Sharing YOUR Story
Let's Talk Textbook: Amy Krouse Rosenthral
This week I continued reading Textbook: Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and let me tell you this book keeps getting better! As I read through each of the pages, I found myself giggling, making connections to my own life, and analyzing the artwork displayed. As I finished up Unit 2: Social Studies I found myself absolutely loving one of the entries. The entry that I really enjoyed was on page 103, it reads “I was standing in front of the mirror. I dared myself to cut off my hair. I did it. Now I feel like I can do anything in the world”. I really found myself liking this page because of the spontaneity that it discusses in addition to a connection to my own life that I made. I’ve never cut my hair by myself, but I can relate to the feeling that I can conquer anything in the world. Let me elaborate. This is my very first-semester teaching in a classroom by myself (#grownupthings) and I received my first few not-so-nice messages from parents about their child’s performance in my class because their child had not been completing their assignments and their grades were reflecting that. Nonetheless, I shed a few tears and talked with some co-workers and then braved up and talked to the parents and worked with them to make a plan for their student to complete the missing assignments. After doing that, I felt like I could do anything! Amy may have cut her hair and felt like she could do anything in the world, but I also felt the same way about handling nasty grams from parents- who would have thought that two completely different experiences could leave people feeling the same way? I am definitely looking forward to reading more in this awesome book next week and making even more connections to the memoirs that Amy has written!
Using Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Childen's Literature, K-6
This week I tried out a few different strategies from Mentor Text: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-6, and absolutely loved the Hand Map strategy! This strategy is a great resource to get students thinking about emotions and events that have happened in their lives that relate to those emotions. For example, in my example I wrote the emotion happiness. One thing that brings me happiness is being a big sister. I spent most of my life as an only child and was blessed to find out that I would be a big sister when I was 12 years old. Because of the age difference between my brother and I do not fight ( well… we have an occasional argument) and are actually very close! Going to ASU for college has made it hard to be home all the time, but I am lucky enough to only have to drive just a short hour and a half home if I want to see him as well as Facetime! I think that by having students think about emotions and big events that made them feel that way helps them think more analytically about their writing. By activating their minds to think about these events they will be more engaged and excited about their writing and that is a big accomplishment! In turn, students will be uncovering their own stories and telling their readers all about it; this can also be known as a narrative. I know that in my classroom my students absolutely hate writing. They have expressed that they do not feel confident with their writing abilities and I am working with them to try and build that confidence. Completing an activity like the Hand Map would be low-stakes and get them excited about their writing. I am looking forward to trying out this strategy in my classroom soon!
A Little About This Week's Readings
This week I had the pleasure of reading Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina as well as Happy Like Soccer by Maribeth Boelts. Both of these stories are great mentor texts to help students engage in their writing! Both of these outstanding texts pair extremely well with strategies discussed in chapter three of Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Literature, K-6. Two strategies that students in my classroom would absolutely love are the Hand Strategy and the Heart Strategy. Be sure to check out this awesome resource that provides so many great ideas for how to engage students in their writing with the use of children’s literature.
Be sure to check out this awesome video about Meg Medina, the author of Mango, Abuela, and Me!