be 12, though I had aked for 8-10) and they were ready. We discussed expectations and the opportunities they would have this year that others would not, and they seemed truly excited. To further begin to introduce the concept of biography, we needed to discuss genre, a word no one knew.

I gave them each a notecard, and since no one knew the word, I said it did not matter who was right, that we were going for persuasion and creativity. They were asked to figure out what part of speech they thought the word “genre” was, then write a definition and use it in a sentence. I gave them five minutes, they they worked in pairs to help revise their definitions and make them more convincing. Then we read them out loud and voted for our favorites. I have to say, all were pretty good. The two or three that were especially convincing were so because of the detail and the way they wrote their definitions, which proved a nice mini-lesson on why certain writings might be “better” than others as we read.
Definition: A person in jail
Sentence: My dad is in genre for two more years.

Definition: a special type of dance
Sentence: Let’s get up and genre on the dancefloor.

Eventually one student did remember what the word meant and he wrote it out correctly, but no one voted for that one, which was funny. We laughed and because they had to say the word over and over, hopefully it sticks. Eventually, after the real meaning was discovered, they brainstormed some types of genre and we decided to pick back up there next week. The Genre Balderdash Game was a huge success, and definitely a way we will work on vocabulary again.

Oct. 30, 2007
2ne Graders and 1/2 of the 6th grade

Since the first week, we have met two more times. My group from Ms. V. of special ed kids has been added to. I have folded in 3 second graders at the request of their teachers. We discussed at length the activities I would be doing and where everyone is developmentally and decided to try folding them in. Two sessions later and it seems to be working well. Despite their being some age difference, they each undertake our lessons in a manner that suits their learning styles. And one of the nicest things to watch is how they help one another– with ideas, with spelling, with their actual handwriting, with checking their work. There is great teamwork and definitely some leaders emerging from the older kids, particularly R., who is a great speller. I keep telling their teachers thank you because this group is such a joy to work with and so well behaved and enthusiastic.

With this group, we are starting slowly. We have been “brainstorming” because that process is very accessible and non-intimidating for people who are having a touch time with writing. To diver further into our animal names and ideas of alliteration (though we’re still not calling it that), we began by making lists of words that started with the same letter of our names. I showed them posters we would create with all our brainstorming on their, showcasing our letters, adding our lists, and then some color. This week, we added a new list: Words That Describe Me. We all started with nice and smart and then they moved on. They had great ideas and asked me how to spell “energy”, and “quiet”. D. said she was sad because in her classroom she usually sits in the back and doesn’t have any friends, but that she was only sometimes sad because she likes the R4W. When I was picking up the 2nd graders, S. and I were waiting in the hall and he said he’d been thinking of new words over the week and he wanted to add “statue” and “steps” to his list– pretty good considering Ms. C. said he wasn’t doing well with the same concepts in her class. So I am very pleased with all their progress and work, and most pleased with the fact that they are thinking about words all week and getting excited. It helps us to continue to build.

The sixth grade group is going well also. We are still working with the concept of genre. We spent time as a group brainstorming different types of genres and come up with a pretty good list of about 15. In pairs, they then made Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting any two genres they chose. It gave them good experience with compare/contrast and graphic organizers, as well as more independent thinking about genres. We also began writing in our journals about whos lives we were interested in learning more about, or whom we might want to speak to if they were still alive. Some responses follow:

S.S.- “The person I would like to learn more about is Nelly. He is a great rapper. He also try to save rap because people are say rap is bad. But he said, “Children can listen to rap and sing it and still make good grades.” He is a good person.”

O.N.- “My grandfather died and I would like to talk to him. I would say hi, how are you and how are things in heaven and can you describe it to me. I would also say how was it when you was living down here on earth. I will also like to ask him to tell me more about hmself and what was the modt thing he loved on this earth and why. I would like to know also who did you love and why did you want us to worry because you are in good hands.”

Several wrote about wanting to talk to parents that had passed away, so they could know them and understand themselves better. many wanted to learn more about the lives of family members who had been shot so they could understand. One or two did mention great historical figures, but almost all chose people they knew, which shows how much they are craving information about their own identities. It was a good way to start getting them interested about biography and for them to start thinking about the sorts of things they might want to ask people.

In this Tuesday 6th grade group, I have been slightly disappointed with the behvior of the boys. they come around, but I have to keep giving directives, which is tiring. The girls have been very good– especiall O. and M. who are very serious about being there.

THURSDAYS

The Thursday groups are comprised of an earlier session with 5th graders from Ms. P’s class and a later group of the rest of the 6th grade. I am trying to do the same lessons with both groups, as they level of learning is very similar (they are the high level 5th graders). The first week, all four of my groups wrote letters and all four received letters in eturn from me– on nice stationary, and long. I wanted to begin the year with something going back and forth between us. If I am going to ask them to write honestly, it helps if they see me do it with them.

From there, we began playing games with the basics. The first week, we drafted lists of varying things– rules for the room, things they wanted to see in the room, things that made writing good and bad. Then they used the microphone to read them and we discussed what they thought. It works much better than me telling them what to think, and generally they come up with a pretty standard list that we can add to.

