Community Narratives

On Monday Cindy started us off with a review of "Showing, not Telling" sentences. We selected a few of the children's applique blocks to pull out a simple sentence, and the children had to come up with descriptive adjectives and adverbs using their thesauruses to expand their sentences. For example:

Seth's urban burglar on the roof

"The burglar is on the roof" (typical simple 3rd grade sentence inspired by one of the embroideries)
burglar: sneaky, quiet, malicious, bad, bungling, etc.
roof: slanted, flat, tall, high, pitched, slippery, dangerous, etc.
is? (could be a more active sentence): climbed quietly, slinked carefully, waited patiently, tip-toed precariously, etc.
==> "The quiet, sneaky burglar slinked carefully across the slippery, slanted roof" (much more interesting sentence!)

After creating some more interesting sentences, we explained that entire stories could come out of the children's pictures. We talked about using the setting (rural, suburban, urban) from their pictures and choosing characters to live there (perhaps from the details they stitched). We came up with some examples of problems and solutions the characters might experience if they lived inside the children's pictures. Then we brainstormed what a beginning, middle, and end of the story might be. The children were provided with a graphic organizer to use for their brainstorming, and I passed their embroideries back to them. I encouraged the students to look at what they had created, imagine themselves entering the picture, and think about what it might be like to live there- what would it be like? What problems would there be?

Alex said she had a daycare center, a school, a park, and an animal adoption center. She made up a story where the children from the school went to visit the adoption center, but a dog escaped, ran around the park, and the children helped capture him again! 

Cindy and I worked around the room, talked to the children about their plans, helped elicit ideas, and kept everyone focused. When children were stuck I asked them to tell me a little about their picture- what buildings had they included, who lived there, what's happening, where could people go, what could they do in that community?
The brainstorming activity took up our morning session, but all the children completed their organizer for the writing of a narrative problem/solution story based off of their community applique embroidery. Since we need to make up some time, we decided I should stay for the afternoon as well to work towards our next goal of a finished written piece inspired by their own artwork.

Emily's grumpy farmer- his sheep kept escaping to the clover field

In our afternoon session Cindy modeled how to use the graphic organizer to flesh out a story using one of the children's appliques and organizers. As a class we offered both plot suggestions as well as vocabulary suggestions for making the story more fun and interesting for the reader. Doing this as a group hopefully helped the children see how the descriptive words they choose can help a writer make decisions. For example, if a character is a "grumpy farmer", well why was he grumpy in the first place? Once the activity was modeled, we passed out writing paper to start the first draft. Again Cindy and I worked the room, helping students stay on task, asking questions to spark their imagination, and editing the drafts as they were complete.

We've decided to have the children create another handmade book for the final version of the stories and illustrate them. I'm scanning thir pictures in to print and use for the covers.

Literacy Goals are Moving Along!

Yesterday, after spending 2 weeks doing DRA's (Developmental Reading Assessments), I see some good progress! After 8 weeks in school, the children that I gave the assessments to had made considerable gains. One student went up 2 levels! Using art as a basis for teaching writing skills and supplementing those with Guided Reading (small group reading at their level focusing on comprehension skills), is starting to show some definite progress in both reading and writing. We have completed 4 pieces of writing, from graphic organizer to rough draft to edited copy. From those 4 pieces, all students have gained at least 2 points (10%) improvement. This improvement in only 8 weeks is very impressive to me. I have been teaching third grade for 7 years, and am quite impresssed. Most students have raised their scores even more. We are beginning our 5th piece tomorrow, with a compare/ contrast essay on the Nile River and the Amazon River. Both rivers have been stitched on the students Map of the World Fabric Piece.

We have done 2 Main Idea/Detail activities, Teacher modeled first, then student completed independently. The first was on a piece of non-fiction on Rivers, the second on Canals. This literature follows our theme. Informational writing follows this format also, however the students find it much easier to recognize the Main Idea when they have written it themselves! This intricate web of daily activities wrapped around our Teaching Artist and activities is starting to blossom, and the evidence is slowly emerging!

Day 4: Furtraders Narrative ;Cindy's Response

As usual, Marie has done an incredible job of capturing the essence of the lesson in her writing (the previous blog)! I will add that the students noticed a similarity in one of the Van Gogh paintings to The Gleaners. That observation led to a discussion that Van Gogh and Millet were from the same area, and may have seen some of the same types of activities in the community around them. We noticed that the "mood" in Van gogh's similar painting was much 'darker' and briefly discussed the artist's purpose of what he wanted the viewer to see or experience. This observation gave the students an experience in "Author's Purpose", another reading goal we haven't yet explored.

I'd like to note that this experience of writing, brainstorming and recognizing Problem/Solution is a skill not usually fully understood this early in the Third Grade school year. We have only been together for a little more than 3 weeks, and the students seem to have mastered the concept. This will help the students immensely in their reading comprehension. I had never thought to use illustrations or artworks as a springboard for this concept, what an incredible learning experience for me!

As is always the case, time is the enemy in the classroom! There's never enough of it. After Marie left, the students wrote out their Problem/Solutions based on The Furtraders, and they were great! EVERY student exhibited understanding of the concept. I collected them, assessed them, and they are ready to be glued into their sketchbooks next to the foursquare they had used to organize their thoughts. Remember, the foursquare also required them to write and choose who the characters were and the setting, another reading goal!