January 24, 2008

4th grade, first hour

As I entered the classroom behind the kids I heard A say, “What we doin’ today?”
“What we doin’ today?” I repeated.
I took out my tape recorder and decided on the spot to do a mini-lesson on standard/Ebonics, which from now on in this blog I will call AAE, which seems to be the most current label for Black Communications, Ebonics, African American English, and all the other ways of naming how some African American people communicate at some times and among some people. The kids know and like Ebonics as a descriptor, and that’s fine, too.
D, switching the sentence, said, “What ARE we doing today?”
I said, “A said ‘what we doin’ today’ and D said, ‘what ARE we doing today.’ What’s the difference between those two ways of saying the same thing?”
Everyone blurted out something like the following: “One is Ebonics and one is standard English.” Yes, yes. It took several minutes of conversation and also looking at the two sentences on the board (I wrote them down) in order for the students to see that what I mean by my question was, HOW are the sentences different specifically? What’s different in spelling, syntax, etc etc. We agreed that absence of a G on doing and the assumed ARE in the Ebonics version were the two differences. “The Ebonics sentence does not need the ARE to be correct.” Anyway, I plan to transcribe the whole thing and write up the lesson more formally. But you get the idea of how it sounds…
Next a few people told some stories—D about Camp Sherwood, and A about nearly drowning one time (his cousin pulled him up).
Next we moved on to do some writing. We spoke a little bit about the upcoming MAP tests, and how they needed to learn how to approach the “genre” of the standardized test. The kids all feel that it’s long, and that stories are long – my sense is that my role is to just encourage them to take it all in stride and try their best on the test. A couple of kids don’t like not being able to “ask for help” at all, having to guess if they don’t know something. Later in the day I sat down with Ms. Jensen and Ms. Twellman and we talked over a couple of thoughts that had come up in the class.

4th grade, second hour

I repeated the mini-lesson on Ebonics and got some great stuff on tape from AP, who is a kid who struggles in school, has serious emotional concerns blocking his progress, yet has a natural ear for language and its varieties. For writing, some of the students wrote thoughts and ideas about Ebonics, others wrote about “a perfect Sunday,” and others individual things (A, for example, wrote a testimonial about Sherwood Forest, the camp he attended last summer.) AP wrote a piece of fiction, the longest amount of writing he’s ever done in the class:

“Super Kid
Once upon a time there was a rich boy who had a castle. He lived in a village. His name was TJ. He liked to go out in the woods. He likes bacon and egg in the morning every day. One day when he was walking in the wood he found a |chos|? emerald in a gigantic cave.”
What impresses me about this piece is the rigorous way AP has adopted and rendered the fairy tale formula—“once upon a time” as a genre. He sets up the WHO and the WHERE. He offers some context about the hero (“He likes to go out in the woods and eats a particular breakfast every day.”). And then he sets the action in motion. This is a very literary piece of text from a boy who has always seemed rather cut off from text-making. He loves listening to stories, and followed VERY closely last year when I read from The Well, however. But he is a difficult student to teach, mostly because he seems to hate school and in general seems to have to contend with pretty harsh realities outside of school.

The new boy from Oklahoma, R, wrote about a little gadget his mother implanted in his stomach in order to alert her to his breathing at night, which once stopped. His story rather fascinated the rest of us.

RB introduced me to a new Ebonics vocab expression—“What’s up, Mo?” It basically means, What’s up, dude? What’s up, dog?

Me: Whass up, Mo? I wonder where that came from.
RB: We just made it up.
Me; Who made it up?
RB: Everybody. We all just started sayin it.

RB is very very quick and attentive. I was trying to call attention to the things about ourselves we cannot control – like skin color – and how those things are different from the things we CAN control – like our speech.

Me: I mean, I can’t control the fact that my hair is floppy.
RB: You can control whether your hair is floppy. You can just put some gel in it to lay it down.

Of course she was right. In this day—with plastic surgery, gillions of products and ways of grooming ourselves beyond recognition—there really is very little about our appearance we can’t control if we really want to. And even skin color—they all know what Michael Jackson did to himself. And even though they generally do NOT approve of what he did, they understand that it is possible. I guess this is a good thing for RB to sense: she can have a say in both how she appears AND how she sounds. Also: I can’t get away with sloppy analogies.

SECOND GRADE

First the students wrote about super powers. If they could have any power, what would it be? I had written a paragraph on the board stating my own preference, and also listed a few other powers that came to mind. Their own replies were good efforts and heartfelt.

DT:
Invisible and Strong
I want to be invisible because when I be a police and a voctim running out a bank I can catch the victim. And I want to save the world.

[I think I might check what DT means by “victim.”]

AB:
I have a super power and my super power is I am a half mermaid, and a half person. And when I am in the ocean I am a mermaid and when I come out of the ocean I am a person and then I go to my house and get clothes and I go to school and be normal and do my work until I go home and go to the ocean until morning and when I am away I will put on my clothes and go too school. The end of my story bye bye for Ms. Shcaenen all done.

AJ:
I want every super power in the world. Because I can save people. In St. Louis, and people will like me more. And people won’t bully me. I will hold them up in the air too they can stop bullying me.

DF:
If I could have any super powers I would be Dasher [Dash, from The Incredibles] because I will be the fastist person in the world and I will dust everybody in St. Louis, India, China, Rochester New York. And then I will transform back into what I was before I got my superpowers.

TW [who has a sister in the same grade; they both come to RF4]:
If I could have any superpower it would be shapeshifter because I want to act like my sister and have her voice so they think I am her and turn [into] everything in the world.

KH:
If I had a super power I would want to fly. Flying I think is really fun. I would go everywhere. And if someone is chasing me I would fly up and they would not know where I went. Then I would fly home. I would fly with the birtd and if someone wants to fly with me I would grab their hand and we would go in the sky.

OH:
I want to be a fashion designer and make clothe just like That’s So Raven and then they can call me O, That’s So Raven Assistants and be a good fashion designer because I can sow shoes, pants. I want to be a super hero like when I get ready to go on a big trip. I love being a super duper hero for a long time and be a super and a good hero and keep it and be my power and I love my powers.