Last week, we played games where they had to name the most parts of speech with correct examples, and brainstormed writing conventions to begin to discuss the functions of these rules on our writing, reading, and understanding. And then, we did one that always surprises me by how much fun they have. I tell them there are 14 pieces of punctuation. They have to name it, write the symbol, and give an example of how it’s used. One 6th grade group came up with 13. Several groups wrote the ellipsis, many naming it “and so on”, but they at least had the right idea. Often, they have a tough time with what’s a symbol (equal sign or @), versus a piece of punctuation, so I go back and ask them what directions something might give us in a sentence, or does it stand in for something else. They do really really well and seem to delight in playing this game. the 6th grade groups especially were super serious and engaged, especially J.,C.,R., and E. who are emerging as the studious leaders of this group and making everyone else want to follow suit.

I am taking a different approach this year, really starting with the basics everywhere, hoping to really teach why we do things, hoping the how will follow once it all makes sense and seems less arbitrary. Classes have been fun.

Brainstorm examples:

Why writing can be bad because of:

K. and B. “shyness”
J.,J., and D. “not thinking before you write”

6 Reasons Why People Write (by K. and B.)

express their feelings, persistence, to show entertain, determination, to teach you things, learn more, you get to make your own biography

(one reason by K. and R.)
“because they need to write to get through their life”

It seems to me that they understand what I hope to reinforce, that writing is part of who we are as people. It’s about telling others things and them understanding us. It’s communication, and in short, language gives us power. I think they’re off to a great start.

-Allison

Scary Things

Yesterday with Mr. M’s imaginative fifth graders, we read Maya Angelou’s poem, “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All.” We talked about how this poem is a list of what the speaker is not afraid of. We made a list on the board of things the students were scared of and things they weren’t. Sometimes things were on both lists, like “water bugs.” We talked about creepy things in our houses and our neighborhoods. In response, students wrote list poems or stories. Here is one below:

Things in My House
By L.

Once upon a time there was this old family who lived on Cote Brillante in the house where I live now. It was an old woman and an old man who got killed in my room where I sleep every night. Their bloody hand prints glow in the dark and the drawers open and close. Their spirits start flying around my room, and they say, “Why don’t you help me?” and I say I didn’t know you old people. Then it feels like the spirits go in and out of my body every night. One day it was a Friday night when I was watching, “Bloody Mary.” My TV upstairs came on by itself and my grandma’s old rocking chair started rocking. Then the washing machine came on by itself and everybody got a knife out. I grabbed some popcorn and a pizza knife. And guess what happened next? The rest is an urban legend to be continued…

WEEK 5- Schaenen: MAKING A CASE

FOURTH GRADE

Both sections of fourth grade were presented with the same lesson this week. Inspired by the research I have been doing regarding the use of genre theory to design and plan lessons, I came in excited about locating ALL writing activities in the realm of choice-making. Before deciding upon the form of a text, writers need to ask themselves: what is the purpose of this text? The social purpose, the artistic purpose? How and why do scientific reports look different from autobiographies (generally)? What choices does a writer make when she/he decides to express the essence of a thought or feeling in a poem rather than in a story?

And so I posed this question in the first hour: What kinds of forms can writing come in?

Given the paragraph I opened with above, you can imagine my amusement and surprise to receive these answers:

“Writing can be cursive or print.”
“You can write in A-B-C order.”

“Hmmmm,” I said. “That’s very true.”

At which point I clarified my language and instructed the students to think in terms of categories of kinds of writing, like fiction, non-fiction…letting my voice trail off in expecation of hearing some more categories (genres) from them. Together, with lots of probing and prodding, we generated a list on the post-it flip chart that included drama, interview, sermon, debate, argument, biography, autobiography, and of course fiction and non-fiction.

We then talked about persuasive arguments (again, like last week), and they set about making arguments, thinking them up and writing them down. The main rule was that “you couldn’t use ‘I’” in your writing. You had to state the opionion, then present some facts to support it, then conclude. In the course of discussing the activity, the we decided to “play court room” with the final arguments. If two people picked two different sides to a question – why cake is better than pie, or why pie is better than cake—the class was the jury and voted on which case was made more convincingly. This all was very much fun and in good spirit. For the most part the genre was adhered to fairly strictly. One one student began her argument by saying (to me), “Dear Judge.” A touch of the epistolary hybridizing the form! A few people snuck an “I” in their work.

One trial was argued between ways of wearing hair: “curls” and “flat iron.”

Example:

Curls are better than flat iron because when flatiron gets wet they fall when curls get wet sometimes when curls get wet they fall but it’s much easier to put them back up. Also curls are really useful for when you’re trying to look perfect and flatiron is very simple so they don’t really shine. Also some people hair is not very long and flatiron looks better with people who has long hair but curls you could just curl the bottom and they look very pretty. So judge that’s why I think curls are better than flatiron.

Another:

Flatirons are better than curls because they last longer. Also you can do many hairstyles with them. Then you can put all kinds of head bands in your hair but with curls they would get messed up at the top of your head. When it rains and you get caught outside flat irons don’t fall they just stay the way they is but curls would fall and get raggedy.

