Writing in Social Studies

In Mrs. Griffey's social studies class, students studied, researched, and then wrote essays about Mesopotamia. Students had to follow the writing process. They wrote a rough draft, peer edited, and then published a final draft to be graded. This project counted as a social studies grade which was weighted based on content, and as a writing grade which was weighted towards the writing. Overall, the essays were filled with information, interesting, and well written.

Justin did a good job with his introduction and conclusion. He used a W's beginning to introduce the topic to the reader.

I discovered a lot of interesting things about Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was located in the fertile crescent in what is now present day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syrian, Jordan, Israel and Syria. Mesopotamia started in 4000 B.C. Mesopotamia was also located by two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.

His closing sums up the topic, and restates a few key points.

Mesopotamia was a very successful culture. In Mesopotamia they had laws, a form of writing and technology. The people of Mesopotamia still affect us today.

By using a simple, but effective opening and closing, and having a body with many details, Justin and many of his classmates did well with this interdisciplinary project.

SS Essay, Interdisciplinary Project

Mrs. Griffey has been studying Mesopotamia in her sixth grade social studies classes at Laurelville. At the end of the unit, students had to write an essay telling all that they learned. They had to research for additional information. Students wrote a rough draft, revised with a peer, and then wrote a final draft to be turned in for a grade.

This essay also counted for a grade in language arts. Justin did a great job with his introduction and conclusion.

This introduction outlines basic W's.

I discovered a lot about of interesting things about Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was located in the fertile crescent that is now present day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syrian, Jordan, Israel and Syria. Mesopotamia started in 4000 B.C. Mesopotamia was also located by two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates.

The closing does a good job of wrapping up the essay and summarizing important information.

Mesopotamia was a very successful culture. In Mesopotamia they had laws, a form of writing and technology. The people of Mesopotamia still affect us today.

With a good opening and closing, the essay makes it easier for the reader to understand.

Book Letter

Everybody loves to get a letter, even teachers. Our latest projects is one of my favorites because I get a lot of letters, and I get to read about the books students are reading. Below are parts of different letters that are superb examples of a book letter.

This is Justin's beginning:

The book I am reading is called The White Fox Chronicles. The author's name is Gary Paulsen. Gary Paulsen writes a lot of action/ survival books. The main character's name is Cody Pierce. Cody is a 14 year old boy.

This is a good example of a W's introduction.

This is Kari's beginning:

I am reading the book called The Revenge Of The Shadow King. I found this book to be extremely good. Especially if you are into fairy tales, mysteries, and thrillers because that's what it's all about. If you like those kinds of books you may be really attached to this book. I really liked it mainly because I like to read fairy tales and thrillers.

This is an opinion/persuasive introduction.
Body/Middle

Shelby does a great job comparing the main character from Heartbeat by Creech in this paragraph.

Another thing that Annie and I have in common is we both have baby brothers. We both love our baby brothers. I think that Annie loves her brother a lot because she was so scared that the baby would get hurt. Annie and I also were scared at first to hold our baby brothers. She was scared that she would drop him, I thought that I would not hold him right and hurt him.
Katie helps us understand the character Bookworm from Max the Mighty.

My favorite character is Bookworm. Bookworm is also called Worm sometimes. She is my favorite character because she loves books. Worm is about eleven or twelve years old. Worm doesn't like her step dad. She doesn't like him because he hates T.V and he hates books. I think that Worm plays a really good part in the story and I like her because she and her mom have to deal with a lot of problems, and somehow she always makes it through.

Conclusion/Closing

Molly does a fabulous job wrapping up her letter.

I would definitely recommend this book to others, because I think a lot of girls could really relate to the main character, especially most of my friends. Also I would still recommend this book to boys, because even though it's a girl's book, it's not about being girly, and all about girls. Some boys may be able to relate to the three boys in the story! The book Spells & Sleeping Bags is one out of my two favorite books. Also, I think the author is very talented with writing her books. She's my absolute favorite author. I think Sara Mlynowski is very talented because I can really get inside the characters mind, and really get into the book as if I were the main character.

Freak the Mighty

The latest read aloud is the favorite of every class, every year--Freak the Mighty, written by Rodman Philbrick. This is the story of Max and Kevin, two misfits who become friends. Max is the writer of this story as the beginning circles around to be the end.

Max and Kevin each help the other, Max with his long legs and big body, and Kevin with his brain. Kevin is fighting a crippling disease, but Max's friendship helps him overcome some limitations. Max is trying to deal with the loss of his mother, and a father nicknamed Killer Kane. You can read more about this, as the language arts class builds a wiki page about the book.

