Reading these chapters I felt really good about what I'm observing in my classroom. My CT had the students write a letter to her about themselves within the first day or two of school. I decided to pull a few of these as writing samples for my unit plan. Not only do these give a good idea of students' writing abilities, but whether or not they understand the concept of writing a letter--"that letters are designed for an individual to read," (pg 83). In addition when reading about the "Do's" of a good classroom discussion, I realized a similar idea is implemented in my classroom. My CT had the students discuss what it means to be a good leader and what some good habits are (eye contact, being proactive, being respectful of others ideas, etc). We then cut, pasted, and copied these ideas onto a handout, had the students get into groups of 4-5, and distributed the handout to each group. They then worked in their groups to choose the most important habits/traits and we constructed a "class commitment" which each student signed their agreement to uphold. Furthermore, each student wrote a personal mission statement describing the kind of person they are going to be. My CT has not yet implemented any way to track ways they are working to improve their abilities (pg. 96).
Our class focuses a lot on reading workshop, and when a student finishes a book, they fill out a book card detailing the title, author, genre, how long it took them to read it, etc. and on the back they write the theme with a short sentence explaining why they chose this as the theme. My CT has 7 themes displayed on the wall--friendship, honesty, perseverance, etc. While the themes are all relevant to their lives, we have not had any discussion about them yet, and I'm afraid they do not understand how "...reading can help them better understand their lives, one another, and the world around them," (pg. 105).
My CT tries to do a Read Aloud every day, we are about halfway through Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher. There is a lot of focus on retelling--writing a short phrase for the beginning, middle, and end of each chapter. At the end of each chapter my CT will have the students turn to a neighbor and talk about what was just read/what they think is going to happen next/etc. Most recently, she had them discuss why they thought the upcoming chapter was titled "Blood," and what they think is going to happen during the chapter.
Everything up to this point has been either large group discussion or paired discussion. If I were to implement some aspects of book club, I would need to do a lot of modeling on small group discussion.
I did a similar kind of activity on the first couple days of school. We came up with a class compact. The students helped to brain storm ways we should act in the classroom when we care about our classroom and the people with in it. Each of the students signed the compact and it hangs in our classroom. We say the class compact everyday after the pledge to remind students of what we agreed on as a class. To try to get students to think of reading as an important aspect we call all the times they are reading as their "reading lives." We try to teach them how to make the best of these reading lives and that just like our everyday lives this reading life is enjoyable. My students have to fill out a short book report after they completed a book and my CT expressed to me that she was hesitant to do this because the students are no longer reading just for enjoyment.
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