Turning Points

We've grown tremendously as teachers in the last two years; especially as teachers of writers. I considered writing that we've grown as writing teachers - but we don't teach writing; we teach writers. Last year at about this same point in our writing curriculum, our students began to blossom. This year seems to be the same (at least in that respect).

We use Lucy Calkin's Units of Study to teach our fifth grade writers. Right now, we are working in the second unit which is focused on personal narratives. Students are being asked to write about turning points in their lives; first and last times things happened, big changes, and events that include very strong emotions.

It's interesting to see the look on a parent's face when they notice that the writing hanging outside on the wall is about the time (last week) when the police had to visit their home. We've had multiple incidents where parents, other teachers, and community members ask us if we think that just maybe we're doing something inappropriate by publishing this type of writing.

Not only do we publish it - we model it and we praise it. We gush over it with positive comments every time we see it. We, as the teachers write about very difficult topics. Many of them would not even be a possible consideration in many classrooms. Just this week I modeled a writing lesson about my child, unable to breathe in the emergency room. We constantly write about death, or the possibility of death. Should these topics be modeled in front of fifth graders?

Yes. Why? Simple. This is what real writers do. They write about things that are real and important to them. If we want our students to be real writers (we believe that they already are) then we need to praise them for doing the real work of writing. Our students come from almost every possible background. They live more life in one year than I have in 32 years. Their best work is more often than not heartbreaking.

We're writing this post to share some student work. We hope you like the work we share enough to come visit our students' online portfolios. Then, share some comments with the writers. It's easiest to share comments with the writers directly if you have a PBWorks account.

This is an example from last year. I believe that it is one of the best examples I have to demonstrate writing about strong emotions. This particular student had never written anything like this before. We were blown away. The writing could be stronger; the rubric score was not the best. However, it is still the first example I share. I'll be curious to hear what you think.

At the start of each unit, our writers begin many stories. eventually, they will choose one or two for publication as a final printed copy for their portfolio. Some students will have some hard choices to make since their work is all so impressive. In the end, most of them will choose the work that has the most meaning for themselves. This student will have to make some hard decisions about which work to carry forward in the writing process. He's been speaking English for only a few years.

Savannah
David
Joseph


We hope to continue to share our students' work. We truly are excited for you to read and comment back to them. We have come to believe (and know) that an authentic audience makes more of a difference for our students than almost anything else can.

Authentic Audience

Our CIO, Dan Maas, presented our students with an opportunity that was not to be missed. We were asked to consider allowing our students to comment on a post located on the NSBA blog. The post is titled, "Keyboard vs Pen?" This post is especially relavant to our 5th grade students, since they have unlimited access to keyboards as well as pens. Each student in our fifth grade classrooms uses a eee wireless netbook throughout their day. Their ideas were thoughtful, and we managed to get a few comments posted in a relatively short period of time.

Here's an example of one of the comments.


We were working on this activity for about the third day when we received an email from the NSBA regarding one of our student's comments. We've removed the name for safety purposes.

Dear (Student's Name),

Thank you so much for responding to our blog. We here at NSBA find your comments very interesting and enjoyed reading your response. It sounds like you enjoy using your laptop and it helps you with your school work, keep up the good work.

Please contact us anytime, we enjoy hearing from students around the country,

Crissy O'Donnell

NSBA

Comment:

Dear NSBA,

From my point of view I think the keyboards are better. For example a kindergarten student can use a EEE to get a head start on life because they will learn about the internet and how it works. Yes, I still know that the kindergarten students still have to write on paper but what I'm saying is they don't need to write every day they can write and have fun on the EEEs. High school and college students use laptops all day long. As a kid (I'm in 5th grade) I don't like to write and/or use a pen to do any thing with pen on paper. I was introduced to laptops back in 4th grade and I thought they were not all that - but look at me now I use them every day and I am now talking to the NSBA! Just think about how many people work and play on computers. Us kids have parents that work on computers every time they go to work.

For pen and pencil I think we the people should write sometimes but not everyday. I know it helps the mind and arm and so on but some people get hurt by using the pens and pencils by getting arm and hand cramps. I went home the other day and I asked my sister about the keyboard and pen. She chose pen I asked her the question I'm going to ask you. I asked her why do you think that people should use pens instead of keyboards? She still has not answered me yet. What do you think?

I would go for keyboards because they are faster than pens at everything and you can't have spell check on a pen and/or pencil. I should say which do you think? Pen or keyboards?

Sincerely,

(Student's Name)

5th Grade Student

We were fortunate to have a newspaper reporter in the room when we shared the email with the student who had written the comment. Here's the reporter interviewing the student.



We work very hard to ensure that our students have an authentic audience for their work; especially their writing. This opportunity presented itself and things could not have worked out any better.

However, this is not the first time that having a real, live, authentic audience has improved our students' writing. Last year, Mr. Maas asked us to comment on his own blog. Our students were definitely up to the challenge. The post was titled, "Writing with laptops." The comments of our students speak volumes about the value of an authentic audience.

We can't wait for the next chance to let our students shine for an authentic, global audience. We'd love to connect with you or your students. Come take a look at some of the other things we're working on at www.eastdragonden.blogspot.com

You can also find our students working at www.eastdragondentake2.pbworks.com

Hopefully, you can see that this idea of audience and purpose is important to us. In fact, we've submitted an ISTE proposal geared toward helping others work toward this goal.

TIE 2009

I'm still reeling from the TIE 2009 conference. What an amazing event. I feel like we're beginning to seriously get involved in the "big" discussions with some of the greatest thinkers in educational technology. I can easily say that more than one of those big thinkers comes from our own district. We had time to sit down with our own superintendent, board of education members, Karl Fisch, Mike Porter, Dan Maas, and many other incredible folks. It is truly an honor to even be in the same room with these people, and here they are asking us for our opinions - and then really listening to our answers. Wow!

Welcome

Welcome,

Can't wait to see where this idea goes.

Niki and Chris