Ready or not, the school year began. Two weeks in, our classroom bulletin boards still await creativity and inspiration, though there are some bold colors to break up the monotonous back wall. Just as I was about to go searching the internet for thought-provoking, maybe famous quotes to support our current theme of identity, and take up some space on the bare bulletin boards, the students provided illumination of their own.
In class this week, we read and discussed Janell Cannon's book, Verdi. The snake with a lot of heart and a challenging identity crisis made for some rich classroom discussion about literary elements, summary writing, snakes, age, and the concept of identity. When asked to write about the book's theme, and connections to middle school life, my students articulated awareness and empathy of which their families, friends, and teachers should be very proud.
So much for searching the internet. Soon, more than two dozen, student-generated, insightful quotes about identity will adorn our purple bulletin boards instead. As a teacher, I am proud and I am humbled.
nice post.
ReplyDeleteI can see that your students have done some fun activities in the beginning of the school. I've read Verdi, but I like the story "Where the Wild Things Are" more. I like to make VIDEOS!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is very boring but good. I see that your purple board is now filled with colorful papers with words on them. Is that a picture of your house? It's very nice.
ReplyDeleteI think that the blog is very good. It is highly relevant to the activity and topic. It also shows good word choice. However, from my opinion, this blog could use some more images and video. Also the name of the blog should be more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIdentity is important in middle school and school life.
ReplyDeleteThe blog was highly intriguing to me because the blog post was related to me. There was a very interesting introduction that leaves me hanging and draws me to read more from the blog post.Also the blog shows an interesting insight on the opinion of the blogger. There was a variety of word choice which helps prevent the blog to turn into a boring one. However the blogger could have given examples of the quotes that the blogger mentioned in the post or provided visuals which would definitely help the reader better understand the blogger.
ReplyDeletei gave this blog post a 3 because the blog post gives us reasons and examples, however there's no pictures, audio, images or links to support the information. The blog post is kind of boring since there's only text to read. In my own opinion i think this wall post will be better if they include pictures or audio to support the information.
ReplyDeleteI have given this blog post a 2.5 because this blog have shown a insight and depth of well understanding in the topic. In my opinion I think that there should be some little multi-media enhancement on the blog post to make it stand out.
ReplyDeleteIn class...it took us about 3 days to finish everything about Verdi- the summary, the plot, and the talk over. Verdi was a python, a yellow python, that I agreed it but when we have to write a summary> I managed to write a re-tell which was longer. We also worked on a definition of identity. It has many meaning and, ms torie, you should put some of those definition on your blog. Overall this seems like a good blog with depth and relevant messages but no pictures- add one. I would give this a 2 and 1/2.
ReplyDelete