Children's Books

My new favorite children's books:

The Pigeon books by Mo Willems

I love the interaction of the pigeon with the audience and the text with the pictures and the use of text to to convey tone.

Great books.

Constitution Test

As a more authenic form of testing on the Constitution, why not give groups (or individuals, but groups I think would work better) of students real Supreme Court cases, but without the decision. Have them debate the cases in their groups--like the real Supreme Court--and then have them write a decision. Depending on your time available to grade tests, have students each write their own opinion on the case or have the group come up with one opinion. Keep in mind, however, that the real Supreme Court does not have to unanimous. Decisions, or at least recent decisions, have frequently been 5 to 4. Maybe have the students in each group vote and then write only two decisions. It depends on how much individual work you want the students to do, but I would have them write their decisions as a group. Require that students make at least 3 direct references to the Constitution and correctly explain how the section being referenced applies to the case in addition to what the section says in real language.

After students have written their decisions, give them the official decisions and have them discuss the differences between their decisions and that of the Court. Emphasize that the Court is not infalliable, and although more educated, the Court has been wrong in the past (Plessy v. Ferguson, for example). Have students either revise their decision or further support their decision, again by pulling directly from the Constitution and from the official Court decision.

Step three, have students individually reflect on their experience. What did they learn? What do they still want to learn?

Lastly, have each group present the facts, their decision and the official decision with accompanying explaination to the class.

I think this would take 2-3 days to complete between the amount of time needed to debate, write, re-debate, revise, reflect, and present, but I think the time would be well worth the effort as students actively involved in their education.

A few things to remember:

*Put a minimum time on the debates--my students rush through discussions to get to the important part, the part that's graded without focusing on the other really important part--the discussion.

*No internet. Because these are real court cases it would be all too easy for students to look up the Court's opinion and just copy that without doing any of the critical thinking themselves.

*Emphasize the importance of the discussion over the correctness of the answer. There is no right answer--again take the Plessy v. Ferguson case and the Brown v. Board of Education case. Students' grades will depend on their depth of thought, thoroughness of explanation, and ability to apply the Constitution, not their ability to match the Court's decision.

*Use court cases that the students will encounter later in the year such as Marberry v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education, State of Tennessee v. Scopes, or whatever else is in your curriculum.

*Try the following websites for Court Case descriptions:

http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark.aspx

http://library.thinkquest.org/11572/cc/

Sequencing

I recently heard tell of a teacher struggling to teach sequencing of a story, so I, with few suggestions from fellow teachers, thought up this one:

Objective: Students will define sequencing and describe why the sequence of events is important to the outcome of story.

The sequence of a story is the order in which events occur--write that on the board.

Discuss why sequencing is important and how knowing the order in which events occur effect the outcome of a story.

Get out some of your favorite children's books, those without words will work the best. I made a list of my favorites in a previous post, click here for the link. Make color copies of the pictures and cut them out comic strip style. Make enough copies so that each group of 3 or 4 students can have a book, but they don't all have to be the same book. Make a larger copy for you to model the assignment for the class. I would make this a different book from those you give to the students.

Model for the class: using the larger copy of a book, put each picture on the board and think out-loud as you put the story in the correct order. Make sure to explain to students why you are ordering the pictures the way you are. Write the story as you have ordered the pictures with approximately 1 sentence per picture.

Pass out the copies of the picture books made for the students and give them about 10-15 minutes to correctly order the story and then write the story with approximately 1 sentence per picture. Students need only write 1 story per group.

Have a few groups share their stories and tell of 1 of the major problems they had in sequencing their stories. Ask other groups for suggestions on how they approached and solved that problem.

Now, rearrange the pictures on the board--switch 4 or 5 pictures around. Rewrite your story according to the new order. How does this change the outcome of the story? What impact does just changing one picture have?

Allow the students7-8 minutes to rearrange 4-5 of their pictures and rewrite their stories. Have a few groups share their revised stories. Did they gain any new insight on the importance sequencing?

What have students learned about sequencing? Why is it important to a story?

And bell.

Concise descriptive writing--a game

This game/activity can take 5 minutes or an entire class period. Use it when the lesson falls short and you have a few minutes at the end of a period so as not to waste any valuable class time.

1. Have each student get out a piece of paper and quickly write a 15 word sentence on the paper.

2. Have the students pass their paper to the person behind them and the person in the very back give his or hers to the person in the front. Students read the sentence on the paper in front of them and have 20 seconds to draw a picture of the sentence. Students fold the sentence over so that it can't be seen but the picture can be and pass the paper to the person behind them.

