6Traits Digest #188 - Monday, June 12, 2000
Reflections
by "Susan Nixon" <susan@desertskyone.com>
Re: 6Traits- Reflections
by "Julia Poor"
Good idea!
by "Susan Nixon" <susan@desertskyone.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Reflections
From: "Susan Nixon" <susan@desertskyone.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 09:00:27 -0700
Now that the year is behind most of us, I would like to know the order in
which you taught the traits, and the reasoning behind your choices. I'd
also like to hear of successes or failures and have a discussion of why
some things worked and some things didn't.
I already shared with you my biggest success, the bunny readers
project. If you didn't get a chance to look at it, here it is again.
http://www.comsewogue.k12.ny.us/~ssilverman/bunnies/cartwright/nixon.htm
Frankly, I was surprised by the students' display of writing
ability! =3D) The poetry project also went very well.
http://www.geocities.com/poempoets/Poets2000/index.html
Quite a few of you participated in that with me.
Given these marvelous year end projects, you might think everything went
very smoothly the whole year. Ha! =3D) In the failure column I list the =
fact that there were times when I could not get responses from all
children. There was one little boy in particular, with no ability-related =
reason not to write, who just refused all year long. He sat with a blank
paper in front of him during every writing assignment! Talks with him,
with his parents, nothing worked to motivate him.
I hate to even share that what got him to write was the fact that he =
needed
to go to the bathroom and I wouldn't let him until he turned in a poem for =
me. He wrote a *great* 6 line poem! When I praised his poem
*tremendously* and shared it with other students, he began to write for
me. I only wish I had realized earlier that it was fear of failure that
kept him from writing anything. =3D(
Things I would do differently include better organization on my
part. Sometimes I found myself going with the inspiration of the moment
during lessons instead of my plan. I'd like to take the things that =
worked
and make my planning better thought out.
On the other hand, Dear Peter Rabbit was the inspiration of a moment when =
I
read the book to the students. I don't even know if doing it by plan with =
another group of students would work as well.
I'd like to have a better interface among 6 traits, 4 blocks and writer's
workshop. The writing block didn't always run as smoothly as I'd like, =
and
it often took longer than I think it should have.
Those are some of my thoughts about my year. What about you?
Susan Nixon
CPT
Phoenix, AZ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: 6Traits- Reflections
From: "Julia Poor"
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 20:49:46 -0500
>I'd like to have a better interface among 6 traits, 4 blocks and
writer's
workshop. The writing block didn't always run as smoothly as I'd
like, and
it often took longer than I think it should have.
Exactly!
Julia, in Indiana
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Good idea!
From: "Susan Nixon" <susan@desertskyone.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:12:02 -0700
This is from Mr. White and Paulie, on the 4 blocks teachernet mailring:
>From: VlyTeacher@aol.com
>
>(Your project) reminded me of a project I did when teaching 2nd grade
>three years ago.
>We did it with our 5th grade penpals from 74 miles away.
>We had a lot of fairy tales in our Open Court
>reader so we wrote to the 5th graders who pretended to be the characters =
we
>were writing to. They answered the questions/letters in character. We =
each
>made a great book from the question and answer letters. It was a =
wonderful
>project.
>Both of us (teachers) made copies of what we sent so we could have
>that part for our class book. I have two huge volumes (binders) with =
letters
>of questions and answers, illustrations, copies of the stories and of =
course
>into to the project and ending with our class pictures of both who
>participated. We used 6 fairy tales and it took most of the year to write =
>back and forth.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of 6Traits Digest
--
To unsubscribe, send any message at all to:
6Traits-off@.
Archive of past digests is at:
http://6Traits.Cyberspaces.net/archive/?_NO_DATETIME