Multi Genre Research Paper

Unfortunately, I was sick last week and had to miss field experience and E339.  I was really bummed I had to miss a week with my kidos but am excited to go back tomorrow! Throughout the past couple of weeks we have been working on our multi-genre research papers.  We could do them on any topic, but I chose to focus on addictions.  I really have no specific reason I chose that topic, it is just something I didn't know a whole lot about and really interests me.  I wanted to pick a topic that I would be able to find a lot of information on and it would be fun to do.  I really think that this project has actually turned out to be a lot of fun.  However, I still have quite a bit to do before I am done!

Writing Workshop Time!

For the second half of our time at University School this week, we spent working one on one with a student on their writing workshop.  We each were paired with a 4th grader. I got paired with a little boy named Ben who was absolutely awesome.  He is in a wheelchair and he doesn't have arms but does have hands.  That sounds weird, but he does a great job with it.  He is very smart and funtions amazingly!  He was so excited to work with me and to share his work.  First, we did a quick write about brushing our teeth.  It was great hearing what Ben was writing and he really thought of some things that I would never have thought about.  Then as a class the teacher discussed ideas about remembering the first time we ever did something and the last time we ever did something.  Each child made a t-chart and created a list of both of these topics.  Then from the list they were to pick one of these ideas and write a short story about it.  Ben chose to write about the first time he drove his wheelchair, which he calls his "car."  It was so interesting to hear about this experience and hear how excited he was about it.  Working one on one with Ben really gave me the chance to see what his thought process was when writing a story, and it was great because I could give him ideas and suggestions.  I would love to follow up with Ben next time to see how his story is going.  I would also  love to have had time to work with even more students, so hopefully I'll be able to do that in the future!

Reading Assessments

Last week in my 4th grade class we started off by doing some grading on papers where students used context clues to figure out what words meant.  It was very subjective, so it was a little hard to do but I actually think it taught me a little about seeing the different levels of students at that age.  When the kids got back, we took a few of them to do individual reading assessments in another room. Each child read a short passage titled “Pizza.” We stopped them after one minute, where they then told us what the story was about. Then, we filled out fluency and comprehension charts based on how they did.  Besides the fact that reading about pizza over and over again made me very hungry, I think it was a great experience.  I really liked being able to work one on one with the students and to see the different levels the children are at.  Overall, I think it was a very successful Wednesday at University Elementary School.

Week 5 in E339 - Mini-Lessons

In class this week we did a unit of study on a subject and did a mini-lesson to go along with that unit.  I did my unit of study on ABC books with Sami.  I thought it was a great assignment and good to think through how we would do a mini-lesson to connect to a picture book in the classroom.  However, it was much different presenting a mini-lesson to a group of college students whose knowledge far surpassed that of a group of second graders. Their attention span also probably was a little longer than a group of little ones.  For my mini lesson I began by asking the class an array of questions that discussed what made up ABC books and ideas for their own ABC books.  I then gave students a chance to look at different examples of ABC books and read an ABC book to them aloud.  Then, I was going to have my students create their own ABC book using an adjective that begins with each letter of the alphabet.   And with those adjectives, they would create sentences that gave examples of how to use those adjectives.  Finally, they would create a final draft of their ABC book including the sentences they used and a picture to represent that adjective.  Overall, I really liked this assignment because we were able to create our own mini-lesson that was centered around a picture book.  There are a lot of lessons that can be created from a simple picture book, especially older children, which we often think picture books are too old for.  Since we have been reading about min-lessons the past couple of weeks, it was good to get our own experience in creating our own!