3. Students look at the picture in front of them and write a 10 word sentence. Students fold the paper so that only their sentence is showing. Students pass the paper again.

4. Students read the sentence in front of them and have 20 seconds to draw a picture of the sentence. Students fold that paper and pass it back.

5. Students look at the picture and write a 5 word sentence describing the picture in front of them, fold the paper, and pass it back for one final drawing.

6. Continue this reducing the number of words the sentence can be until...well until you're ready for it to be over. I wouldn't go much passed what I've described above: students get bored.

7. Have students unveil their drawings and sentences. The group with final picture that most closely resembles the oringinal sentence wins!

Children's Books

Where's the Cake Now? by T.T. Khing

Leaf by Stephen Michael King

Tuesday by David Weisner

These are 3 of my new favorite children's books. All three tell amazingly complex stories without a single word, which makes them great for a writing assignment.

Using these three books, and other pictures books with no words, have students write the words to the story. This could be a single isolated writing activity to have on hand for a cancelled field trip or to allow for some creative writing in the midst of a research paper or to add excitement to the unit described here.

You could leave it at that or give a bit more direction, depending on the needs of the class, the amount of time available, the amount creativity you'd like to employ, and all the other if, ands, and buts of education.

Here are some ideas to give more direction if needed.

*Before beginning, discuss how some pictures books use the pictures to retell the story that the words are saying, while others use the picture to add depth and meaning to the words, such as highlighting irony or adding emotion to the characters' spoken words. Challenge students to not just rewrite the story the pictures tell but to use the written words to add irony.

*Have the students practice writing to different audiences. Have them rewrite the story for an adult, for an infant, for a 5th grader, or for themselves. Discuss the different needs of the audience in each situation.

*Practice writing dialog by having students rewrite the story entirely as dialog.

*Best yet, just say "You have 1 class period to create a final draft of this story. Write the words to the story." And leave it at that. Sometimes kids will surprise you.

Plagiarism

The Colbert Report April 14, 2010 interview. It's perfect. The interview is with David Shields is a great starting point for a discussion on plagiarism. In the interview, Shields argees for more lenient copyright laws, because he feels like having to quote and cite and source everything limits the writer's freedom of expression. After all Thomas Jefferson and William Shakespeare borrowed heavily from others without correct citations and their writing is revered and taught at most schools. So why can't the average writer do the same thing?

Watch the clip, and then ask students to respond. Why do we worry so much about plagiarizing? Why can't we use other people's ideas to enhance our own?

After the discussion, you'll of course want to emphasize the reason for copyright laws and strict punishments for plagiarizing is to allow for more creativity. If people were afraid they weren't going to get paid for their writing, then they might stop writing. Also, it's only fair to attribute greatness to the originator. And, most importantly for students, the reason you have the write is not to see how well they can copy and paste but to see how well they write and understand the information. And so, still, even after the discussion, no plagiarizing, but wasn't it nice to get involved in your own education?

Rhymes

Recently my husband and I have taken to making up nursery rhymes. Our son has a ton of musical toys that play the diddy that goes along with a rhyme without the actual words, so we make them up. This got me thinking, why not use this as a lesson?

Start by teaching students the different types of rhymes (end rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, internal). Make a list on the board of rhyming words and examples of each type of rhyme.

Now allow the students to practice. To practice have students complete the "This old man.." rhyme up to 10. (This old man, he played one [or two, three], he played knick-knack on my _____ or with my _____. ) Allow students to change in the ending preposition to suit their needs. Require students to use at least one of each type of rhyme and to identify the type of rhyme used for each number. For example, "This old man, he played ten, he played knick-knack with my hen--end rhyme. Have students share their answers with the class and correct their rhymes as necessary. Review any missed concepts.

Next, have an inter-period competition. Have all students sit on their desks. Have the entire class sing the rhyme until the last preposition, and then have one student finish the rhyme. Continue counting up with the student behind the first student. If a student can't think of a rhyme for their number, that student must sit down and is out. The last student sitting on his or her desk gets extra credit--or your voice on their home answer machine! (See Listener Limerick Challenge). The period that counts to the highest number also gets extra credit as a class.

The next day as a review repeat the above game with the Down by the Bay rhyme (Down by the bay, where the watermelon grows, back to my home, I dare not go, for if I do, my mother will say, "Have you ever seen a llama wearing pajamas" down by the bay. or a mouse kissing his spouse or a bat hitting a rat or a lady carrin' a baby. ) Keep track of the number of rhymes the class keeps up with and compare the periods at the end of the day.

Try using other partial rhymes as well. We have a lot of fun with this in our house.