Another example: in favor of freestyle bikes rather than bikes with brakes.

Freestyle is better than brake the reason’s because the brake can get messed up and can get stuck on the chain and mess up your bike the spokes make your bike look better and the freestyle makes your pedals go back and forth.

Pies is better than cake because pies is tasty. You can make pumpkin pie and apple pie. Cake is just not good because the calories in the cake just do not give you energy. Pies have fruit in it but cake do not have fruit in in. Cake have lots of calories but pies have one or two calories. Cakes is good but pies are better. Cake are bad for you.

THIRD GRADE

We did our LIFELINE lesson – the number line with years instead of numbers, good things remembered put on top of the line and bad things underneath. One girl, A., worried, “I don’t know anything about me” but then remembered some interesting facts. They spent a while jotting notes on the lifeline and the took paper and wrote out some details about one of the things on their lifelines.

Here are a few:

DF: When I had a birthday I didn’t get anything for my birthday present but I didn’t mind anyway because I am going one Saturday and my mom gave me the biggest present of all love!

D: When I was three and someone hit me with a brick. I had to go to the doctor. The brick hit me in the ear. It was so painful. My mom said I had to go to the doctor. I was scared.

[Amazing] KH:
When I was four I did not have to go to school and my dad lived with me. But then my dad moved when I was like 5 or 6 and I was crying because I did not want him to go and I thought he was in jail but he was at my grandpa house. Now I see him every weekend. When I was 6 I cut my knee really, really, really bad I fell down and I fell on some glass and the reason I was really mad because I was walking home with my sister, brother and my brother’s two friends. Then, it is a corner store right down from my house but before I got to my house I went in there because it was bad. I came in crying and everybody looked at me that was buying something. The blood was all on my sandal I was wearing sandals cause it was summer. Then I got home when I got a bandaid from the store. My mom was not there I told her about it when she got home. She gets home at 11 p.m. The next day I did not go to school. The End.

[Notice that in one paragraph a particular SE/AAE thing: “at my grandpa house,” which is the AAE construction for possessive (object possessed situated right next to the posssessing noun) , and “my brother’s two friends,” which is the SE construction for possessive (apostrophe after the possessor followed by the object). This second grader is making use of both – now just needs to understand which is right for which kinds of audiences/purposes.]

THIRD GRADE

We also talked about genre, and then the students wrote arguments whose purpose was to convince someone that some X is better than some Y. Some students did not use ‘I’: others did. The class settled down and wrote quietly today right away.

KH:

TGI Friday’s is better than Gundlach’s food. TGI Friday’s has good cheese burgers. Gundlach has crusty old cheese burgers. Gundlach has old, smelly hot chocolate milk. TGI Fridays has fresh good cold milk. TGI Friday’s has the whole world coming there Gundlach have less people coming to the school. TGI Friday’s have good cameras Gundlach have old rusty cameras.

[We have been emphasizing that WHATEVER the form the writing assumes (whatever genre you choose) you try to use descriptive, meaningful, interesting words – “crusty old cheeseburgers,” “old smelly hot chocolate.” The rhythmic repetition of several adjectives before each one of those noun clauses are a wonderful way to make a point. This is a natural rhetorical device!]

KP:

CAKE AND PIE
Cake is better than pie because cake have ising a pie got crust. And cake is very good than pie. I love cake but I hate pies. And because I don’t eat pie I just eat cake.

LP:

WHY DOGS ARE BETTER
Why dogs are better than cats because dogs are guide dogs. Dogs can cheer youvup. Dogs will listen to your directions. Dogs can help you. Dogs will love you. Dogs won’t run away. They stay by your side. They never bite you. That’s why dogs are better than cats.
[Verbs consistently SE]

JC:

Football is better than basketball because in basketball because people get hurt from dunking the ball. And football is better than basketball because in foootball you get to throw the ball and run the ball and play defense.
[Verbs consistently SE]

Verb structures to think about reviewing with this class based on the examples above:

AAE: He, she, it HAVE [Ex: “Gundlach have rusty old cameras.” “cake have icing”
SE: He, she, it HAS

Sally Salamander and the Wild Things

This is my second week with a small group of Mr. Marks’ fifth graders. Today we read, “Bear in There,” by Shel Silverstein. I asked the students to spend 10 minutes writing a poem in which an animal appears somewhere unexpectedly. Here are a few of their responses:

About a Rabbit Who Tried to Eat All My Food

by J

A rabbit ate the fish on my dish.
I saw him eating, sleeping, now he
is back sneaking for some carrots,
and he jumped on my fake parrot
to eat my cereal, but I took my cereal
and threw it!

The Bear in My Classroom

By T

There’s a bear in my room
with nothing to do.
He’s eating on my desk
and making a big mess.
He’s sniffing the floor
and scratching the door.
He’s trying to get out
but there’s no way out
so the big bear roars
and gives us a big shout.
The class ran to the room
and saw the bear and ran
outside with such a scare!

