This week we watched Ms. Fox implementing journals into her class. She is going to have the students journal periodically in class about a book that is either being read in class or independently at home (student's choice). The students are writing each entry in the form of a letter, it must be addressed to Ms. Fox or another student. The students then deliver their journals to the student the letter is addressed to or Ms. Fox. That person than has to write a letter back in response to the original letter. I like the idea of having students communicating with one another about what they are reading but I can see journals getting lost in the near future....
She has done the best she can about getting these journals organized and making a "safe place" to keep them when they aren't being used. When the students were putting the journals together she had them staple, glue, or tape the directions, writing prompts, and chart of books read right into the journals. Ms. Fox showed each class where their class journals would be kept and made a spot for students to place the journals that are addressed to her. She reminded each class several times to only give their journals to other students to take home if they know that the student taking home the journal will bring it back. (I kind of felt bad for the super disorganized/messy kids...no one is going to address their letters to them now in fear of never seeing their journals again)
I am interested to see how these journals work...hopefully none will disappear!
Kaitlin,
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to visiting your middle school classroom today! I suspect I may get to see the reading journals in action, which would be great. I have often found that asking students to write responses in the form of a letter works well because, in asking them to do that, we are changing the audience and purpose of writing. A letter is intimate, personal, to one singular person, and a letter usually reveals more voice-y writing as well as more honesty and thoughtfulness. Personally, I am happy to know that a teacher out there is still asking children to write letters. This is an art form that I fear is being lost! So, I'm happy to know this.
Also, I want to push you, in these last couple weeks, and certainly once we get into student teaching, to write about YOUR teaching in a way that feels more connected. When i read your blog, you, the author, seem more an observer than an actor. The thing you are observing is the very context in which you will be acting every single day next semester. So, I wonder if, when you write on your blog, instead of telling us what happened in school this week, select one incident or one student (unnamed) or one problem (a pebble in your shoe) to describe, interpret and analyze (the three levels of reading anything!). I think this strategy will not only give your writing a sharper and clearer focus, but it will also help your readers get a better sense of where your priorities lie as a teacher.
What matters to you? What intrigues you, surprises you or disturbs you about what you are seeing in the middle school? And, how can you write about these things while also being respectful to the people who are doing the work? I'd like to push you, in your next blog post (this weekend!), to select one issue/topic/scenario from the classroom this week and to go deeply into that one thing, examining it from all sides for your readers, using your developing teacher sensibility. Deal?