Wordle Creation!

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3491707/writing_thought

It's almost the end!!!

I can't believe that my last semester is almost over before I begin student teaching!  Life seems to be going so fast.  Though this writing class has flew by there is so many wonderful things that I am going to take with me into my future career.  First of all I never realized how much I could integrate technology into writing and how powerful this could possibly be for my students.  I guess I am somewhat old school and am not to great with technology but I have learned a lot just from being in this class.  I have never used a blog before but I can see how powerful this could be to use for my students.  I think it could take their writing to a level beyond just writing for a grade.  Providing a way for students to share their writing will make their writing meaningful and valued.  I have also learned so much about what writing instruction should be about.  Before this class I guess I viewed writing instruction and writing workshop as teaching a process led by writing prompts.  I now realize that writing workshop can be so much more.  I think it is wonderful to give children the opportunity to write about what they want to write about and to incorporate multiple genres in their writing.  I feel allowing students to write about topics that are meaningful to them will help them become better writers and truly know the real purpose behind why we write.  We write to have our messages heard.  By allowing students to learn to write about topics that are meaningful to them will help them realize the potential power they have to change our world for the better!

Mentor Text Collection Simile Poem "Predictable" Attachment!

Predictable

Poor as a church mouse.
strong as an ox,
cute as a button,
smart as a fox.

thin as a toothpick,
white as a ghost,
fit as a fiddle,
dumb as a post.

bald as an eagle,
neat as a pin,
proud as a peacock,
ugly as sin.

When people are talking
you know what they'll say
as soon as they start to
use a cliché.

© 2000 Bruce Lansky, reprinted from If Pigs Could Fly...and Other Deep Thoughts with permission of Meadowbrook Press

Mentor Text Collection for teaching similes!

Allison Brown                                                                                                                                    Writing Workshop

Mentor Text Collection: Simile (Grades 1-3)

v  My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil by Hanoch Piven.  Schwartz & Wade Books, 2010.

This book is perfect for introducing similes and they are on every page! The story is about a little girl whose grandma asks her about school and the girl draws several class portraits and includes details in the form of similes that tell what makes each person in her class special. 

v  Nico’s Octopus by Caroline Pitcher. Crocodile Books/Interlink Publishing Group, 2003.

This book is about a little boy named Nico who rescues a small octopus from a fisherman’s net and takes it home as a pet.  After caring for the octopus the little boy later finds out some bittersweet news  that the octopus is laying eggs but will soon die because after an octopus becomes a mother it passes away.  He must then decide to set the babies free.  This story is a sweet story and is filled with similes on almost every page.  It also includes interesting facts about octopuses at the end of the story.

v  Black Cat by Christopher Myers.  Scholastic Press, 1999.

This short story tells about a black cat that lives in the city.  Throughout the book the author is asking questions to the cat and then gives detailed one sentence descriptions of where the cat lives and roams throughout the city.  The story has wonderful illustrations that use a combination of photographs, collages, ink, and gouache.  The book also has some strong examples of similes that can be found on pages three, seven, and fifteen.

v  Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz.  Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988.

This story is about a little boy named Thomas that has to sit through a scary thunderstorm that has knocked the lights out.  While sitting through the storm his grandfather tells him stories about his childhood and how he used to be scared of storms.  Throughout the story the author uses a wide variety of similes to describe objects such as “Thomas had a chin as smooth as a peach”. 

v  Hide and Seek Fog by Alvin Tresselt.  Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1966.

This is an older story that is about a bad fog that crept upon the shore and caused the fishermen not to be able to fish and people not to be able to see.  The fog lasted several days.  In the story the author uses a few good examples of similes to describe the way the fog looked.  This would be a good text to use for students after they had already been introduced to similes.  Students then could attempt to identify where the similes were used throughout all the author’s descriptive details.

v  My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks by Hanoch Piven. Schwartz & Wade Books, 2007.

This is another wonderful book to use to introduce the topic of similes.  Every page is filled with numerous examples of different similes.  In the story a little girl draws a family portrait and then adds details by the use of common objects to show each person in her family’s personality while using similes to correlate the person with the objects in the pictures.

v  River Friendly River Wild by Jane Kurtz.  Simon & Schuster Books, 2000.

This book is about a family that experiences being evacuated because of a flood and then has to return to their community to survey the damage.  The book is organized in poems.  Several of the poems throughout the book include beautiful examples of similes.  In the first sentence it uses the simile, “The River wiggled like a fat brown thread along the flat quilt of the Red River Valley, stitching North Dakota and Minnesota together.”  This book is also based on the author’s true experience of being evacuated into a FEMA mobile home in the 1997 flood.

v  Predictable by Bruce Lansky. Reprinted from If Pigs Could Fly…and Other Deep Thoughts. Meadowbrook Press, 2000.

