Picture of Hollis Woods - The Dance

After reading Pictures of Hollis Woods, the Dark Eclipse (a book club comprised of Sam, Christopher, Caitlin, Kaitlyn, and Sarah) decided to create a dance to show what they learned from the story.  They chose the song "Lean on Me" because it fit so well with the theme of the story.    After the kids shared their dance with the class, they took questions and comments from the audience.  I was amazed at how each movement and motion was carefully selected to convey a very specific meaning.  These students put a ton of effort and thought into this project.  I used an HD video camera to capture their dance, and I'm also trying out a new video server in hopes of a clearer picture.  I love School Tube (which I've been using all year), but their video quality is not great.  I'm hoping this video will turn out well.  We'd love to hear your comments.  The kids loving hearing what others think.

Book Clubs in Action

What happens when kids meet in a book club?  What does that really look like?  I captured some video clips of the kids in their discussion groups.  The audio is not great, but you can see how each group is thoughtfully discussing and exploring their books.  These books are all independently run - no teacher involved.  We've learned how to stay on topic, focus, make room for everyone's voice, disagree politely, ask "thick" questions, keep the conversation going, and explore ideas deeply.  I just sit back and make observations (but the kids will tell you that I sometimes jump into the conversation...it's hard to resist a good discussion).  I hope this gives you a better idea of what's going on in our readers' workshop right now. 

George's Marvelous Medicine - The Dance

When a book club finishes reading a book, they have an opportunity to create a project to show what they learned.  Students are encouraged to share what happened in the book, as well as what they learned about themselves and about life.  This group of students decided to create a dance to show the major events of the story - this was incredibly creative!  They selected a song to dance to and came up with all the motions themselves.  As they were creating, they gave focus to their bodies, energy, space, and time (the elements of dance).  I'm always amazed at what the students of Room 241 will do. 

Book Clubs

After reading The Tiger Rising as a whole class, we decided to form our own book clubs. I put the kids in groups, and each book club came up with their own name and constitution. We have the Frazier Five, The Golden Eclipse Dragons, The Kewlios, The Chalkers, and the Five Star Readers. After deciding this information, I showed each club 3-4 books that I thought would be "just-right" for them to read. Each club selected a book and created a reading assignment for themselves (how many chapters to read and how to respond in their journals). We alternate between reading days and discussion days. I wish you could hear the wonderful discussions our kids are having. By listening to each other's ideas, building on different perspectives, and proving their ideas in the text, our kids are become deeper and stronger readers and thinkers. I'm really proud of them. This past Friday was a discussion day, and here are a few pictures of our kids participating in their discussions...

Book Clubs

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Tiger Rising Projects

I mentioned in an earlier post how our kids created projects based on what they learned from reading The Tiger Rising. The students created all kinds of projects: readers' theaters from the important scenes, commercials, new front and back cover of the book, and book recommendations. For the majority of our students, I was very pleased with the effort and creativity they put forth into the project. Here are a few pictures of our kids creating their projects...

Jo'nae, Alaina, and Julian are studying other book recommendations in order to write their own.

Cameron, Coco, and Andrea are creating a new front and back cover for the book.

Richie had to measure the poster board in order to cut it in half - isn't it amazing how we use math all the time?!

Preparing for Book Clubs

It's been a long time since I've posted...sorry about that. With ITBS testing, the PASS writing test, MAPs testing, and the Spring Production, life in Room 241 has been a little crazy. I'm hoping that these next few weeks will bring us a little bit of normalcy.

Here are a few pictures of the kids reading and responding in their book club journals. As a class, we read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. I started off reading the first ten chapters aloud, demonstrating how I would respond in my own journal. For the second week, the kids worked with a partner to read and respond. We also began holding small book club discussions to get a feel for how readers discuss books. By the third week, students were reading independently and holding their own book club discussions about the book. After we finished reading, we reflected about what makes a great book club discussion (we posted our ideas on a chart hanging up in our room), and we also created projects to show the class what we had learned.

Students are now in their own book clubs, reading a book they selected as a group. We're about halfway through the process, and I'm extremely proud of the way they're reading, responding, and digging deep into a text. If you could listen in to some of these conversations, you would be amazed at the thought and deep insight our kids are able to bring out of their books. Hopefully, I'll have some more posts to keep you updated on our progress.

Coco and Nakia are reading and responding.

Anne and Caitlyn are capturing their thoughts in their response journals.