After this writing time we played the writing version of PASSWORD, where each child gets a noun and they have to write clues on the board to make the others guess what their word is. They cannot use the word itself. I get six kids going at the same time on the boards that rotate – so the class plays in halves. Some words:
RIBS, TOMATO, SHELF, SHOELACE, RAT, CLOWN, GRANDMOTHER

Can you guess the word from these two “real life” clues as written by second graders?

“It is very small. It is in salads. Some people eat it with nothing and some people have it as a salad. And it is very red and small.”

“Old. Your mother came from her. She need help. She in a wheelchair. In the store she stay a long time. She breathe through a machine. Somebody drive her.”

THIRD GRADE

Ms. Allen’s class had to go to PE so we were a very small group, which was nice. We did exactly the same lesson as second grade—the super powers and the password game.
In this class we had two kids who wanted to be mind readers, one who wanted Superman’s powers, and one who wanted to be able to have super speed so “I could go to Florida to see my grandma and grandpa. Go to Texas to see my cousin. And see the Statue of Liberty. This is a picture ofme on water.”

TG [who is very shy, never is quite confident, and always give s good try at all activities]:
I want to read everybody mind. I want to find out what everybody is thinking. I want them to be special to me and everybody. I want to be the best mind reader. I want to know what they are thinking but they are not saying. I want to know what people think. This is a picture of me doing it.

KH [super confidentt, often looks at me suspiciously]:
Mine Reading
Once upon a time there was a girl named K and she wished she’d read mines when she looked in the sky she saw a shooting star. So she wished what she wanted and the next day she woke up she read her four month nephew PJ’s mind. He was thinking that I wish I had 1,0001 dollars. K started laughing. K went to school and saw her friend T, E, M, J, K, M, and O. First, K read T’s mind then she read E’s mind she was wishing she was rich like M and O. The I was like okay ocrad [awkward] then M and J said what’s ocrad I said oh nothing then 3:30 came K went to after-school.

I love the way this story begins as a third-person tale about the author herself, then shifts into the first person at the end…I also love the way she identifies feeling awkward having access to her friends’ thoughts. Very true!

The Password game was also fun.

“It can destroy your home. It can mess up your town. It is very strong. They can kill you. You could get hurt.”
[TORNADO]

A nice week!

Inda

January 30, 2008

Fourth grade, first hour

We began with a chat about the “habitual be,” the “be” in an African American English sentence that indicates ongoing action. The students recognized the base word “habit” in habitual, because some woman had come to school talking about bullying and habitual teasing. So we saw that the sentence “That kid be mean,” means (in standard English) “That kid is usually, typically mean. By contrast, “that kid mean” in standard English means “That kid is being mean right now.”

The kids said they wanted to go outside for recess.
M said, “I hope Ms. Jensen come back because Ms. Twellman don’t like the cold but Mrs. Jensen do.”

A switched it:
“I hope Ms. Jensen comes back because Ms. Twellman does not like the cold but Ms. Jensen does.”

After a little more practice switching sentences back and forth, they wrote plays or monologues starring animal characters. I like this idea because then the way the animals speak – in what code – is up to the writer. D, for example, wrote about two dogs in the ‘hood—a pit bull and a rotweiler. One said, The dog catcher always messing with us so I’m go bite him on the butt for real.” New vocab: vaco means a vacant house.

MW’s play starred two rabbits:

Flopsy: I am making a garden for the picnice this Saturday.
Mopsy: Oh, great, may I help?
Flopsy: Sure.
Mopsy: Okay let’s get started.

Fourth grade, second hour

We began with a similar mini-lesson on code shifting, then the kids began drafting letters to people with the intention of airing or solving problems. It’s a version of the “change the world” exercise. We had another new boy come into the class, who asked an interesting question out of the blue: When bats hang upside down, why doesn’t the blood pound in their heads like it does ours? I hope to be able to answer that by next week.

To a prison warden:

Dear Mr. Officer:
I miss my dad because he been in jail for a long time and can you put him out of jail because he always did things for me and he cared for me and my mom he didn’t mean to hurt her and make his jail time less and I want to see him agin because he was the only dad I have and I need some one to play with and he bought me toys [?] he is a good person and he did a lot of things and I want him

To the Board of Ed:

Dear Board of Education:
I think you all should not close down Gundlach. I hope you can give this school 5 more years or 3. My name is…… I am a 4th grader here at Gundlach. My teacher is Mrs. H-A, principal Mrs. J. I been here every sense I was in kindergarden. Please try your best to save this school. And I will thank you with all my heart.
Thank you,
AW

Another one to a prison warden:

Can you please let my dad out of jail. I did not really know him but my mom lets me write to him. I think he sufared a nof. I miss him.

Second Grade/Third Grade

So we are launching a small unit on the Olympics – which can lead to conversation/writing/reading about China, other countries, geopgraphy, sports, some other global things.

I laid out four stations around the room with big information books about China. Each child had a pencil and a small pad and after a whole group discussion and orientation they set out in small groups to research China, where the Olympics are going to be held. None of the kids knew about the Olympics – what they were, how they worked – so I will back track next week and give them more background info to read, respond to. I asked them to take notes about the things they were learning about China that seemed interesting to them. Food, writing, customs, clothing, etc etc. Many of the children enjoyed trying to copy the writing patterns. They also loved having their own little yellow pad to work with: “I like these pads and there’s enough for everybody.” We also looked at the world maps, and saw how China was really on the other side of the planet.
We have a ways to go in this “reasearch” mode. Most of the children simply copied over the words directly from the information books. They do love doing this, however, and I think that something interesting happens when they read the words back to themselves. One second grader copied over the Chinese words in Chinese and then wrote:
“I wrote in Chinese because I want to learn. This girl crushes lime leaves into her bath water so she can smell good.”