Etech Conference

On February 4-6 I attended the Etech Ohio 2008 Conference in Columbus, Ohio at the Convention Center. This annual event features 300 sessions, teacher and student displays, keynote speakers, and technology vendors.

Many of the ideas currently in use at Laurelville Elementary came from this School Net Conference. The use of the online learning program, Study Island came from a discussion with the vendor at a conference four years ago.

Posting grades online for students and parents was discussed in several sessions three years ago. After visiting with several vendors, I decided to use Engrade.

The use of LCD and DLP projectors with doc cameras in writing workshop, has made sharing student work easy. All of the fifth and sixth grade classes at Laurelville use this technology daily. This idea came from a session I attended several years ago presented by a language arts teacher.

Each year there are sessions on digital media in the classroom. This has helped with sharing pictures of students hard at work.

Last year I attended sessions on blogging. Needless to say, this attempt at keeping parents and students informed came from those sessions.

I attended a session Wednesday about using Audacity. This is sound recording/editing software. I use it to edit songs that we sing in the class. It is also a useful tool for recording podcasts. A podcast is an audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer.

A couple of ideas that I hope to use in the future are clickers and digital books. Clickers are infrared remotes. Each students gets one and they answer questions projected on the white board. At einstruction, they have a clicker that works with Study Island. The clickers anonymously keep track of each student's answer. This way each student is thinking about the question, instead of just a few students.

As you can see, many of the uses of technology in language arts at Laurelville Elementary originated from the Etech Conference. Each year I am excited to see the new ideas and find great uses in the classroom.

What Doesn't Matter

Part of being a successful reader of nonfiction means understanding the important information. This week, we looked at reading from the other side. We looked at the article No Drivers Wanted about robot cars. This is an article about the DARPA Challenge for driverless cars. Students highlighted in pink, all of the information that wasn't important.

Student partners went through the article and looked for trivial details, unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, and minor facts, opinions, and quotes that didn't help understand the article.

Once the highlighting was completed, student partners were combined to make teams of four. The four students compared each team's work and discussed their decisions.

Scotty D. took over as the teacher next, and students looked at the article with the projector. With Brianne managing the computer, the class as a whole had to agree on what wasn't important. Today, students will use what text that is left as they search for the W's and write a gist statement.

This is how the article looked when they finished. If you look at what is not highlighted, you should be able to see the important details, and get the gist.

Tuesday, October 11—Stanley usually seems to know where he's going. He moves quickly over rocky ground and across puddles. He works hard and he's almost always on the move. Stanley is a robot car.

Last week, 23 teams—including the Stanford University team that built Stanley—gathered in the Mojave Desert in Nevada to compete in a special race known as the Grand Challenge. The race was special because none of the cars had drivers.

Stanley completed the dangerous 150-mile course through the desert in six hours and 53 minutes, earning the Stanford team a $2 million prize from the Department of Defense. Of the 23 teams that competed, only five actually finished. The others were stumped by mechanical or technological problems.

Sebastian Thrun, the lead robotics engineer for the Stanford team, realizes that driver-free, robot cars like Stanley still seem like something from a science-fiction film. "People by and large don't believe in this stuff," he said. "They've seen too many failures." This year's Grand Challenge was much more successful than last year's, when no vehicle was able to travel more than eight miles.

What Makes Reading Important?

Reading is important for so many reasons. But, what do sixth graders think? And, what do their parents and grandparents think? Although I usually hate homework on the weekend, students have a special assignment for this weekend.

They must answer the following questions:

Why do you believe reading is important?
How do you think reading skills will help you throughout your life?

In addition, they must interview either a parent or grandparent and ask them these questions to find out their opinions about reading.

It will be interesting to hear opinions. I wonder if there will be much difference between students and their parents/grandparents?

Key Words to Reading

Not all words are created equal. Some words carry a heavier weight to the reader who is tuned in to using all possible means for comprehension.

Not to be outdone by 6A, the 6B class came up with the list above and beyond all lists. Partners worked through their Scholastic News for key words that helped the reader know when an important point is about to come. Listed below are words that the discerning reader will use as keys to getting it.

1. Why- makes you think about a “W” detail; reason

2. but- opposite; something else is happening

3. and- tells that there is going to be another example

4. I think- tells you somebody's opinion; gives an example [I wonder, I thought, I know, I pictured]

5. because- gives you a reason for something

6. or- tells something different

7. said- tells somebody's opinion

8. who- makes you think about a “W” detail; person

9. however- something else is happening

10. about- gives more information

11. also- tells something is coming

12. what- makes you think about a “W” detail

13. show(s)- tells you more detail

14. when- makes you think about a “W” details; time

15. If..., then- shows a relationship

16. Each/ for example- - elaborates or tells more information

17. where- makes you think about a “W” detail; place

18. results in- causes, effect, finished product

19. point is- main idea, gist

20. difference- something else

GREAT JOB to both classes for their hard work and outstanding effort!