The Lizard Queen

By L

There’s a big fat lizard in my frizzy freezadaire.
She likes it cozy and comfortable, slizzy slizzy care
and her slipper whippey tail on the bottom of the shim.
She’s munching on ice, she’s nibbling on cream.
Look! There she goes, a big lizard queen!

Form and Function: Arguments and Thank-you notes

FOURTH GRADE

First hour

We began with a little chat and board work about Ebonics and Standard English. The conversation – as it often does – wades through very strong cultural biases internalized by the students that suggest Ebonics is “slang,” “bad English,” “not proper,” “swear words,”and all the rest. I try hard to affirm the rule-based nature of Ebonics as well as the decision-making I’m talking about – “you have the power to decide where and when you speak what,” I say. In some places, Ebonics is correct. In other places, Standard English is correct. I also say that people who speak standard English certainly swear, so that’s not what defines Ebonics, either.

“Ms. Schaenen, do you swear?”
“Sometimes. But I try not to swear around my children or you students. And it usually only happens if I bump my head hard or forget something. It’s not ALL the time.”

And there is always that huge weighty problem about asymmetry: they wonder why they have to be able to speak and master standard English when “we,” namely standard-English-speaking people, do not have to learn to speak Ebonics. As S asked: “I don’t mean to be racist, but why do people try to go against our language.” The students definitely feel their language is policed and degraded by the wider world, and they don’t really understand why. M was struggling with the idea of the N-word, so I gave him the article from the bulletin board about how how divided the African American community is on this.

Well, at this point I handed back their paragraphs about waking up as animals or whatever. I had double-spaced typed them up so there was lots of room between lines. I gave them each a highlighter and asked them to highlight the words or phrases that struck them as Ebonics. That was step one. For step two, they took pencils and SWITCHED (not corrected, not edited, not revised) the Ebonics into Standard English, since (I explained) this was a school composition that we needed to write in standard English.

Some people had zero Ebonics, others had one or two things, which they then switched:

“my friend house” to “my friend’s house”
“my mama room” to “my mama’s room”

These gave us the opportunity to look at Ebonics as having RULES, in this case for making a possessive: the possessed thing/person is put right next to the possessor in the sentence. With NO apostrophe.

Another example:

“…and before I knew it they all was gone because those baby birds ate them so quick I didn’t know what to do”

The writer switched it to:
“…before I knew it all of the beetles were gone because they ate them so fast.”

What’s lost: Of course, I do think something very writerly was lost in switching “so quick” to “so fast,” so next week I might go back and suggest that this vocab be returned. It is interesting that the writer did not simply change “they all was gone” to “they all were gone,” but went ahead and clarified and re-stated what the “they” referred to, as if Standard English means spelling everything out.

So then I passed out a verb conjugation sheet. We talked about what “conjugation” means, as giving all the forms a verb can take in various times, or “tenses.” I know this was all a little bit out of their ZPD, but it felt like the right thing to do at this point. So everyone chose a verb, wrote it down, and then we conjugated the verbs in the chart labeled in the old-fashioned way: columns of singular and plural, and rows of first, second, and third person. If nothing else, how everyone completed these charts told me how exactly they “heard” their verbs. I didn’t push TOO hard on doing this in standard English, but I did explain (and show on the board) that for regular verbs in the present tense, the ONLY change that happens to the verb is when it gets an “s” in the third person singular.

J chose the verb: to cheerlead. She wrote:

I is cheerleading we cheerlead
you cheerlead you (plural) is cheerleading
she/he/it cheerleads they cheerlead

After they filled in their boxes with verbs, I said they could go ahead and add to the sentence some more information “just for fun.” So for M, who had the verb “to jump.”

I jump rope when I am bored.
You jump with me all the time until now.
She jumps all of the time.

S chose “to dance”

I dance all the time. We dance every day.
You dance a lot. You (plural) dance a lot.
He. she, it dances more than me. They dance when they can.

D chose “to flip.”

I flip. We flip on grass.
You flip. You flip.
She flips. They flip on concrete.
He flips.
It flip.

Fourth grade,
second hour

We also began with an Ebonics conversation and the large-spaced text from the week before. B asked a funny question as we were talking about making choices about our language. “How would the world be if you put a “th” at the end of every sentence – ‘Hi, everybodyth.’” And then he laughed. I suppose on some level what I am asking to think about seems just as random!

I then introduced the genre of an argument, or a persuasive paragraph. I wrote on the board:
“An argument makes a case for an opinion. The case is supported by facts. The facts are expressed in sentences.”

I asked the students to think about something they felt strongly about – an opinion of some sort. Then they were to write an “argument” trying to convince someone with facts that their argument/opinion was correct. Different students responded to this in different ways. I was especially happy to see AP, who NEVER likes to write, actually making an effort:

I am not putting examples of this writing into the blog because the students did want to keep it private since they were very open about their arguments and worried that people might take them the wrong way. Some ended up more like poems, others like injunctions, others lists, others the reasons for “going on strike.” Two actually represented arguments in dialogue, very dramatically writing out the voices – one or two or more – of the people HAVING an argument. Here I think the concept of the genre was difficult, but definitely on the map.