Part two of the activity will be “translating” their notes into a letter to a younger cousin helping this cousin understand a little more about China. The concept is to transfer the information, summarize, excerpt, pull out important stuff and get it into their own words. We’ll see if this works. A few kids got started on this stuff:

LP (third grade):

“I would tell my little sister or brother that a health organization UNICEF and other partners hope to have freed the world from polio by 2005. Polio is a terrible disease.” Then he drew cartoon below. Two figures are speaking. One word bubble says: “A girl has a terrible disease.” The other one says, “Tell me more big brother.”

KP (third grade):

“The thing about China is that the writing is different and the food is different from American writing and different from American food. The food is different because China eat sticky rice and cake. That is what I know about China.

-Inda

SCHAENEN–January 16

It’s kind of a weird feeling coming back after this break, I have to admit. First, knowing Sally’s not there makes the room feel different. Also, knowing and having confirmed that Gundlach is scheduled to be closed at the end of this year has sort of put an added twist on the environment. I have heard that the teachers “saw the writing on the wall” back last spring when Gundlach was not on the list to get air conditioning installed. Alas. One of my 4th graders, holding my hand as we walked down from her class room to R4W, mentioned that her mom had gone to Gundlach…other kids were talking about where they might be destined to go – Ford, Lexington, Laclede. They asked me where I was going to go and I said I didn’t know. Very Anatevka!

In the classroom with the 4th grade, first hour, We immediately began talking about this change. Why, they wanted to know. I explained what I had heard, that enrollment wasn’t where it needed to be: not enough students in the building.

We went right into a “quick write,” which I introduced as a 5-minute stretch, or warm-up, to get the writing muscles prepared to write. A letter, a poem, a rap, an diary entry…anything at all.

SA wrote a letter to the principal asking about the closure. “Without it [Gundlach] I would not be the person I am now it’s like this school’s a part of me….Mrs. Jensen exactly how many kids do we need to keep this school from shutting down do we need a lot?”

DW wrote a continuation of his record of his experience at camp Sherwood Forest.

After the quick-write we talked about receiving gifts. I passed a sample of a reflection about receiving a gift—a bicycle from a father leaving for Korea, reading thanks to Sally from Richard Currey—and the children wrote about meaningful gifts they had received and the people from whom they received them.

MW: I received a gift from my granny and it was meaning[ful] to me because she is really old and when her time is up I can have something to remember her by because when my momma is at work she is always there for me. She is very important to me because her and my mother is always there by my side. My granny has raised a lot of us and even if she had bought me a pair of socks I would take it and cherish it for the rest of my life.

Second hour of fourth grade was the same lesson. We had a new boy come into the class, R, and he wrote a long and wonderful memory of his favorite day back in Oklahoma.

By ZJ: My mom gave me a bracelet and it is pink. It mean everything to me and if someone take it I will get mad. I keep it in my jewelry box.

By RB: Yes! The person was importan that person was my grandmother when she passed away I was very sad but one thing she left behind was a special thing of hers and it was a ring and I took it to remember her by and it is special thing to me and I still have it. Also, my grandmother was married. And she was married when she was 27 years old.

With second grade:

We played a poem game. I gave them a word, EGG, and then they played word associations with it to create a longer piece that eventually circled back to the word EGG. “Just let the words bubble up,” I said, words or phrases. We also did a few other words: SLEEP and BOX.

Egg, by DT

Egg
I will make a egg then I will eat it. Why do they call it egg?
Scramble eggs and bacon
Egg sandwich
Egg nog
Egg with good stuff
Egg yoke
Egg baked
Boil egg
Smooth and white
Good and butter
Yummy
Hen
Bird
Egg

Egg, by TW

Me and my sister come out a egg from my mom stomach
I ate egg for breakfast
I saw an egg come out a chicken
I saw an egg crack open and baby chick came out
I ate scramble egg for breakfast
I saw a fish lay a egg
I saw many animal lay egg
Sometime egg for dinner
I can eat egg any time
Birds lay eggs
Lots of animals lay egg
Egg

Sleep, by KH

It’s good for you
Snore
Resting
A Nap
Catnap
Sleepyhead
Tired
Bed
Crib
Lullaby
Singing
Bednight story
Star dream
Sleep

With third grade we wrote letters. I handed out envelopes and invited them to write to anyone they felt like writing to. Again, this was just a warm-up after our long separation from winterbreak. This class is always hard to settle down, but once they get their heads into it, they produce lovely work. I stressed the importance of being able to share thoughts, feelings (good and bad ones) in writing with people we may or may not see very often.

KP

Dear Mom,
I love you very much and I am so happy the wonderful things you did for me. You did a lot of good things for me to. And you also get me whatever I want. And don’t forget I love you very, very, very much.

I am looking forward to this semester…hoping to set certain practices in place that might keep these kids hooked on writing wherever they end up next year.

Inda

Pockets of Words

I have several half-finished posts of the last few weeks. It has been a bit crazy. I am working on writing up the lessons I have done, with learning objectives and GLE’s and then reports on the students progress– all for the beginning of the winter semester. When finished, I will post excerpts on the rest of my lessons.

In the past few weeks, we have done many exciting things. In summation:

Tuesday- special ed and 2nd grade
We have been working on the building blocks of writing. We began with words, and then moved on to identifying writing conventions in sentences and finally in paragraphs. It’s tough for this group. Many of them have reading problems; spelling is very tricky also. They are very bright and want to see things, but get frustrated in the process. They can write in sentences, but don’t understand the why’s or how’s, so we have been moving backwards in order to move forwards, talking about writing like a map to others understanding us. They are not yet to the point of writing longer pieces in paragraphs, but I hope when we get there, they will understand it, not just do it. In the meantime, they seem invested and engaged and I love working with them.

This past week, we made paper snowflakes, which most had never done before, so it was fun to show them that. We had spent the previous week working on “winter words” and completing the sentences “Snow looks like…” and “Snow feels like…” as part of our work with description. Before we made our paper snowflakes, they were asked to write on notecards why they liked winter and what snow feels like. Our brainstorming from last week was up for reference. Once they did that, we made decorations stringing the notecards (or other writing about snow) from the snowflakes. I ook some pictures, which I’ll upload at some point.

