January Continuity: Non-Fiction Writing and Reading Comprehension through Drama

Ha'uoli makahiki hou! Some LWP members spent a fabulous Saturday at Kealakehe with our gracious hostess Shawna Fischer.

SI 2011 alum Jessie Garcia and SI 2009 alum Cathy Riehle did the demo lessons and our hostess (SI 09) did the invitation to write.

Using Lucy Calkins' nonfiction writing book as a resource (from the Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum), Jessie went over the packet she uses with her primary students to get them to create nonfiction books.

With her young students, they start with topics that they already know about, like caring for a dog, but older students can use this same format to create non-fiction books based on their research.

Cathy warmed us up by having us use our bodies to exemplify certain vocabulary words like droop, stomp, etc.

She then read an excerpt to us from Chicken Soup for Little Souls: Best Night Out with Dad
Our groups were tasked with dramatizing certain key words/concepts - like loneliness and disdain as a way to kinesthetically understand the reading.

Did you miss something wonderful? Yes, but stay tuned. There's an opportunity for more professional development in February and it's manuahi for LWP alum.

January Continuity at Kealakehe Elementary

Staying with our journey around the island, the January continuity will be on Saturday, January 7 at Kealakehe Elementary School, P3 Classroom from 1-3:30. It's a perfect time to spend time with the family in the morning and get some you time in the afternoon.

For fellow Hiloans (East Side!), Costco run.

Shawna will be our hostess with the mostest and Cathy Riehle will invite us into her classroom for drama and playwriting. Shawna also promises us another mystery presenter.

In addition, our two LWP directors, Michele and Avis, will be sharing some news from their time at the NWP meeting as well as sharing some thoughts on the future of the Lehua Writing Project.

Hope to see you there, after all it was such fun the last time. Check it out here.

Key Elements of a Fabulous Continuity

Our October 22 continuity event was a major hit with 12 participants representing 4 years of Summer Institutes (not bad considering we're 5 years old). We changed the location to UH Hilo but we still had one teacher from Waimea and one teacher from Kona attending. Yeah!

What made this continuity so successful?
The elements of a successful continuity. . .
1. Variety = Two teacher consultants sharing demo lessons from different grade levels and with very different teaching styles. It's not that hard with the "taskmaster" present to keep the day flowing.

Lynn Nagata brought us into her elementary classroom and took us through a poetry writing workshop with "happy memory poems".  Since she does this every year, she was also able to let us see her student anthologies.

Tamara wanted to try theatre of the absurd with her middle school students and she really challenged our thinking. We didn't think we could do it, but we were all able to write our 20 line monologues for our own Theatre of the Absurd in 20 minutes. Along the way, all of us, including Tamara, went on a journey of discovery by talking pedagogy and practice, parameters and assessment possibilities.

2. Joy = Writing and Sharing - we wrote together, we learned together, we shared together, we laughed together, we rejuvenated each other.

3.  Food  - duh. What's a Writing Project event without food. Sorry, no pics, I was busy eating.

Three elements to a successful continuity - Variety, Joy, Food. I hope all your professional development opportunities have the same elements for success.

Aloha, "The Taskmaster"

The next continuity session is scheduled for January 7 in Kona (tentatively at Kealakehe elementary). 

Why I Write: To Awaken the Spirit in the Downtrodden

 Twin brothers Al Mills and Nnamdi Chukwuocha use poetry and social action "to awaken the spirit of awareness buried deep within the souls of the downtrodden." Their poem, "Why I Write," aims to teach children about the importance of self-expression and how it can help them through their struggles and challenges.

Watch the Twin Poets in action—teaching and reciting.

The poem "Why I Write" isn't just a poem for Al Millis and Nnamdi Chukwuocha; it's their story of devotion to art and community and speaks to their goal of helping children grow up in the face of poverty and violence in the tough Riverside neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware.

This NWP series of essays on "Why I Write" is so inspiring! We're going to start our day this Saturday on this exact prompt, so come ready to write.

-Cathy

March Continuity: Blues Rift Writing with Tamara Wong Morrison

You're invited!
If you haven't been able to make our other two continuity sessions (with Risa Carles and Shawna Fischer), there's still one more before the spring conference. Join us on Saturday, March 5 at NHERC from 9-12. *Major apologies to Shawna for misidentifying her in an earlier post.

Poet, teacher and writing project alum Tamara Laulani Morrison will be doing a demonstration lesson on composing in-character BLUES RIFTS. See how she helped her students to writea blues rift as the characters in their novels (Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird).

Hele mai. Come. You deserve to read, write, share, laugh, be energized, be rewarded, be inspired.

Ho'omakaukau? Ready?
Look out for an evite from Jeannine or just email me at caikeda@ksbe.edu.

Hope to see you there!

November Continuity 11/14/09 Technology in the Classroom

Stephanie Shepherd led us through a FABULOUS technology workshop on blogging and podcasting and had the teachers set up their own blogs. Yeah!

To check out all the resources Stephanie provided, here's a sharetab of her links as well as some of our own blogs.

http://sharetabs.com/?tahoeshepherds

So why should we use blogs and podcasts/vodcasts in our classrooms?

 

▪Offers another sense modality (aural) for students to express themselves and absorb or manipulate information

▪Increased student motivation

▪Teachers or students can record audio about homework assignments, assignments, feedback, announcements, etc. thus the classroom is extended and enriched

▪Many students already have audio players, so it taps into an existing technology.

▪Blogging is highly effective way to help students to become better writers. Research has long shown that students write more, write in greater detail, and take greater care with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, when they are writing to an authentic audience over the Internet.

▪Anecdotal evidence suggests that students' interest in, and quantity of, writing increases when their work is published online and -- perhaps even more importantly -- when it is subject to reader comments.

 

 

Our first continuity workshop: vocabulary with Ann Buffington

6 teachers/writers gathered in Honoka'a this morning to reunite, write, eat and learn from Ann Buffington (LWP'08) about what she learned last summer about academic vocabulary literacy.

If you missed it, look for our next one next month.