Slice of Life Day 4: Intertwining Thoughts of Read Alouds Past, Present and Future

Here is my Slice for Tuesday, Day 4 of the Slice of Life Daily Challenge. Check out Two Writing Teachers for more slicing.

Intertwined. That was one of our vocabulary words for the week. I wanted students to weave together ideas and think about how the books we have read so far are intertwined. 

We started by looking at the struggles the characters faced: Ivan in the One and Only Ivan, Melody in Out of My Mind and August in Wonder. Did they connect? Were their struggles related? Did the messages in these books intertwine?

I ask….Before we leave Ivan, let’s think back to
Wonder and Out of My Mind.
How might some of the ideas in those books 
intertwine with Ivan?

We jot. We think….

Student voices…

They all don’t have friends.

Yes they do! They all have friends.

Well not a lot.

Yeah, just a few.

Why do you think that is?.

Thinking….

They really don’t fit in.

They’re all are different.

That’s what I mean.

Can you give examples? 

Thinking…Hands pop.

Melody can’t talk and August has a face
that scares people.

Pause…

What about Ivan?

Thinking…

Yeah… he doesn’t totally fit in at the end
because he wasn’t socialized with other gorillas.
He was raised as a human with diapers.

He isn’t really comfortable
with the other gorillas.
Remember when Kinyani chased him.

Oh yeah. He doesn’t fit either.

What other struggles intertwine?

Hands.

Ooo! Ooo! 

They all want to protect but they can’t.

Ahhh! That was mine!

Ivan wants to protect Ruby

Melody wants to protect Penny!

Yeah she couldn’t speak to warn her mom!

August?

Thinking…

Jack? in the forest….Hmmm. Maybe.

They all lost someone.

Ivan his family, Melody her fish. August..Daisy..

The thinking and connecting of ideas continues. The connections they make surprise me. Some I anticipated but others not at all.  Tomorrow we move on to thinking about each character’s environment. Do their worlds compare?

The passion for these read alouds is keen. Many carry Wonder in their bags. Reading it on occasion. Independent research has been done on Ivan. Melody has spurred interest in our Special Education students next door.

They have been begging for the new read aloud. I’ve been holding off on the next text reading about the real Ivan.

Today we started A Long Walk to Water. I debated about this one (on Twitter with @erinvarley and @azajacks). I worried the subject, the place, the shifts in narration and time would be too challenging. But I decide to risk it.

The start is tough for some. It doesn’t sweep them off their feet. They have left the high of the last read aloud and they want to start at that same place. It’s ok, I tell myself. The struggle at the beginning of books happens. The work they do to figure it out is necessary. This is what readers need to do in the beginning of books. The wondering, the delaying of understanding, the trust we must have in the author. We trust she will let us know. We must linger in the possibilities of wonder. Students have been trained by the wonderful thinking of authors Vicki Vinton and Dorothy Barnhouse’s What to Readers Really Do? to wonder and know. They have lots of wonders right now.

After school one student comes up to me and says, I don’t really like this read aloud as much as the others.

I tell her to be patient. It can be slow in the beginning.

Ok she says I trust you, Mrs. Harmatz.

Hope Linda Sue Park and I don’t let her down. Maintaining the magic of read aloud can be a heavy burden to bear..

Celebrating the Planned and the Unplanned Moments

Thank you Ruth Ayers for the space, Celebrate this Week, to reflect on things worth celebrating. It rejuvenates and focuses me on the good.

FIRST: The One and Only Ivan and Reading Graffiti We started Ivan Monday. This incredible read aloud has offers so much. It’s hard for me not to stop constantly and just gasp or giggle at certain points in text. Ivan is a poet, a dreamer, a philosopher. He sets the tone for all we do this week. Our Reading Graffiti Wall is christened with student selected lines from Ivan.

SECOND: Memoir Writing  The perfect line from Ivan launches memoir.  First we studied mentors Bad Boy by Walter Dean Myers. and essay-like memoirs from former students. Then we developed a chart of what we are shooting for.

Gathering began, and I saw little glimmers of possibility as I conferred with students–

“What are you working on?”

“I’m writing about my grandmother, but it’s hard, you know my mom’s mom, she just died.”

“What are you working on?”

“I’m writing about my dad and how I miss him.”

“What are you working on?”

“How letting go of rescue animals is hard.”

Oh my. Next week, we begin the touchy work of holding on and developing those heartfelt moments. Moments that fifth graders (sometimes) don’t want to see, or (sometimes) aren’t quite ready to look at, or (maybe) are afraid to show. As students gathered and I conferred, the number of “I don’t know what to write about” was down to practically zero. Groans were heard when we had to stop writing.

THIRD: Poetry Began. It was a shaky start. Three simple questions guide us for now: 1) How do we know it’s a poem? 2) What does it mean? 3) What tools does the author use? A great starting place I gleaned from this NCTE recap post by Stacey Shubitz.  This is where we begin and build from. Once again Ivan guides us in our work. He tells us gorillas are poets. I tell my students we will be like the great apes and not the slimy chimps, chattering away. We will model ourselves on Ivan. We will study and craft. Remembering what makes a poem, looking to build our own crafting muscles along the way.

FOURTH: Quiet Time with Students. Wildfires on Thursday meant bad air quality, so students were off the yard and in classrooms for two days. No outside play was allowed. Friday after school I sat at my desk, eyes burning. I felt like taking a nap. Students linger.

My classroom at 4:30:  Two students lay on the carpet reading magazines, several are at desks reading books, a couple are sitting in the back reading blogs. They take an occasional break from reading to talk about a book they want to read next or to share something they just read.  

They stay until they’re picked up. This isn’t unusual.  They want a quiet, comfortable place to read, to talk, to write, to create something. They share things that they are thinking about with me and with each other. 

The custodian walks in to vacuum, so the students decide to do some investigation outside.

A few minutes later, “Hey, Mrs. Harmatz, wanna come see our experiment? I’m proving that dirt sinks and soil floats.”

I see a dark substance, apparently the “soil” floating on the top and another dark substance, the “dirt,” on the bottom of a plastic beaker.

“What’s the difference between soil and dirt?” I ask.

“Soil has cow poop in it,” she responds.”Feel it. It’s light and spongy. That’s why it floats.”

The experiment continues.  Adjustments are made. Questions are asked. Soon the discovery is made that there are tiny pieces of bark in the soil and that’s what floats. Wood floats in water. So much for the cow poop.

As I think back on this week, I want to celebrate all of the things that worked. Things that came together like I had hoped, but more importantly the moments created by students — the quote from Ivan, chosen by a student that fit perfectly with memoir; the notebook entries and discussions with students that showed a glimpse of what they have inside; and after school time when students meander from reading to investigation.  Moments that shed light on who they are and what they think. This week I’m celebrating these moments that build relationships  and learning–moments to experiment, to write, to read, to just be.