Tuesday Biography Group– 6th grade
In recent weeks, behavior and focus has been tricky with this group. They seem engaged in the ideas, and will write quietly for a while, but they are easily distracted. I have to give them assigned amounts or I only see one paragraph or a few sentences– none of which remotely begins to display their thoughts or ideas. we keep talking about it, but not enough seems to be at stake, or they seem to not want to communicate badly enough. I have toyed with thoughts about this– maybe a self-conscious age, maybe simply not liking the work, maybe being “first” to finish still has some value for them. It’s strange, because the other half of their class that I see on Thursday does not have this problem, and I have yet to encounter it with other groups– even though I have taught the same age for several years. I am beginning to wonder if it’s just the group dynamics– still, it’s a problem for me to keep an eye on.

That being said, we have continued to work with the genre of biography. We have read biography excerpts, brainstormed about what info. to include, and begun listening exercises, for them to pick out important parts and try to re-tell the story of someone’s life– as they will do with our real-life speakers. I verbally told them the biography of Sojourner Truth. They listened and took notes and then wrote about her, reconstructing it all. Many got the idea of creating a story with a character and a plot and a plight, seizing on the meaty details. I think they get it and are finally ready to really roll with some live guests. We are also hoping to soon have Liberian penpals.

Thursday 5th and 6th grade
These groups continue to be easy and so so engaged. Due to schedule complications this week, we had shortened amounts of time, so I went to their rooms instead, as it took less transition time and I wanted teacher involvement. Last week we had written about gifts we received and discussed what it means to communicate our thanks. This week, I showed them how to make origami “cups”, which really look to me like beautiful envelopes (thanks to Martha for teaching me!). I bought beautiful origami paper and strings and beads. I had made several examples ahead of time. So I went in and introduced them to origami and jogged their memories about haiku, making a connections about Japanese culture. Then we discussed that the paper cups was a lovely decoration for the holidays (for trees), for their doors, for gifts, or a nice way to slip a note or message to someone.

The kids seemed to love it and everyone got into it. In Ms. P’s 5th grade, I worked with the whole class, as there are usually just three who don’t come to me. It was fun to include them. Ms. P. worked alongside of us and then helped the kids, which was awesome. It was so great to leave the room with them all making something. Since Martha has showed me how, I have slipped poems into those little envelopes a lot, so I know it is something they will do– so easy and elegant. It was a nice holiday craft with some writing to it. And I really liked working with Ms. P., who is new to the school this year.

On a different note, I went yesterday to the children’s “Christmas Songfest” as it was called, which was lovely. They worked so hard and did such a good job. The interesting thing was how many parents and grandparents attended– it was standing room only. I have been to every performance, awards assembly and spelling bee since the R4W opened and I have never seen more than 15 or 20 parents. It’s the middle of the day and most work, but it was packed. I’d say easily 100 adults there, which made me proud to see. But it proved, if their kids is performing and they know it, they will come. It made me think we should do a huge reading at the end of the year. Not everyone will be able to read, but we can work something out. I’d love for their parents to see what they are capable of and how very good they are.

More lesson info soon, and I’ll be back in class the 2nd week in Jan.

Alike and Different Both-Schaenen 12.12 and 12.17

December 17, 2007

I’m blogging two weeks in one. First, last week:

December 12
Fourth grade–we did two main things last week:
1. Wrote biographies of people whose lives they had been researching informally at home.
2. Talked a little bit about Ebonics.

FIRST HOUR
I took M’s story down by dictation, which was a good move, because his mechanics and writing skills are really struggling to keep up with his mind, which is quick and lively and energetic. He told me the story of his uncle, and we got nearly four pages written. The students took the idea of biography loosely, telling even a little bit – a story or two – about a person.

JR: “My brother Derrick he was in the dryer he started to get in. Then he close the door. Then he got cut in on. Then he was in the dryer. He close the doors he was spinning. he yelled because it was hot. Then my grama said do you hear that noise to my mom. Then they went down stairs and they saw him in the dryer. He got out and he was red spotted. My brother is lilght skinned. He likes fat girls that are beautiful. All girls like him.
One day he had a girlfriend name Domminicka she was very nice. Then he broke up with her. . . “[this story goes on another page]

DG:
My Grandma
She was living somewhere where they didn’t have toys so she had to make her own toys like puppets, dolls, and more.

SA:

“My God Grandma was in foster care because when she was a baby her mother didn’t want her so she gave her to a foster care so when she was growing up she had to grow up without a mom or a dad. So when I went and talked to her it was very painful because for her to have to talk to a 11-year-old I know she was thinking why am I talking to her she does not understand the pain that I am going through. She talked about when she was 13 she used to do a dance called the Crazy Legs she said when she used to go to clubs she use to do all kinds of dances she used to do tango and she fell in love with the man of her life I think his name John Something I know they got married and they had two kids they grew up and their dad died. So the only kids only had their mom the kids died because they got shot walking to her house. So now everybody in my neighborhood calls her their step grandma to make her feel better. She still lived up in the house on a hill but some people say that they hill is made from her memories. But I know that’s not true and she will always be my God Grandma.”

AP:
“My grand dad birthday was October 29. he died of an heart attack. I think he died in 2004 or 2005. I cried when I saw him in the casket. My grandma[?] didn’t want to go up but my dad and family picked her up and made her go up. . . My grandad had 28 kids that’s a lot of kids. My dad and granddaddy had the same name A.J.P. but my granddad was the first and my dad was the Jr. and that’s second and I was the third, III….”

