We Are Back

I know it has been a long time since I checked in so I thought I would do a quick run down.

We are continuing to read All the Answers by Kate Messner.

I really am enjoying the questions that we are having to ask ourselves as we read this book. The fact that Ava has a magic pencil that can give you the answers has made us think about some difficult questions. I think one of my favorite questions that we have been thinking about is if it is cheating to use a magic pencil to help you with your homework or a test. I love how some of the students have started to see the pencil as a kind of Siri. You ask it questions and it can give you an answer. These students think that using the pencil to do your homework is no big deal it is the same as someone using the internet. I loved that idea. We have also been thinking about the questions that we would ask the pencil if we had a chance. I hope you are hearing about this book at home. If you are not, ask some questions about this magic pencil.

In reading today we started to think about heroes. For the next few weeks we are going to think about heroes. We are going to look at some fictional heroes and some everyday heroes. To start our thinking we worked on an 11 minute essay. An 11 minute essay is exactly like what it sounds like. The students write for 11 minutes. Today I had the students think about four different questions. In the first paragraph the students wrote for 3 minutes in response to a quote from Christopher Reeve. The next paragraph the students had to write for two minutes about what they thought was the most important trait of a hero. In the third paragraph the class wrote for three minutes about the difference between fictional heroes and real heroes. Finally in the last paragraph the students wrote for three minutes about their hero.

The thinking that the students shared was amazing. Students talked about how real heroes did not cheat with superpowers. How real heroes did not need a cape or a mask to help others. They talked about their mom or dad and how they were their heroes. It was some really high quality writing. Three weeks from now I am going to ask them to write this same essay. The only thing that will be different the second time is the students will need to use examples from the texts we are going to read to support their thinking. I cannot wait to read those pieces.

In writing the students are working on their final drafts of their poems. I have been running around the room having conferences with students who are finishing up these amazing pieces. To help students with these final drafts we did another quick lesson on line breaks. We talked about two pieces of advice that Ralph Fletcher gave to help find good places to add line breaks to our work. The students then practiced the tips on the Langston Hughes poem April Rain Song.

Again I am so sorry that it has been a long time since I have checked in on the blog. Hopefully now that we are back more on our regular schedule I can keep up. 

Hope you are having a great week and enjoying the warm weather!!

Quotes

Lately I have been obsessed with quotes. I am not sure why. In the last few books I have been reading on my own there has been quotes weaved into the story. I think this started my obsession. It is not helping is that in our new read aloud All the Answers the main character Ava is collecting quotes.

We are only a few chapters in and already there have been five or six amazing quotes. One of the quotes that I keep kicking back and forth in my brain comes from Einstein--"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."

I love how this quote fits with the book. The main character Ava has a magic pencil that can give her all the answers, but Ava seems unsure about using it. Ava thinks that using the pencil might be cheating. I also think that Ava believes that using the pencil will not make help her know things it will just give her the answers. 

More and more I have been kicking around what Einstein's quote means to me as an educator. One of the projects on our menu board is to have students memorize a section of the Declaration of Independence. It is amazing to see some of our students memorize the portion of the Declaration and be able to recite it in front of the class. The words just flow and fill the room. The part of the Declaration they are memorizing is not short:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I know I could not have memorized this when I was in fourth grade. 

This week we have been diving into this section of the Declaration. Trying to figure out not just what it says but what it means. Each day we look at the section I come back to Einstein's quote, "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." It is amazing that these students can recite this section but I believe it is more important for them to understand. These words hold such an important place in our country. "Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" is the blueprint for democracy. I want our students to understand the power of these words. 

I always want our students to understand not just know. That is not to say that knowing is not important. 

I am constantly amazed at what our students and teachers are doing in math. I will be honest math is not in my wheelhouse. Each week when I walk in Mrs. Sanford's room or see my wife's lesson plans or peak into rooms around the school, I am in awe of what these math teachers and students do. 

I love to go back to Einstein's quote when I think about what our students are doing in math. "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." More and more our students are being asked to explain their thinking. Do they really understand or do they just know? I think we see this the most in math. Our students seem to write just as much as they do in math class as they do with me in writing. 

Maybe the point of all that thinking is to make sure that the students understand. Sure it is of vital importance to know the times tables and certain rules but maybe like Einstein says it is just as important to understand those rules and time tables.

Hope you are having a great week.

Book Talk Day

Nothing beats a book talk day!

I found a tweet last weekend on Twitter. Twitter is an amazing place for educators. You can follow authors, teachers, principals, reading experts and so many others who are just interested in education. I cannot find the tweet as I write tonight but the gist of the tweet was...nothing beats a book recommended by another student. I could not agree more. I can talk about amazing books, but if a student tells another student that a book is good that book will make its way around the classroom quicker than the common cold. This is why I love book talk day. The students are going to do all the work for me. They are going to share books they love and tomorrow when it is time to read they should all have books to read.

Here are some of the books that were shared today in class:

This is just a tiny example of all the amazing books that I got to hear about today.

I hope you are all having a great week. How about those Dayton Flyers!! 16-0 at home this year. The class knows I will be in a good mood tomorrow!!

Reviews

For the next few days we are going to work on writing book reviews. As soon as we finish these book reviews we are going to get back to the poems. I have been working on making comments on the poems and the students will get them back this Wednesday. So far the poems are amazing!

I love reviews. I eat at a lot of restaurants and nothing beats getting a good review from my brother before I head out. One of my favorite things to read is music reviews and book reviews. This week I wanted to share that joy my joy of reviews with the students.

Today in class we looked at six different book reviews. The class visited the six different reviews in groups thinking about what they noticed. We had a book review for Half a Chance and Absolutely Almost.

We also looked at some book reviews for some books that we had not read. As the students toured the book reviews, they took notes. The class had a T-Chart that allowed them to keep track of what all the book reviews had and what some of the book reviews included that they loved. 

The class made an amazing list of what they found. They noticed that book reviews included:

• titles
• authors
• brief summaries
• a challenge
• a favorite part
• a quote from the book
• a challenge at the end
• a question lead
• a sound lead
• and on and on and on

I am always impressed when I just ask the students to tell me what they notice. We are going to take these observations and use them to help us create our own book reviews. Over and over I tried to get the students to understand that we were doing the work of real authors. 

Real authors always read and notice examples of what they are going to write. I think this is more obvious to the students in these quick writing units. In our poetry unit we looked at tons of poetry. I think the students do not always realize how much that poetry is affecting their writing. Believe me though when I make their comments this week I can see the influence that poetry had on their work. Hopefully this quick writing unit will hammer home that idea that if you want to create a piece of writing one of the first steps is to find exemplar examples of that type of writing. Then use those examples to help you create your piece. 

I hope your week is off to a great start and if you want to leave me any restaurant reviews please feel free.