Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Slice of Life in Three Parts

Today's slice comes to you in three parts. Part one, happy dancing. It is January. In my classroom, January (and February) are magical months. Kids start eating books. They binge read. They forage for sequels. Meet Mohammed. Yesterday, Mohammed checked out The Living by Matt de la Peña.

Today Mohammed says to me as I walk the room conferring with readers about their reading journal entries, "Tell me you HAVE the sequel!"

A boy at his table said, "What? You finished it? In ONE day?"

He said, "I tried to put it down. After a half an hour I was like, let me see how this plays out. I had to finish it. " Mohammed proceeded to tell us why the novel is so good, fast paced and action-packed.

I thought about breaking into my happy dance and fist pumping around the room, but I didn't want to embarrass the kids too much. Instead I asked Mohammed if I could tell the author. He said yes, so I tweeted. And Matt de la Peña answered us right back.


Mohammed  was like...


Score! His table had such a good conversation about the books they were and have been reading that one of the boys convinced Mohammed to try Sandersons' Steelheart next. I preordered the The Hunted


Part two, appreciation. Last week Donalyn Miller tweet a link to a post I'd written this time last year about creating individualized essay questions to assess students' independent reading.



I appreciate the tweet.  Blogging is one way I process and share classroom instruction that is working (or not working).  Writing helps me make sense of what I am doing in the classroom. Connecting to a wider audience of teachers and educators is a perk of the practice.  Even better was how her reminder got me thinking about the questions I am writing for students this year. AND even better (and might be my OLW for this year)  it made me wonder why I don't teach students how to create their own independent reading essay questions.

 I mulled that over. 

Part three, get cooking. I emailed the eleventh and twelfth grade IB English teachers at a couple of schools in our district. They shared theme lists they use in the Literature for IB. I went through some curriculum materials and sample IB assessments. Then I gathered verbs from standards and AP prompts. I experimented with ingredients. I got my mis en place in order.  Then I cooked up a sample chart organized by task, convention, effect, theme or tone to try in class.  The directions at the top come from the paper two assessment given by the IB.


I modeled how I created a prompt or question by choosing one task word, one or two convention words, one effect word and one theme or one tone word.  I wrote an example prompt: Show how the author's manipulation of time and use of detail conveys the idea that life can be reconstructed after tragedy. I showed students how to turn the prompt into a question by using how does at the sentence's start instead of show how.  Then, I used my example question to write about Darnielle's Wolf in White Van in my reading journal. Modeling the process went well.

As we worked today, I added a few words to the conventions and effect columns, so the idea is simmering. Still, students played with creating prompts using the chart. I loved listening to them discuss books as they played with language and thought through ideas. 


This year, they will have a "create your own" option when they sit down to write an essay on that synthesizes their independent reading. Later this week, when I hand out their individual essay questions there will be a space where students can write in their own questions. I can't wait to see what they come up with.





17 comments:

  1. Sounds like an excellent plan and example of giving students ownership in the process

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love how we got to see your thinking around the essay prompt develop. It will be interesting to see how the students' responses change when they create their own question. Also, love the Tweet you got back from author. Great stuff!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Dana, today was wholly engaging. I was engaged and students were engaged. A lot of good thinking today. I'm looking forward to seeing who chooses to write to their own questions and how those pieces may differ or be similar to students who respond to the questions I write for them. Definitely looking forward to next week's writing work!

      Delete
  3. I love seeing Mohammed's happy reading face! And how special to get a tweet back from Matt de la Pena. I'm guessing that totally made Mohammed's day. Hope he finds another book to love just as much! I'm also guessing that Mohammed's praise got some other students interested in reading The Living. Love how that works!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just priceless, such fun capturing Mohammed's joy with the book and De La Pena's response. I know witnessing it totally made my day!

      Delete
  4. Great piece -- my son loved The Living too. Love your idea about assessing independent reading -- thinking about some ways to adapt for upper elementary. Thanks for sharing.
    Clare

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Thank you, Clare, I keep a host of independent reading prompts and questions online. There are maybe 150 from prior years posted :http://www.laspillane.org/irquestions09.pdf

      I did notice that the focus on earlier questions/prompts is more on reader response than analysis or argument but perhaps that is the sort of adaptation that would work as a first step or scaffold for students' synthesis across independent reading titles.

      Delete
  5. I love this idea of creating their own prompt. The possibilities are endless! I need to marinate this while I see how I could work in our standards at the 6th grade level! Brilliant! Thanks so much for sharing your idea and your work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Leigh Anne, I think the possibilities are endless. I used the chart to write some individual questions for students this evening. It's a new challenge and fun to create and play with--I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in writing next week. Thank you for your generous words.

      Delete
  6. Isn't the Internet amazing? Those connections are so special! Your create-their-own essay prompts are really neat too! I always love to learn from your creative ideas!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your kind words, Jennifer. The Internet is amazing. How did we ever live or teach without it?

      Delete
  7. So excited about your essay question journey - you have me thinking! And, hooray for teachers like you who share great books with their kids and connect them with authors. That photograph of Mohammed was priceless...as was his Twitter chat with Matt de la Pena.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tara,
      Thank you for your encouraging words. I'm delighted that the slice got your thinking. Love it when that happens!

      Delete
  8. First, I love the story about The Living, and am excited there's a sequel coming-didn't know! Second, this is exciting to ponder, Lee Ann. I'm just starting blogs with my students, and wonder if in their response they'll eventually be able to incorporate some form of their questions in their book responses? I prefer that the posts not be long, but instead of the more simplistic reporting, some answer in analysis would be good practice for them. Thanks very much for your work and thinking in this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am excited about the sequel too, Linda. I didn't know it was on the horizon until yesterday either.Great fun. I bet students could incorporate some form of questions in their responses. Are you going to guide students posts with suggestions or a lists of blog topics? Years ago I made an A to Z list for kids who took up the Slice of Life challenge in March. A similar thing could work with analysis and questioning built in to some of the letter ideas. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and encouragement. I appreciate your voice.

      Delete
  9. Tweeting with Matt de la Pena...awesome! Picture of a happy reader..even better! I too am intrigued by the write your own question idea. Thank you for making me think!! Have a great day!

    ReplyDelete