PJ:
“When my brother was a baby he use to always cry if he didn’t see momma. My brother was bad he use to throw things at dar. He always wanted everybody to pick him up and carry him around. My brothers favorite cousin was Lil Man. They liked to dress alike. They used to always do the same thing all their lives. They even eat the same. They think the same. When they are together you can’t split them apart. It’s like they’re stuck together. Everywhere my big cousin Lil Man go my brother Carlos wants to go. They always buy a lot of junk after dinner. Then when they got done eating they went upstairs to eat a few snacks. They they went to bed. The next day he was still bad and it was his birthday. The fmaily came over to see him because he was the birthday boy. He was just turning two and my cousin was [?] to turn 8 in May. Then he started being good because he was getting presents. Then he said thank you to the people who gave him a present. Then from that day on he and my cousin was very good to every one. To be continued…”

SECOND HOUR

Some nice concentrated work from this hour!

JW:
“My mom name is Shirley. She was born in Illinois. her favorite food is rice. She work at a place called the V.A. What make my mom happy is when me and my sister and brother buy her something. Her favorite TV show is Lifetime. Her favorite color is purple.”

Here’s one by BW, who is obviously transferring loads from the main classroom into his work in R4W: The topic sentence is set off, and the others are all bulleted and lead off with Thens and Nexts.

The Life

This is the life of my grandma. One day my grandma told me that she was born in Washington. Then she told that her and her mother moved to Misosuri. Next she told me that when she had 8 kids. Then she told me that she would move back to Washington but her mother died in the hospital. Next after her mother died a few weeks later My Grandma took her and her kids to aunty’s funeral. Then the doctor told her that her mother gave her all of the money to her. Next my Grandma said I moved to Washington for a few years and now I am going to stay in St. Louis for the rest of my life. This is a true story.

SECOND GRADE

We had a small group, only 3, because Ms. Casey’s kids had special guests in for reading. First we talked about Christmas—what they all do to celebrate. Give and receive gifts, they said.

Before writing, we talked a little about “the bare be,” and “zero copula” of Ebonics. All 3 kids knew and could explain without an prompt from me that:

“She be drinking coffee” MEANS “She always (or usually) drinks coffee.”
AND THAT
“She drinking coffee” MEANS “She is drinking coffee right now.”

We also talked a littlel bit about pronunciation:
ILS: Why do you think some people, including you, sometimes say MO (long O) instead of MORE?
KH: Because it’s shorter.
ILS: And what about BAFF instead of BATH?
KH: It easier to say.

I was working off the assessment rubrics I have developed for tracking how aware the kids are of the kind of language they use and their casual and formal practices in class—both syntax and structure and vocab AND pronunciation of particular sounds. I kind of blended some observation and inquiry with some direct instruction about all this, pointing out the distinctions once they had grappled with them a little. It’s all very casual and loose, but I do try to wedge all of this conversation in.

Then they switched gears and wrote about meaningful gifts they have received in the past.
DW:
“I had a ring my grandma gave to me. It is purple. It got a ruby in it. I love it. My granma gave it to me to keep. I wash it every day. And it’s shiny. It is special because my granma gave it to me . And then she died.”

KH wrote about a care bear she got from her auntie. DT wrote about new clean shoes he got from his mama.

They all said how nice it was to be such a small group. It’s true—all kind of things are possible when you have the gift of time and attention a tiny class affords.

THIRD GRADE

Coming at the the genre of science writing from the perspective of generating meaningful, purposeful language in service to its function (helping someone else to recognize something), we did the Wendy Saul Chips Ahoy Experiment. The idea is that if the purpose is made clear, the language will come around on its own.

Everyone got two pencils and a piece of paper. One pencil was for describing, the other for writing. I asked them to describe the pencil (dents, length, erasers, color) so that anyone reading their paper would be able to identify it just from the words on the page – description! The next week we would lay out all the pencils and switch papers and have at it. “Describe it so that someone could read your paper and find your pencil,” I said.

ILS: “That’s what writers do. What you see, you say.”

Nice work all around. Some people drew drawings, which they labeled.

LP: It is 7 inches tall. My pencil is blue. Mine is pointy it is a point lead. It has letters it says Community School. Some of it is gold. My eraser is black and red. It has a poke in it. My other pencil is light brown. Some of it is silver. Mine has black words. It doesn’t have a eraser.

KW: My pencil is short. It is ½ inches. It’s light orange. It doesn’t have an eraser. It has 287. And U.S. A. Dixon Oriole. It has 21 HB and 194. It looks like this:
[picture below, with arrow pointing at one end and the words: “No eraser”

KH: My pencil is six and a half inches. My has an eraser. It doesn’t have bit marks. They don’t have words on them the pencil is black it’s shaped like a triangle. It has orange in it. It has a low pencil lead. They have an X on it. It has happy faces on it. . .It has yellow in it. My pencil have silver on it. This is a long pencil it have black eyes it has white in it. It’s smooth and have hardness on the other it has no words on it. . .”

I can hardly wait to see how/if they can find the match!

December 17, 2007

FOURTH GRADE

Wendy’s experiment: Same as with the pencil from last week, but using instead the homemade cranberry bars I brought in. Lots of describing words, then they traded papers while I laid out the bars on the table. They then tried to I.D. the bar that was described. It worked beautifully. Of course then everyone got to eat the bar they found. My language/prompting was like this:
“Write what you see. They’re sort of all alike, but they are each unique. How is yours unique? What makes is different form the other ones.”
They looked at shape, size (measuring with rulers), number of cranberries, was it an edge piece or a center piece, thin or thick…etc etc.

MW: It has broken up icing. Under the icing I see blueberries. On the bottom of the cake I see cranberries. Crumbs are falling off. The icing looks clear. At first I thought it was a granola bar. I see another red spot. There are little blue spots. I see a piece of icing at the bottom. It looks like it is really light. I wonder if it is good for you. It smell goood. Kind of crooked. One side is longer than the other. It doesn’t look like it has much icing. It is tan color. There is no edge. One centimeter. Twenty inches. It looks sweet.

DG: It’s square like. The back is kind of flat. It have eight cranberries inside. The bottom is flat. One side is 21 cms, the other side is 11 cms. It have an edge.

ZJ: My cake is crooked because it came from the edge of the pan. It has lots of icing on it. It have 6 centimeters. It also have dust in it. It small like lemon. It is 1 inches…It is very small. My is 1 inch tall.