A special shout out to Haley and Baylie for their outstanding finds (they even outdid the combination of Mrs. Bowers and me).




Discussion for tomorrow--check your grammar and spelling before commenting (See yesterday's Blog comments).

Get a Clue Without Words

Nothing replaces reading to get the meaning, but there are a lot of other clues if you know where to search. Using Scholastic News, we focused on some of the ways a reader can figure out the gist of an article.

Here are our NOTES for today.

Clues to Get the Gist

Use everything other than words to get the gist. Look at the title, sub-titles, headings, fonts, pictures, captions, etc.

The 6A Language Arts class worked first as partners, and then as a class and compiled this list of non-word ways to understand as article.

1. Title—gives an idea of the article’s topic

2. Font—different font like bold print means word or idea is important

3. Pictures—visualize the information

4. Captions—help understand the picture

5. Colored sections—important information/ makes you want to read them

6. Subtitles—provide details to go with the title

7. Headings—tells what the section is about

8. Timeline—gives dates events happened

9. Inserts—extra information that is not necessarily part of the story

10. Graphs—shows data/statistics

11. Questions—makes you think about main points

List compiled by 6A

Learning to Read, con'd

What is important? What should we highlight? What are the W's? The students worked hard to drag the meaning out of an article, and here is what it looked like when we finished. We used the DLP projector with a student leading the discussion, and a student operator on the computer.

Reading or You're Not a Little Kid Anymore

Learning to read is the main focus throughout elementary school. However, the style of reading must change as students enter Jr. High School and above. By sixth grade, figuring out all of the words is a small part of the reading process. Students must learn to decipher meaning, especially in difficult text. Reading for the Gist, understanding the W's (who, what, when, where, why, and how), and comprehending important details becomes the focus.

Although comprehension strategies are taught in the primary grades, the techniques should change as students enter the intermediate grades. That is our objective currently in language arts class.

Our notes from yesterday illustrate our focus:

01/07/08 NOTES Reading Nonfiction 1


1.Skim
2.Read & Highlight
3.List W’s
4.List facts
5.Write a topic sentence/Gist Statement


Basically we are breaking down nonfiction articles trying to glean the most important facts and information. One particularly difficult sentence from an article in Science News Online took almost one half hour just to figure out. The sentence is written with a complex style, and uses vocabulary that was unfamiliar to many sixth grade readers. These three copies of the sentence show the process we went through to break it down and make it easier to read.


"The team has withheld from its article critical code-breaking details that could abet would-be hackers."

The team has withheld from its article critical code-breaking details that could help would-be hackers.

The team withheld details that could help hackers.

Our goal is to break down the meaning to the simplest terms, to make reading and understanding easy. This takes an immense amount of hard work and brain power. Students have been giving a great amount of effort as they are learning new reading skills.

Topics of discussion include:

Learning to Read
You Don't Have to Get it All
What Did the Writer Feel/Think as he Wrote
Reading Rate
How the W's Guide Thoughts
Predict and Revise

Clerihew Poems

Here are a few of the outstanding Clerihew poems


Mrs. Cartee and Mr.T

I once had teacher named Cartee
I thought she was married to Mr.T
so I thought twice before breaking a rule
Because I figured he would call me a fool

Dakota B.


Kooky Teacher Named Mrs. Bower

There once was a kooky teacher named Mrs. Bowers,
To write a simple poem like this would take her quite a few hours,
Till one day she found hidden powers,
Then she could write stacks of paper taller than towers.

Kyle W.


The Dizzy Lizzy

There once was a girl named Lizzy,
she ran around in circles until she was dizzy.
Then one day she fell down hard on the ground,
and that is how she came across her favorite mound.

Brianne H.

Poetry, Clerihew Poems

Writing Workshop will focus on poetry for the next two weeks. We began working with free verse poems. Students listed topics they were interested in developing. Next, they picked one and worked on a "So What?" This is based on Nancie Atwell's Lessons That Change Writers. Atwell talks about the importance of knowing, "Why are you writing that," and, "what is the point?" She wants writers to think about the lesson, meaning, and/or moral.



