Hey Friends!
My hope is that June is treating you all well so far :)
We've been finished with school for just over a week. Then end of the year, like always, comes at you like a ton of bricks! June 1st arrives and you think, "Ah, I've still got a couple weeks. There is so much I can get finished!"
And then WHAM!!
Picnics, field trips, half days, pictures, assemblies, locker clean-out, parties... and before you know it, the last day is here and all the stuff you had planned goes by the wayside because you are too busy signing yearbooks, giving hugs, and singing Moana at the top of your lungs with the kids who drove you nuts all year but who you now suddenly realize are leaving you and you are not sure how you can go a week, let alone a whole summer, without hearing any of them ask you for a pencil! Phew!
Anyway, there isn't much time to lament because our summer learning program starts in about two weeks. Like last year, I plan to share all of my lesson plans with you here on the blog.
So, this year I will be teaching writing again to 7th and 8th graders. My plan to have the students write their biography... and yes, I did mean biography and not autobiography! Something that I've noticed about kids is that they give me more detail when they are writing fictional stories. They do a better job describing the characters, how they look and act, and the conflicts they are involved in. I'm wondering if they write about themselves in the third person if I can get some of the same detail. Not sure how it will work, but that is what I love our summer learning program: we have the freedom to try out all sorts of new ideas and techniques!
I've got an amazing bunch of biographical picture books to use as mentors.
My goal is two-fold... to get kids to do some awesome writing AND to teach them about some awesome people! Something that I've noticed over the years is that kids don't just know "stuff" anymore. And I'm not sure why, exactly, but I can't help but wonder if a steady diet of niche YouTube over plain old television has something to do with it?
Anyway, I want to share with them books about important and interesting people whose stories deserve to be known!
I'll start posting the lessons the second week of July... my plan is to teach the lesson and see how it goes, make some tweaks if necessary, and then post it here for you all.
So, enjoy the rest of June and stay tuned for some great lessons :)
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Last summer's lessons:
Writing with Mentors Series Lesson Plans: Summer 2016
- The Important Book by Margaret WiseBrown
- If I Ran the School by Bruce Lansky
- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
- The Writing of Roald Dahl
- The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski
- The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
- How to Get a Girlfriend by the Kindergarten Students of Zagreb, Croatia
- Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher
- I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff and David Catrow
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