This is a poem by a teacher who has had his poems published in the book listed above.  It is a great example of the use of similes and is funny.  The poem would also be a great resource for a teacher to use for students to begin creating similes by allowing students to create the last part of the simile with a fill in the blank activity.  For example the line “thin as a toothpick” could be “thin as a ___________”.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

v  The Snow Whale by Caroline Pitcher.  Sierra Club Books, 1996.

This story is about a snow day where a sister and brother decide to make a snow whale.  The sister explains to her brother that snow and rain comes from the water rising up from the oceans and rivers and then goes into the clouds and come back down as snow.  Throughout the story the author uses descriptive similes about the whale.  In the end of the story the snow whale melts and the sister is sad.  The brother explains that it has just gone back to the ocean.

v  Ladybug Girl by David Soman and Jacky Davis.  The Penguin Group, 2008.

This is a story about a little girl who dresses like a ladybug and attempts to play with her brother but her brother tells her she is too little.  The little girl decides to try to have her own fun.  This text does not have many similes but would still be a good text to have in a center after the concepts of similes have already been taught.  Students could attempt to find the simile in the text and then create their own like it.

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Thoughts on connecting reading to writing!!

I have recently had the opportunity to observe my first grade class engage in writing a lot.  One of the things I think is great is that they not only have a writing workshop time each day, a free choice writing center with resources, but they also integrate writing into their reading time!  Each day after the teacher does shared reading with the class the students return to their desks and get out their reading journals.  In their reading journals they get to write about how the book made them feel and what connections they made to the story.  There are also days where they have to try to retell the story so that if a person has not read the book they would know what it is about.  It amazes me how great these first graders write and recall the story.  The class as a whole also does a wonderful job of making interesting connections to the story.  They make personal connections to their lives and connections to other texts they have read.  The students also get to draw a picture about their writing.  The kids absolutly seem to love to do this!  I think that it is wonderful that the teacher integrates writing on a daily basis with their reading.  The teacher also does this during author studies too!  She also gives the students the opportunity to also use graphic organizers and thought webs in their journals.  I really like how she tries to incorporate writing throughout the day.  I also like how the teacher tells them that this is their personal journals so they don't feel like they are always being assessed on their comprehension.  The students also get the option of sharing their connections to the class.  I would like to incorporate reading journals into my future class.  I think this gives students the opportunity to improve their writing while getting them to think deeply about the text they have just read and how it was meaningful to them.

Observations of writing!!!

Throughout my field experience I have had the opportunity to observe writers workshop.  I am placed in a first grade class.  Though my class participates in writing workshop on a daily basis it is not conducted like our text book suggest.  The children are not able to pick their own topics for their writing.  The teacher gives them writing prompts for them to use.  The teacher does try to pick topics that are of interest for the students.  This really bothered me at first after reading the text but later I realized that though the children do not get to pick their topics during writing workshop they are able to do free writing during center time on a daily basis.  The students typically do centers for an hour every day.  One of the centers is a writing center.  At the writing center children sit a table in a section of the class that is designated just for writing.  The table is full of helpful resources for the children to use to help them with their writing.  The teacher has books in a variety of genres where students can get examples of good writing styles to use.  There are also informational texts present at the center if children want to write an informational piece.  Just the other day a student turned in an informational paper about sharks that he had wrote by gathering facts from a book the teacher had about sharks.  The story was over a page long and was very good for a first grader!  The teacher also has resources like sticky notes, magazines to cut out pictures, stamps, markers, crayons, glue, scissors,  pre-made cards from a store to write letters on, and a dictionary just to name a few.  The students are allowed to write about anything they want and in any genre they want.  Every child also has their own writing folder at the center where they can keep their drafts and their work.  After the students have finished a piece they can decide to publish it.  Once it is finished they turn it into the teacher and get to share with the class before centers start.  The only requirement is for the students to have at least seven complete sentences.  I think this works out wonderful and the children really enjoy it.  It’s really apparent that this center produces some of their best work.  After seeing how this center is conducted I want to make sure to have a center like this in my future classroom no matter what grade I teach.  The teacher also has a poetry center where students get to copy poems and circle special characteristics or themes used in it.  They are also allowed to write their own poems.  The children really enjoy getting to share the poems too!  It is nice to see that I can incorporate writing on a daily basis other than just during writer’s workshop or the designated writing time.