Great work!!

Also another indication of how important it will be to work on the concept of genre – suiting the form of the writing to match its function. There is much to be done in this direction, I think, and it also ties in nicely with the bidialectal effort – which is all about suiting the FORM of the English to match the context/audience/purpose.

SECOND GRADE

Speaking of genre: THE THANK-YOU NOTE!

After reviewing what we had retained from her visit, we wrote thank you notes to Rosemary Watts for coming in last week. When it was writing time I went from student to student and made a glub-glub sound and “put” a private silent writing bubble all around their personal space by shaping my arms through the air. It does amaze me – after the few giggles die down – how they do respect the sanctity of this “created” writing space. Things fall silent and they work. I sat down and wrote my thank you, too. We got some very long letters here.

DW:
“Dear Ms. Watts,
It was so fun when we made a dream catcher. You are so pretty. I like you very much. I just want to say thank you. Will you come anothyer time cause it is so fun with you and here is a dream catcher for you and you.
Your friend,
DW
[and she drew a picture of a dream catcher beside Rosemary.

Dear Ms. Watts,
Thank you for helping me make my dream catcher. It was cery v ery very fun but it was a little hard because I did not know how to do the string and put it threw the holes and stuff. But it was fun and I hope I can see you again so maybe you can so something with us again. This [a picture she drew] is the class when we were making the dream catcher.
From,
KH

D:
Thank you for let us make dream catchers and thank you. Thank Ms. Watts and I will never forget you coming here. I remember you told us sometimes our power animal come in our dreams.

A:
Dear Ms. Watts,
Thank you for everything that you have done for all of us. But that dream catcher was very complicated for all of us. And Ms. Watts I needed to tell you something when I went home last week I remembered when you told us about the dream catcher and when I got home I drew lots of dream catcher pictures. And today when Ms. Schaenen…”

D:

Dear Ms. Watts,
Thank you for helping us build a dream catcher. I love it but I’m not done yet. After all the things you have done I will share my dignity with you. I love you Ms. Watts. I hope you can come and visit another time.
Byyyyyyyyyy

In general my sense is that this is a very high-performaing second grade. This is only our 4th visit and I foresee much more writing in many different forms.

THIRD GRADE

We also reviewed the visit from Ms. Watts and wrote thank-you notes. I did have to speak sharply to a few kids – J had to be sent out, actually, for saying mean things to R. I reminded them of the one and only rule I our room: SHOW RESPECT, for each other, for themselves, and for me and the property in the room. I made them some private writing bubbles and things got better quickly.

T:

Dear Ms. Watts,
Thank you for teaching me about dreams. I was excited I had a good time. I had a good time with you. My dream is always good.
Love,
T

From D:

Dear Miss Watts,
Thank you for teaching me how to get rit [rid] of my dream and change my dream and making my dream happy place to be. I smashed my dream once and for all the end.
From,
D

S:
Dear Ms Watts,
I learn that you can crush your nightmary. I also learned that you can make your dream better. You can make it [pucy?] When I got home my dream was excellent. I hope you come again.
Thank you.

L:
Dear Ms. Watts,
I had fun last Wednesday. I made a sculpture of you and Ms. Schaenen my dog almost ate it. I told him this is my sculpture of Ms. Watts and Ms. Schaenen he stopped and walked away. He walked away because I have told him good things about you.
Love,
L

All in all, a wonderful day!!!
Especially wonderful because I heard that one of the 2nd graders had brought some language about Ebonics down to the classroom and applied it while listening to a story. I made xerox a few pages of the Code Swtiching text for classroom use and pass it around to the classroom teachers so they can also be on the lookout for evidence of the students’ transferring the concepts.

Inda

WEEK 3 — Ms. Schaenen

Wake Up and….Suprise! The Metamorphosis.

Fourth Grade, both hours

I brought in a whole bunch of herbs and vegetables from my garden and we talked about them. Herbs: basil, parsley, lemon thyme, oregano. I passed them all around for people to smell and nibble. (Some kids went over the garbage to spit samples out! Others hung on to the small stalks to smell throughout this conversation.) We talked about who cooked for them and how the herbs looked when they are dry and put into little bottles that you shake over food while it’s cooking. Most of the class had seen the herbs in this form.
I wrote HERBS on the board and listed the particular kinds of herbs we had in our hands underneath this. There was some diction talk – the word “herb” in certain contexts can mean “weed,” as in marijuana, so we had to clear this up a bit. I explained that what WE were talking about when we said “herb” is an edible plant used to flavor food.
The habanero pepper – jewel-like yellow/orange – was a big hit. Also the radishes, cherry tomatoes, and arugula.
A mini-culinary culture lesson that also put me in some kind of at-home context: a person with a back yard in which there is a plot of food growing, snipping samples for them that morning. Also: the tale of our friend who took a bite of habanero and broke a sweat and started to cough. Speaking of a plant that was dangerous in this way seemed kind of fun and interesting to the kids. I actually didn’t let them touch the habanero out of concern that the oil would get on their skin.

