Community Narratives

 Last Wednesday, the students had their narratives already prepared to copy into their pamphlet. Cindy had reviewed them and suggested one more sentence to transform into a "show not tell" sentence for each student. We helped brainstorm and check spelling with students one-on-one. When everyone was finished I explained the pamphlet book construction. The kids remembered that the last book we made was an accordion fold book. For a pamphlet book pages are folded in half and stacked into a signature to be sewn-bound along the spine. We did a quick math computation: the children counted their sentences/the pages they'd need which had to be divided in half to count how many sheets of folded paper they'd need. For example for a 10 page book one needs 5 sheets of paper. We explained how to copy the sentences into their books using a heavy-lined sheet of paper laid under the page they were working on for guide lines to show through.

Each child figured out how many sheets they would need an we passed out the paper for their folded signatures. The rest of the session was spent with intense focus as the students very carefully copied out their stories into the books.

 At the end of the period we passed out an additional blank folded sheet to serve as a title page, as well as the cover pages. I had scanned in each student's community embroidery and printed them out onto cardstock for the covers, since their stories had been inspired by the embroideries they had made.

 Before our session on Friday, I pierced each book 3 times along the spine with an awl to prepare for binding. As a class, together we followed directions on how to sew a 3-point pamphlet binding. Up through the center hole, down through the top hole, up through the bottom hole, and down through the center hole, with the two ends tied together across the long float down the spine. Unfortunately, the students had trouble keeping their holes lined up. Learning curve! If I were to do this with this age group again I would either hole-punch the holes for larger, more easily lined-up holes, or I would have clips to hold the pages firmly in place for binding. However, with help, everyone managed to get their books bound!

 The rest of the session was spent making sure the cover and title pages were complete, and working on illustrating their stories.

 The students were encouraged to read the sentences on each page, picture it in their mind, and draw all the details they saw. They were asked to use the whole page and consider backgrounds for their objects and figures.

 Cindy reminded the students that if they were to read their book to a kindergartner, a younger child would want to see big, bright, easy-to-see pictures.

 I think we'll spend a little bit more time on illustrations next week before we wrap up the collaborative project. Only a few more days left!!

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.

River timeline books

 On Wednesday we completed the river timeline books by binding them. Cindy had the kids prepared with summaries of their notes for each time period written out onto sticker labels to be inserted into the individual pages. I brought along the chipboard for sturdy covers as well as paper maps of the Delaware Valley region cut down to cover the chipboard. It was mostly a follow-the-directions lesson as we moved step by step through how to cover the boards and bind the book. Each child received 2 boards and 2 map pieces. They selected which side of the map the wanted to be showing, then glued it onto the board, folding over the corners and edges and gluing them down, like wrapping a package. Then we decided which side should be the front cover and which the back, and glued their accordion paper first to the back side, then the front side, careful to center it and line up the 2 covers.

Once the covers were complete and the book bound, the students doublechecked that their summary labels and everything was well glued down. Cindy and I roamed the room helping students as needed complete the binding.

When all binding was complete, we brainstormed some possible titles for the books. The students came up with: "The Olden Times", "Life of a River", "A River Changes", "River Timeline". We wrote each suggestion on the board and made not that book titles are always capitalized. Then I asked students to tell what their favorite time period was and why. I had also brought in photocopies of maps of Philadelphia from each of the time periods we had covered in the book for the students to select one image representing their favorite tie period to collage onto the front of their book with their title. At the end of class I offered the simile "A book is like a body" to see if anyone could figure out why (head, spine, and foot are parts of books, and covers/content are like outside/inside of a person).

 It's very satisfying to turn something you've drawn and written into a real book. The students were quite proud of how these turned out.