THE INSPIRATION

While researching prewriting strategies for my new writing intervention program, I found this article: “Powerful Prewriting: Four strategies to teach kids how to discover their own stories” by Hindie Weissman

THE CONNECTION

I think that writer’s notebooks are a must for ANY writing classroom.  They are a place to store ideas for writing.

How do you get ideas to store? Here’s how!

THE STRATEGY – TO COLLECT IDEAS for PERSONAL NARRATIVE WRITING

1.The teacher reads this book aloud.

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena

OR students view this YouTube Video version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOXez4mN7oU

2. After reading the book,  the teacher models each of the four topics listed below using her own life as examples. CJ’s experiences in the book can also be inferred as examples.

people they know well,

places they go to often,

things they do all the time,

things they care deeply about.

Note: These same topics will be the titles of four separate pages in the students own writer’s notebooks.

3. Students have a chance to brainstorm their own connections to the topics above.

4. The students share their connections with other students and the teacher.

5. Students write down connections in their notebooks directly or brainstormed on to post it notes and then added to their writer’s notebooks.

6. Students choose an idea to take further.

The article goes on to say that the teacher models how to take one of the ideas for the topic and plan a writing piece.

Make sure that students add to these topics throughout the year, this should not be a one-time activity.

On another day discuss the grandma and how she changed CJ’s perspective on his neighborhood. There is a great discussion to be had on where we notice beauty and how people can be blind to it or too distracted by life to notice.

Enjoy!

Love always,

Coach Clark

This mother’s day I reflect on my two children. There is one thing that I worried about when they went to school. I hope they can read.

I say hope because some kids don’t.

Some kids struggle.

I know what happens to kids who can’t read and struggle.

They can give up on themselves and school.

We need to do better with these kids.

Learning disabilities are real, they are for life.

Attempting to force a student with LD to read, in the traditional way, all the time, is harmful.

It does not make sense. We have technology.

We have had technology for awhile but now there is more technology.

What happened to “Listen to Reading”?

No, not just RAZ kids. (A leveled reading program)

REAL books.

We had these listening centers when I was a beginning teacher: a “ghetto blaster” and headphones. Books on CD from Scholastic.

We have digital books now. With a library card the world of books is accessible by paper copy and digital. Digital means audio and it means full membership in the reading club, with endless choice.

I was reminded of this while reading “Tribe of Mentors” by Timothy Ferriss.  Joel McHale a stand up comedian who is dyslexic, recently signed up for Audible.com. He now listens to books all through the day, including those challenging classics that were never a possibility in High School.

A possibility…everyone should have a possibility.

So this Mother’s Day, listen. (Did you catch the clever ending to this sentence?)

Let’s think about our kids, our students, how can we get them back into reading?

As Rick Astley said, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

He meant reading, as a nerd, I am sure he meant reading.

Love,

Coach Clark