AP: This cranberry thing has lot of icing. The back is one in a half inches the front is there.

First and second hour 4th grade finished up and we talked about pronunciation of more/moh, baff/bath, then/den. More about choosing where to use which and context of language. Quickly it got very serious and deep. SA spoke about how she feels that she’s just a “normal black girl” living “in the hood” and she doesn’t see why people “be wantin to” take her away from who she is, that this culture and environment are part of what makes her who she is and that’s what she is and she doesn’t care what anyone says she’s not turning her back on her community. The others chimed in with stories about how outraged they felt at the proposals in one neighbohood or community to outlaw baggy pants, not that they approve of baggy pants, but they don’t get why matters of style and personal expression should be regulated by “outsiders.” This went on for a while, with SA once mentioning the things “white people” do/say, then saying, “no offense, Ms. Schaenen,” as she always does when she speaks about such matters.
ILS: Do you think that I do that?
SA: No, you don’t.

In the second hour during a similar conversation AP said, “You don’t because you mixed.”
ILS: Mixed how? What do you mean mixed? You mean like I have a black father?
AP: Yeah.
ZJ: Yeah, you act black. White teachers in schools an’ stuff, they ain’t like that because they be hangin with black students, coming to the neighbood and all, and teachin us and stuff.

I was rather taken aback to hear from ZJ that I seem to her to “act black,” because one of the things I’m always aware of is the enormous difference in my background—with respect to privilege, cultural/ethnic background, ways of being… I know the students like me, but I always sort of thought they liked me given our differences, that they got a kick out of the way I speak on account of its being kind of amusingly different to them. I definitely never try in any way “to act black,” and indeed often call attention to their laughter over how weird I sound when I replicate Ebonics patterns myself to point out various constructions. To think that there was some sort of consensus (at least with this group) that I was/am “one of them” was amazing and also a little bizarre. I suspect it might be a case of affection leading to affinity or identification with me (and the other white teachers here), or me/us with them.

At the door to their room MW mentioned that she hated the way white people talk, and MS said, yeah, “white people talk funny.”
ILS: Do I talk funny?
MS: No, not you.
And then she went on to impersonate sort of a teeny-bopper “whatever” kind of valley girly way of talking. “Like totally” kind of language.

Another conversation in the Room:
AW: Black people think before doing something. White people just go and do it.
MS: Naw, [paraphrased] it’s not about skin color, it’s about how you are as a person that matters, it’s how you treat people.
ILS: So I’m hearing a couple of you saying that there are big differences in how white people and black people act and think, and other who say it’s more about how and who we are inside that matters.
Nods.

When the conversations go to places like this I feel so strongly how lucky I am to be in this place at this time…to be able to think and talk about such things in real ways with my students…ways that seem to shut down in the “outside world” among adults and kids both. I sense that it’s the safety of this room, and the whole history of my time here, that allows these words to come out in a meaningful way, in ways that permit us to link language to self and identity and purpose in ways that no MAP test can possible tap. What are the connections between all this and regular school work? I’m still not sure. But I am ever more certain of its value nonetheless.

SECOND GRADE

We played a rousing fun game of Apples to Apples – for this group it was the first time ever. Some interesting matches, good humor, lots of routines established for playing again. They learned the word adjectives and reviewed NOUNS.

THIRD GRADE
We couldn’t get together today…rain check until after x-mas break!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

Inda Schaenen

All About Poetry

This was my last class with Mr. M’s fifth graders. I wrote a poem for the class, using each of their names and summing up what we did this semester. I asked them to write either a review of the class or a poem. (I always give them the option of writing a poem on anything they want!) Here are a few responses:

Poetry

By T

I like writing because
we get to play writing games,
like when we play the animal nickname game
and you have to beat someone’s time.
I like writing because we get to read poems
and my three favorites are
“When a Woman Gets Blue,”
“This is Just to Say,”
and the last one is
“Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All.”

All About Poetry

By C

Before I came I didn’t like poetry.
Now I have started to like poetry
because I get to write about stuff
that I really like to write about.
I also like poetry because
I get 10 minutes for silent time.
I like to write about action!, poems,
and other stuff like that.

The Fog

By J

The fog is sometimes scary
from horror movies like
The Headless Horseman
and The Mist.
But people should know that
fog is clouds that fall from the sky.
I like my thoughts.

Listening and Looking–Ms. Schaenen 12/05/07

Onward with genres! Today I brought in seven identical coffee cans, each one filled with a different thing which, as I told the children, I had found in my kitchen. They split into pairs or worked alone and each group had a can. They got to shake it and listen, and then tried to guess what was inside the can. Then they:
1. wrote down their guesses
2. opened the can and observed what was really inside
3. wrote up “lab reports” as a genre, avoiding the word “I” explaining what they had done and what they observed, in detail, about what was in their can.
4. read aloud from their reports.

Here’s what was inside those cans: ziti, Cheerios, toothpicks, a ball of string, three small toy animals, three clementines, crayons.

One person, a second grader, thought the crayons were candles, which was interesting, because both are made of wax – I praised her listening skills on that observation. People thought the toothpicks sounded like rice. People thought the string sounded like sugar. People thought the clementines were balls of clay, which was also interesting—both being soft and round. I think the kids thought it was neat (I certainly did) that a person could “hear” a shape and a material.

Side note: One student in fourth grade avoided writing “I” by subsituting “me.”

“When my object was a mystery to me and myself thought that it was rice or peanuts but when me got to open the can it was really toothpicks me studied the object and me described it. It was sharp, pointy. It was long, it also was skinny, it was wooden, it also was breakable. It was 3 cenameters long and finally it was useful to get food from your teeth. I wanted to know how and where did the first toothpick come from but me will find that out in my next lab report.”

Note the way she suggest ideas “for future studies” – looking into the history of the toopick — which was completely in line with how science reports often conclude. She did this on her own. I did not prompt them about this generic custom.