Then I had the students put down their heads and close their eyes. I asked them to imagine that they were all cozy and sound asleep in their beds, but that in the morning, instead of waking up and being themselves, about to eat and dress and come to Gundlach, they were in fact their favorite animal. What would they be and what would hthey be accomplishing today?
Then they got to work writing. Silent lovely scratching on pencils on paper.
I did keep AP after class so he could record his paragraph on cassette. He had made a web plan of what he wanted to say, but he hates the way his writing is so messy and so hates writing. Ms. H-A and I are going to try to work together on this at both our ends. AP is very bright, but his small motor (except for drawing) lags so behind his cognitive abilities. I think ity is very interesting that AP is certainly one of the most sophisticated understanders of the whole Ebonics/SE concept, and that his oral sentences show no Ebonics features at all.

AP:

If I could be an animal for a day I would be a fox with two tails. I would have

powers. I would fly to school and fly home. I would run super fast, have the strength to

pick up a building, and have the strength to take down a spaceship.

The rest all wrote some very nice prose. My plan is to type up these texts in huge double-space chunks and ask the students to revise, edit, and (where necessary to make it uniform) code switch into Standard English.

Examples:
Rabbit
Today I woke up and I was a rabbit. When I saw that I was a rabbit I started to

hop outside to find some carrots. Then I went next door to my friend house to see if she

had changed but she didn’t. So I hopped back into my house and went to my momma

room and I saw that she was a bird. Next I started to scream. After that I saw that my

daddy was a mouse and my sister was a cat. Then my sister had woke up and tried to eat

my dad. So I had hopped out of the house and went to the forest. Next I looked up and

saw a eagle but I was scared because I never knew that eagles can be in East St. Louis. I

had finished hopping back into the forest and then out of nowhere it started to snow and I

turned white. I was happy because the eagle had saw me and started to come after me

then I had hopped by a bush and started to blend in. Then I had came out and the eagle

had flew out. So I had hopped back to my house and ate some carrots and went to bed.

Bird

Today I woke up and I was a bird. The strange thing about it was that instead of

me having arms I had wings. Instead of me having lips I had a beak. Instead of me having

skin I had feathers. Well, I thought since I am a bird I might as well go have fun. So I

soared across the sky with the wind in my feathers. I saw a bird nest and it was full of

baby birds they were crying so I flew to a tree with beetles inside I put the beetles in my

mouth and took them back to the baby birds and before I knew it they all was gone

because those baby birds ate them so quick I didn’t know what to do. When I got them to

stop crying I started to go home I flew in to my house and the next morning I was back to

being Shinay Adams.

SECOND AND THIRD GRADE DREAMWORK

Rosemary Watts, an actor and dream specialist, came in today to speak with both classes about dreams—thinking about dreams, learning from our dreams, harnessing the power of the messages we can get from our dreams (another resourse for all writers!).

She taught us that people dreaming in pictures, in sounds, in feelings, in motion, and in combinations of all these ways, and we went around the room and talked about how WE tend to dream.

Second grade did an activity – making Native American dreamcatchers to hang by their beds. Third grade used Model Magic to sculpt aspects of their dreams – good things to preserve or scary/bad things to smush and re-shape, literally. Both classes loved the talk and activities, and we will be reading trade books next week and following up on all this with lots of writing, thinking, and talking.

THANK YOU, ROSEMARY!

Inda

WEEK 2-MS. SCHAENEN

Two Truths and a Lie and Skin Tight

Fourth grade, first hour

Some people had more to add to last week’s work, having written “to be continued” at the bottom of the page. So while most of the class added to their write-ups about “what’s new” since last year, a few others – C and M and S (once she was done) looked at some art cards that showed art by African American artists and wrote about what they saw.

Ex. by SA:
“When I look at the painting The Sharecropper I see a man but not just any man a man who looked like a slave and who looked depressed. This man was a black man and he looked like he was owned by a white man. This man reminded me of D’s [a boy in the class] dad not the stuff about him but the pain that bleeds within his face.”

Ex. by JR

“This summer I had a ball at the mall. Do you know what this mean? Okay, it means I went to places like at the Steakhouse with my mom and cousins. Their name is no actually I’m going to say their nickname and their real name. OK. Starting off with the baby Ta-tay, Octivia. D.J. Demond. Then I went to the water with my niece and nephew and my cousins and my brother and my step-father And sister. Man-Man, Destiny, Sade Lil John Lil Derrick. Or Derrick. And I seen Darnell, Kayla, Samuel.”

After this free-writing time we played Two Truths and a Lie, my old favorite. We talked about synonyms for the word “lie” and I wrote them on the board: fiction, fib, story, tale.
It was a ton of fun and rowdy, but controlled rowdy. My sentences were:

1. My closet is usually neat; all my sweaters are folded.
2. I love to eat shrimp and spaghetti.
(In response to which one student commented: “we KNOW that’s true because everybody loves shrimp.”)
3. In November I will be 47 years old and my daughter will turn 18.

