Last Monday, fifth grade spent an entertaining and inspiring morning at Jesup Memorial Library with Jack Gantos, one of our very favorite authors. Students, teachers, parents, and librarians listened intently as Mr. Gantos shared the story of his writing life, which began in childhood. An avid reader from a young age, Jack knew that he wanted to become a published author. When he was in fifth grade, he begged his mother for his first journal. Following the lead of literary heroine Harriet the Spy, ten-year-old Jack began using his notebook to record overhead conversations. “Other people’s business was [his] business,” he said. He then built upon this technique with other writing strategies he’s since developed, including mapping his house and neighborhood, and listing actions and emotions that occur there within. The examples and ensuing stories he shared from his own childhood had us roaring with laughter! He also shared tips for revising, and we were astounded to learn that he revises each of his books between 75 and 100 times! One student likened such close revisions to “a fine sanding,” a comparison Mr. Gantos said he plans to steal and use when he talks to others about his writing process.
At the book signing Monday afternoon, Mr. Gantos read and replied to fifth graders’ thank you notes. Our readers continue to enjoy reading and discussing the Norvelt, Joey Pigza, and Jack Henry books, and we’re also having fun trying out notebook strategies. Thank you to the Jesup Memorial Library and Ms. Ryan for coordinating this incredible day!
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Though our website has been long neglected, we've been having a great year in fifth grade ELA! Below is an Trimester 3 update, full of exciting news. Please contact me if you'd like to participate in any of the events we have planned. We have launched our writing workshop with a unit on free verse poetry. Learning right alongside us is Jack, the protagonist in our read aloud, Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. Jack starts his school year with the belief that poetry is for girls, but as his teacher continues to share the work of poets like Robert Frost, Valerie Worth, Arnold Adoff, and Walter Dean Myers, Jack stretches himself to read, write, and reflect. He grows to like the sounds poems leave in his ears, appreciate their sensory imagery, and realize that writing can help him to come to terms with a tough loss.
Poetry is the perfect genre with which to begin our year, as it lends itself to creativity and risk taking, two traits key to a successful workshop. As Lucy Calkins writes, "No other genre grants young writers quite the same freedom to experiment with space on the page, to savor the sound of the words they are writing, and above all, to make universal meaning out of close observations, thoughts, and questions about the world and personal experience." Growing these skills and habits now will help writers as we move through the units that will shape our year: personal narrative, research-based argument essays, and informational writing. Stay tuned to see some of our writing, and for information about our coffeehouse poetry celebration. Our classroom library, full of stories waiting to be read. "The mind of an adult begins in the imagination of a child. Today has been a day of reflection for me, thinking back to the events of September 11 fifteen years ago. While moments from this day are etched in my mind with startling clarity, my students often characterize stories they read about 9/11 as historical fiction, as the attacks happened years before their birth. Today has me thinking about stories that need telling, and as Newbery Medal-winning author Kwame Alexander says in the quotation above, the importance of stories that serve as literary mirrors as well as windows to see and connect to the great big world. I was lucky enough to hear Kwame Alexander share this message this past summer at the International Literacy Association Annual Conference in Boston. He and educational activist Adora Svitak delivered the keynote address, which focused on the power of literature in shaping children's world views. In her talk, titled Literature as a Language of Empathy: How Literacy Can Transform our Souls and Societies, Svitak spoke about the importance of exposing children to a wide range of literature to grow empathy for those with whom we may not have much in common. Speaking about the ramifications of the lack of diversity in children's literature, she shared that as a young Chinese American reader, she learned to develop lots of empathy for white boys who lost their dogs, but never saw characters like herself in books. She went on to say, "If the stories we encounter teach us the lesson that only some people get to be represented, that only some people get to be empathized with, then we set ourselves up for a society that accepts too easily the trampling of other peoples' rights. And we accept the trampling of their rights because we can just pass it off and say, 'Well, that just happens to other people.' Other people, not because they have any less claim to empathy or humanity, but because we learned to see them as other from the gaps in bookshelves where their stories did not appear. This lesson is painfully relevant to our nation right now." My goal for the year is to share lots of different stories with my students, and in doing so, to try and cultivate a culture of empathy and kindness within our classroom that will extend into the community beyond. In this spirit, my first book talk for the year will be Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes. This is the story of Dèja, a homeless fifth grader from present day Brooklyn who does not know about the attack on the Twin Towers until she studies it in school. She learns that her father worked the security desk in the North Tower on September 11, and that the terrorist attack has shaped her family's story in ways that she is just beginning to understand. I will share a book talk each day this week to expose readers to books they may not find on their own, and I will continue to do this frequently throughout the year. Through teacher, peer, and librarian recommendations, I hope to keep good books and a diverse array of protagonists' stories in readers' hands all year long. I want students to leave fifth grade having read not only books that serve as literary mirrors (like those that tell the stories of white boys who lose their dogs), but stories that serve as windows, too. For more on the subjects of this post, check out the embedded links. For more books on September 11, read To Remember 9/11, Read a Book. Welcome to a new school year! Inspired by R. J. Palacio's novel Wonder, a favorite read aloud title from fourth grade, we are beginning our year with a special focus on kindness. Today, we launched our year with #ChooseKind, a project that highlights kindness throughout the school day. To promote kindness and our other school values, we will start each morning by sharing and discussing a quotation from 365 Days of Wonder. Students are tasked with choosing kind words and actions, and placing a marble in our class jar when they observe or benefit from the kindness of others. Our goal is to fill the jar with kindness, and we are up to the challenge! Let's see how quickly we can fill it up.
Follow along and promote kindness at home by downloading The Daily Wonder App. Sharpen your pencils! This is our battle cry. In this classroom we write, write, write! We write about our reading. We craft poems, stories, and essays. We record notes on one another's presentations. We share our feedback. We create. Pencils are our tools, and showing up with one or two ready to go is a way to signify to ourselves and others that we are here to participate.
Please continue checking our classroom page throughout the year, as we post updates and share photos and writing. |
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April 2017
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