Here’s another fourth grade report:

“Based on the sound we think it is a fruit. It is very soft. It is very light. It look like an orange. It is round. It very bouncy. It does have a smell but you can bust it if you [squeeze too hard] and it have this thing on it that make you think it’s rotten.”

One last 4th grade:

“It is round. It is small. You can eat it. Has bumps. It is dry. It is stale. Kind of thin. Holy. It has black spots. Kind of crooked in the middle. White in themiddle. Very crooked. Brown spots. Looks like a ring. Small and big. It is lumpy. It doesn’t have a smell. It lookes like it is cut in half.”
[Describing a Cheerio]

SECOND AND THIRD GRADE

For these classes we all sat around the circle table – I feel that the younger students like the feeling of being in an intimate group like this. One by one a student selected a can to be passed around the table for shaking. We all listened and they wrote their guesses. Then I called on a student to open the can – there was much drama and anticipation around this moment. What was inside? Would it match the guess?

One third grader listed several possibilities for what was inside each can:

“What I hear is supplies, pencils, rocks, keys, shells, crayons.”

Some of the writing in these classes looked like lists. Other students wrote sentences: “I think that it sounds like paper clips.” “It sound like little rock.” “I think that the sound sounds like rice.”

One side note to record: All the students are growing more and more comfortable with editing rather than erasing. Crossing out, re-writing, trying again – rough drafts should be messy. The motto is: NO ERASING IN ROOM FOR WRITING. WE CROSS OUT.

-Inda

What We Were Given

Yesterday, Mr. M’s fifth graders and I read an excerpt from Richard Currey’s book, Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal, in which he describes a tricycle his father gave him before he left for the Korean War. I asked the students to think of a gift which someone had given them and what it meant to them. Then I asked them to write a paragraph or poem about the gift and gift-giver. Here are some examples:

My Uncle

By T

We lived in St. Louis when my uncle died. My mother had explained why my uncle had died. The week he died was a very sad time. He had given me a necklace and everytime I look at it, it reminds me of him. At night, I dream about him still being here. My whole family misses him and we love him.

My Friend

By S

My friend gave me a new bike because she had to move to a new neighborhood. So I gave her a friend necklace. Everytime I ride the bike it makes me want to cry because my friend was nice, smart and always helpful. Even if she did not know people, if they needed help, she would help them. I was always nice to her and I liked to share with her.

One day I was watching T.V. and I turned to the Channel 2 News and I saw that my friend died. She died because her house caught on fire and my friend did not get out of the house. Her name was Brittany.

Shoes My Granny Gave Me

By C

My grandmother bought me some shoes that I like.
Every morning I put them on I think about her.
Every time I get home from school, I call her
and check up on her.

“If YOU BUY THIS EVERYTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE”

More Genres: Advertisement and Science Writing

Fourth grade:

Both sections came in and we reviewed the meaning, now relatively stable, of the word genres: Genres are different forms of writing, such as fiction, non-fiction, biography, etc etc.

So I introduced another form of writing (or genre): advertising. Emphasizing and discussing that understanding what a genre IS and how it LOOKS and SOUNDS requires understanding its purpose. What is the purpose of advertising? To sell, something, of course. To make you (the reader, viewer, listener) want to buy the thing being advertised, the SUBJECT of the advertisement, so to speak.

I passed around two samples, from that morning’s NY Times and one from Sports Illustrated: an ad for a watch “as unstoppable” as some famous basketball player (whom they all knew, and whose face was in the ad as large as the watch face). The other ad was a full-pager from the Times for a Buick, shown in color zooming through the page from bottom to top and causing all the “boring” black-and-white Text of the dummy printed typical page in its path to make way, leaving a bare white patch in the shape of a sweeping road. A very clever and visually interesting ad. We had more conversation about what kinds of commercials and ads they were familiar with from TV and radio, and there were loads.

The the activity of the day was to come up with a product, and – using the genre of advertisement – design a printed ad for it using words and images both. The kids had a lot of fun.

M designed an ad for a DVD of a video game. He came up with just the right word to write on the box as a label: “Ms Schaenen, I’m gonna say uncrushable.” So on the DVD box it said: “Only for age 10 and up. Real but uncrushable. Play 2 person [meaning for 2 players].” Interestingly, M flipped his page over to drawn the back of the box on the back of the paper, exactly lined up with the drawing of the front on the opposite side. In other words, he literally drew the back of the DVD box on the back of the piece of paper (instead of simply making a second square on the same side).

SA designed an ad for a new clothing store: Down the left side of the page (which she had turned sideways) was a drawing of a sample outfit. Atop the outfit she wrote in red: “Come and buy the latest fashion of this season. Along the outfit she wrote the name of the outfit in black: “Dimond [diamond] go to heven [heaven] outfit.” Below that, a slogan, also in black: “It’s glamourouse. On the right hand side of the page she wrote in smaller pencil font, cursive: “The product that I’m trying to sell is the most glamourouse styling hot fashion of this season and it’s the Dimond go to heven outfit and you could get it for only 99.90 no taxes included. So come and buy it. Below THAT, in huge printed bubble letters of red and black, she wrote an eye-catching word: G.L. A. M. O. R. O. U. S. Below that, the telephone number of the store and the street name, Pinelawn.

M’s ad was for a jewelry store: “ M’s Jewerly Store” Three boxes along the bottom of the page, with a single box topping the row off. Inside the top box she had me draw a picture of a diamond ring, which I did. Then she wrote “$30.99 come and get it it’s the chepes [cheapest] We can get at first 100.00 now 30.99 “
Left box: a picture of a bracelet and “It’s hot it’s tight its only $29.99 the diamond bracelet”
Center box: a picture of a necklace and “It’s silver its gold it’s My necklace for $40.99”
Riightbox: a picture of a watch and “It’s cheep it’s hot it’s all mine for $20.99.