Fourth Grade, second hour

We went straight to Two Truths… One of my favorite “Truths” from this hour was written by AW:

“I think the president is raising the gas prices to get money to give to other countries.”
AW is clearly hearing people talk about current events, trying to make sense of the war and politics, and he has mentioned before that he hears what his grandma saying about these events. So his sentence is phrased very carefully, and it is true because he thinks it (not because the president is ACTUALLY raising the gas price to get money to give to other countries). The “I think” is what makes it true. His lie was saying that he likes to ride his bike.

One of my favorite lines from a summer vacation update by MS: [he had been writing about a fun family reunion at a hotel with a swimming pool]:

“My cousin got sick by the food and you do not want to know how it was. But she got better.”

I like the “you” there, being addressed as a reader. This student’s father is a preacher, and his writing often reflects a level of comfort with personalizing his message. I always feel written TO.

ZJ (new to R4W) also wrote very much TO ME when I asked her to write about what she does when she is not in school.

“…Also I am sweet and a pretty girl so please get to know me better. I also like to have fun and play games like the Ravae [?] game sometimes.”

I had to send BW to the beanbag to “chillax” because he was having a bad day. He went over and read a Nikki Giovanni book of poems for a while, but after a while said, “Ms. Schaenen, this ain’t helping I’m still having a bad day.” I hope he feels better this week!

Second Grade

My sense from the last two years is that Second Grade R4W is really about working from the self outward, building a sense of literacy using material VERY close at hand first. SO on Week 2, we read The Skin I’m In, always a big hit. We discussed the pictures and the words. We had some talk about skin, and how it’s “our biggest organ” in our body. I asked the students to write down any questions they had about skin, and/or what they already knew about skin. This is a VERY generative topic, and allows us to get right into some real stuff. Here are just a few of the questions people wrote or asked aloud:
Some questions (by T) about scars – why are they pink instead of brown like the rest of our skin? Why are our palms lighter than the back of our hands? What do people have different colors or skin? This all turned into a little biology lesson with some big vocabulary words on the board: pigment, melanin. They got a kick out of looking at how on SOME places on my face I had more melanin than others, and these dots or spots are what we call “freckles.” The only difference in skin color is made by different amounts of melanin, which is a pigment. One person asked why when she got scared bumps raised up on her skin, which led us to a conversation about the fight-or-flight syndrome.
Some other written sentences:
“Why do we got hair on our skin?”
“Why do we have eyebrows?”
“How do water come out of my eyes?”
“How do we get the same color as our families?”
“Why do your blood come out?”
“I want to know where do skin come from?”
“Can skin get red or blue or even green?”
“What is skin made of?”

Very thoughtful questions, which we will try to think about next week!

Third Grade

We drew identity molecules on blank paper – a big circle in the middle of the page and radiating lines leading to other circles. We filled in these bubbles with some of the roles we play in life. We tried to put the most important role in the middle, but of course this is hard (for me, too!). After that, the students wrote a paragraph expanding upon one of these roles. Here’s one by L:

“One of my favorite things to do is to be an actor. I wish I could play as Shrek and Donkey. I wish I could play as Pinocchio. I wish I could play as Ms. Schaenen. I wish I could play as Goofie. I wish I could play as Donald Duck. I wish these things because I want to be rich rich rich I tell you. I want to be rich because I can get anything I want and need and I could buy stuff for my family. I wish I could play as Tinkiewinky. I wish K[a girl in the class][ would shut the heck up.

[Note: K was chatting a little too much this hour and being pretty distracting.] I do love the way L included the reality of the experience in the classroom as he was writing IN the actual composition.

Also to note 3 BC/AAE features:1. the repetition of “I wish I could play” and 2. the whimsical and fun “rich rich rich I tell you” which itself is a playful intertextual way of voicing some kind of character from movies or TV. And 3. the desire to provide and support family with incoming largesse. I often hear or read from my students that what they want from wealth and riches is to give things to family, to help out in supportive ways.

KW: Her identity bubbles included sister, skater, friend, run track, student, cat lover, and dog hater. In her paragraph she expanded on the idea of hating dogs:

“Once well my mother’s friend brought his two dogs over to play. The dogs saw my cat and chased it in the alley and bit him. When they came back there mouths were all bloody because they bit my cat.”

I’m just so happy to be able to spend time with these kids! I feel so lucky.

Inda

WELCOME BACK ROOM FOR WRITING!!!

September 26, 2007

The kids had already been in school more over a month by the time Room For Writing opened for business. By the time I walked into the fourth grade classroom on Wednesday morning, they were VERY happy to see me, and I was SO happy to see them. A few looked so much older and bigger, especially since these students were second graders during the first R4W year of 05/06.

I chatted for a few minutes with Mrs. H-A, and off we went down the hall. There will be two groups of 4th graders back to back. Since the class is 20-21 kids total, it’s perfect. ALL of them will come to R4W this year.