Mrs. Bower, the Educational Specialist that is in each day during Writing Workshop to help students, taught about how to write a Clerihew poem. This type of poetry has four lines and is often written about a person. The first two lines rhyme and the last two lines rhyme. The poem is meant to be funny, so after a week of gray days the students enjoyed the "comic relief" that writing them brought.

I once had a teacher named McGuire
Someday he will have to retire
That'll be a sad time when he bids us "Good Bye"
I'm so sure all the cute girls will cry!

Mrs. Bower shared this example for all of the students (and they thought this was soooo funny).

One of the tools we used to help find rhyming words was the website www.rhymezone.com. This website makes it much easier when students choose to write poems that rhyme.



Check back to see some of the best student work!

Laurelville Reading Board

The Laurelville Reading Board is back up, and ready for comments. This is a place where you can comment about books. I have started out with a few of our favorite books, and our favorite series. I will be adding more topics/titles soon. When you finish a book, jump in and comment. BUT, don't give away the ending, or spoil the story for someone else.

To comment go to our Reading Board.



This is one of the books that is listed for comments. I know this is one of many sixth grader's favorites, so tell us what you think.

Hear Your Writing

One of the best ways to improve writing is to read aloud your essay. ATandT Research Labs has a program that will read aloud for you. The program, called Text to Speech, reads what is written. This is a great tool to use when revising and editing in Writing Workshop.

According to ATandT:
Text-To-Speech, or TTS for short, is computer software that converts text into audible speech. You can try it yourself on our demo page. See our Home page for more information.

All you have to do is type or paste your writing into the text box (step 2) and click on the Speak button. To try it, just go to here.

Top 10 Thanks for Break

We did a Letterman style Top 10 of the reasons students are most thankful for Thanksgiving Break. Here is a compilation of the Top 10 Reasons to be Thankful for Break.

10. Get to go shopping

9. More video game time

8. More TV time

7. 24/7 recess

6. We can eat until we're fat

5. No tests

4. No homework

3. The girls don't have to deal with stupid boys

2. No more writing the Top 10

1. Don't have to fake laugh at Mr. McGuire's bad jokes

Great job to all of the students for all of their lists, except for the #1 reason!

Thanks at Thanksgiving

One of our latest projects in Writing Workshop is to write a thank you letter to someone in your life that has made your life better. Students chose parents, grandparents, aunts, cousins, and family friends. Most of the letters were exceptional in sincerity and meaning. The following letter below, by Trey is one examples.

November 8, 2007

Dear Grandpa,

I would like to tell you how much I appreciate everything you have done for me. So get ready to be very amazed at my writing about my dedication to you.

I am very grateful when you take me to the camper every weekend. When we go there it's like we are in heaven. The reason why I think it's heaven is because it is just so peaceful there. The birds are always chirping and the deer are always grazing. When we go there we ride around on golf carts. Sometimes we work for the manager or sometimes we fish. I am very grateful because if you did not take me to the camper, I would be watching Addy, or siting in my room really bored. I would probably be planning a prank on Ashlee (Should I use water balloons filled with hot water or the old whipped cream in the hand prank?).

I am grateful that you were always there for me when Dad was not. If you would not have been there for me I would not have had any other boys to have fun with. Like that time in Tar Hollow when this kid laughed at me because I had no Dad around like most kids but I told him that I did have a Dad, my Grandpa. Since then you have been my substitute Dad.

Grandpa I can't tell you how grateful I am. Especially not in this little peace of writing but I am really grateful that you have done all those things for me. Thank you Grandpa.

Your Grandson,

Trey

Thank You Letter from 4th

We received the nicest thank you letter from a fourth grade student after we co-wrote the answer to a question using a book that Mrs. Wolfe read aloud Mountain Magic. See the post on October 29 for details.

This act of kindness made working together totally worth it.

3rd Grade Study Island Help

Mrs. Roe's third grade class is starting to use Study Island. For their first experience, they came up to sixth grade for some help. The sixth graders did an awesome job helping them learn how to log on to the program, navigate through it, and answer questions.

I was especially proud of how the sixth grade "teachers" showed their younger students how to find the correct response when they struggled. The sixth graders did an awesome job helping make the first experience on Study Island a positive learning experience.

Great Helpers!

Calendar of Events

FYI

November 20 Parent Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:30

November 21-26 No School--Thanksgiving Break

November 28-29 Author Sandra J. Phillipson Visits

November 29 Picture Retakes

December 7 Interim Reports

December 13 PTO Meeting @ 3:30

December 14 Holiday Craft Day

December 20 Christmas Break Begins

January 2 School Resumes

January 18 End of 2nd Nine Weeks