A few interesting things to note: Many of the students priced their items with the familiar dollar amount plus a .99. I asked them if they knew why sellers did that, They had no idea so we briefl talked about the sound of a number – why $29,99 sounds closer to 20 than if you said $30. Also: quite a few of them advertised charging “no taxes.” As JR said, “Taxes get on my nerves. They rippin people off, it changes the price.” This sounds to me like a combination of “overhearing” opinions and not understanding the meaning of the word “tax.” I think I may find some time to talk about taxes and what they mean in the coming weeks.

In the second hour two girls working next to each other both designed a Mall with individual shops. This was visually created by turning the page sideways and creating a grid, almost like a weekly calendar– one line across the whole page that said on top: “The Mall were we sell every thing in a store” and the other one: “The Mall were everything is made” Then they drew vertical lines down to create columns, and each column had its own title (like a day of the week). R had four columns: “Clothes, Baby Phat purses, perfume, and Imfo [info]” Under clothes: a drawing of a tee shirt and the words “If you buy this everything is going to change you are going to be sexy all your life.” Under the purse columbn: “If you buy this all the boys are going to love you.” Under the perfume: “If you buy this you are going to be running down the street because the boys are going to chase you.” Under info: “Were the shop is: 24 Street You better come down here girls, before the clothes, purses, and perfume be sold out.”

This is obvious, but I’ll mention it anyway: notice the way this student has adopted the way of conveying a sense of “buyer’s deficit:” you are less without these items, and will be more, have more, do more IF you buy them. She has picked up a “way of being” [superior] that ads can convey through language, and the way of conveying a particular meaning, an “if-then” logic to the act of stimulating desire and using money to acquire something you do not have but “should” have. “If you buy this everything’s going to change.”

A. designed a store, spent a long time with a ruler making all the lines even and straight, and drew the whole picture of the shop from the outside and the inside at the same time. Across the top of his page in blue and red letters: A’s Soul Food Seasoning Store!!! Then he displays a row of bottles of sauce, each one with the words “Black Pepper, A. 2623 Bund on it. He made lots of green grass of the sidewalk, and his hand prints on the concrete in front of the doors. whicah are labeled PUSH and PULL. The price of the bottles is on a piece of sidewalk, too. “2 dollars pour [per] bottle. 5 dollars pour Big bottles.”

SECOND AND THIRD GRADE

After my conversation with Ms. M in the hall a few weeks ago, she and I agreed that I would try to incorporate some science learning in the room since it was hard for the kids to get science in with the mandated curriculum. I was excited, because this would allow me to introduce the genre of “science writing.” Taking notes based on observations, making claims, drawing conclusins, etc etc. So she loaned me two kits and I planned a lesson about water, surface tension, molecules, positive charges and cohesion. The old “fill a cup full of water and keep adding drops to watch how high the water can rise above the rim before finally spilling out and over on account of gravity finally being stronger than the forces of cohesion that hold the H2O molecules together” lesson.

(Incidentally, I wasn’t sure how the class would behave so I did the droppering, but ideally each student would have had their own cup and dropper. I might try this again with the kids doing their OWN experiment. Interestingly, in the write-ups, some of the kids wrote that “Ms. Schaenen” did such-and-such. Others wrote that “we” did it. And one girl wrote “I put a 100 drips and it did not spill.” A reflection of the different ways of translating a group experience—did we ALL do something if our teacher did it on our behalf?)

So that’s what we did.
In second grade we began at desks writing down on a flip chart “what we already knew about water.”
“If you don’t drink it you die.”
“We cannot drink salt water.”
Then we moved over to the low round table by the door.
Every student had her/his own small little yellow pad for taking notes. We all crouched in a circle around the low round table and watched at eye level as the paper cup got more and more full, drop by drop. Kids were amazed. Before I began I asked them how many drops they thought I’d need to add before the water spilled over the side.
“Five?” “Three?”
The drops started going in, and we got to over a hundred.
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked.
“It gone explode!”
“It gone spill!”
Some got so nervous they ducked under the table. The drama was palpaple. They counted aloud the number of drops as each one plopped in.
After the water had spilled we went back to the desks and the student used their yellow “lab notes” to write up some sentences about the experiment.

SECOND GRADE
The “gifted” boy in the second grade class wrote: “The liquid is compounding together so it wont fall. We added 250 drops of water to it. The water wasn’t tipping over.”

DT:” I saw a cup of water that was full and it didn’t tip over it is about to waste it is dirty and is in a cup it looks round I see reflection and it is compounding [this word was on the board after D asked me how to spell it] it is wiggling it is a circle and it look like rain drops is falling in. And round and flat and I don’t like salty water and we don’t drink ocean water. Water is clean and clear.”

THIRD GRADE
“I see a small cup of water. It will spill. The rim is holding the water. It took 279 dropps to get it to spill. It finally spill. We thought it would take like 100 droppes to spill. It was exiting to me and Kelcie and I hope it was fun to everybody.”

How about this melange of genres-news team feature–by K:

“K’s report on a water experament. In the class of Ms. Schaenen their doing an experament. Let’s ketch up with one of her students. The student says, “That she sees a half cup of water. She thought that it was going to fall. And that the rim was holding it. The liquid spills if she puts 270 drops of water it looks like this:” [she drew a picture of the cup with the water spilling out] The end.”

What a great day!!!!

Inda

Do You Carrot All For Me?

Today we read a poem by Anonymous called “Do you carrot all for me?” in which there is, in a short space, a lot of word play with homophones. One of my fifth grade students described it well when he said, “The names of the vegetables are covering up what is being said.” I then passed out some carrots and celery sticks and we analyzed them using the five senses. After the students had made a list of their observations, I asked them to write either a poem or a paragraph using their five senses and referring to their sensations in applying the five senses to the vegetables. Here’s what L came up with:

Celery Senses

So smooth so grapey so greeny and stripey
so good and rooty, but it’s a veggie fest
so sweet and lovely and carrying a healthy
green giant with long legs and bouncey flippers
it’s a song, an opera —

I got celery, celery, celery
on my table, table, table,
you will like it like it like it
when you taste it taste it taste it
because celery is so good
you can eat it when you’re sick
sing it when you chomp
cheer it when you eat!