The lesson plan for this first day was the same for both classes:
Welcome back conversation for a few minutes, summary updates about summers. Then I suggested that since everyone had so much to share, probably too much to share aloud, we take a few minutes to write down aything at all that they wanted me to know about since we had last been together. So we took a 15 minute freewrite time. I wrote, too. After this I read aloud Langston Hughes’s story, “Thank You, Ma’am,” which they seemed to enjoy. After reading, I asked them what they knew about the two characters from listening to the story. Much to my delight, one student said, “They speak Ebonics.” (I hadn’t mentioned anything at all about this so far.) So we talked about this a while, and it was clear, upon discussion, that there were still some very muddy understandings about what Ebonics meant. “Talking wrong.” “Slang.” “Saying things backwards.” More pejorative impressions, which I addressed, but not too heavily (on this first day). When I asked why they thought Hughes kept referring to the woman as “large” over and over, I was ecstatic to hear one of the new students, C., make the symbolic connection aloud that it was because she had a large heart, and was kind to the boy, to help him learn a lesson.

Incidentally, two of the kids in this section had gone to Sherwood Forest Camp, and had a fabulous time. D. wrote about his experience in his free-write.

Then I took some time to talk about my research project on Ebonics/Standard English, and the IRB forms, which I explained and passed out for signing. I also gave them the forms for their parents to read.

Finally, I let them read their writing aloud with the microphone – a fabulous new toy to play with in the share-aloud time. Some stood on the “stage,” others sat on the chair.

Second hour of 4th grade was great, too, and followed the same lesson plan. One child had been to camp and loved it.

SECOND GRADE

We arrived at the door after walking the long walk from second grade. We began by having a formal tour of the room form zone to zone. I explained what kinds of things they would be doing in each zone. Then they took their seats at desks and I passed out large index cards and crayons and stickers and had them write their names and decorate their cards however they liked. This whole time we were chatting about this and that, and I tested myself on their names and let them “grade” me on my performance. I learned that one girl, A., had recently moved to St. Louis from Rochester, where she had gone to a “rich” school. J. knew someone who had been killed on the street. K. had gone to Sherwood Forest with her sister and loved it.

After this I read aloud Flossie and the Fox by P. McKissack. They sat still and listened. Just for a lark, I paused after reading something Flossie said (in Ebonics) and casually remarked that maybe I sounded a little “unlike myself” saying things Flossie’s way. “How might I say this, do you think?” Right away, without a pause, K. code switched the phrase in Standard English. Wow. Now I have a kind of base line sense of at least this one student’s ability and prior knowledge–not that she knows she knows what she did (at the metacognitive level), but the sense that things can be said more than one way is already there for her.

After this I passed out paper and asked the children to write 3 sentences about themselves. The sentences were to convey something that they wanted me to know. I was impressed at the way most of this class has mastered the concept of the sentence – capital letters, periods, one piece of information. One child, D., did turn her 3-holed looseleaf paper sideways so that the holes were at the bottom and write her sentences across the lines. She placed to stickers on this, too. She also numbered her sentences (the only child to do this), which makes me think she is still trying to figure out the textual genres at work in school discourse. How we set up our paper, what “gets” to be decorated, do we have to write numbers on the sentences simply because the teacher has asked for a specific number (3)? In general, they like to read, to ride bikes, to play outside, to go to Six Flags, to have favorite colors (purple).

I look forward to this class!!

THIRD GRADE

I welcomed this group – some from Ms. Milligan and some from Ms. Allen – and we talked for a while in the circle. I read Flossie and the Fox to them, too, and then went around sharing a few things about ourselves. Then we played Two Truths and a Lie. I wrote 3 sentences on the board about myself – 2 true and 1 false. I used my old standbys because they work so well:

1. My closet is usually tidy.
2. I have three children, ages 17, 15, and 12.
3. I like to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

I asked them to guess the false one (which is number 1). Then they wrote their own sentences. (We had discussed the “no erasing” policy; real writers do not erase, generally, I explained. We cross out, edit, insert, scribble. A rough draft is exactly that: rough!) They read their sentences aloud and called on a person to make the guess. After the final guess was made they got to call on the person to go next. It was fun and noisy, and we tried to discuss the critical thinking that went in to making the guess: was it likely that C. sister would REALLY have blue hair? An interesting one by D:

“1. My dad is a police and he is in Texas.
2. My dad is in jail.
3. I am 9 years old.”

We all agreed that D. was probably 9 (TRUE). As we tried to think through whether it was likely for D.’s dad to be BOTH a police AND in jail, he spoke up to insist that it was possible “for a po-lice to go to jail.” Nevertheless, the FALSE statement was that his father was a police officer and in Texas. It was true, he said, that his father was in jail for seven years. It was one of those R4W moments where the hard kernel of truth/reality is felt inside the soft fun of the verbal play. There was a sense even on the first day that this room is a place where it is safe to get things out and have them go unremarked, except as simply food for thought. If the lesson were more private, I might have engaged the student more because clearly he had feelings there, but it seemed right to just let this go. Next week, when I ask them to build a paragraph using one of the TRUE sentences as a topic sentence, we’ll see what happens.

I’m sorry that I will have to get this class size down to 10. I do enjoy every one of the kids, but the dynamic of more than 10 just does not work for what we do. Alas.

I look forward to a great year, and have a terrific feeling about what will happen this year.

Inda