"Choose your favorite book. Next declare the literary reason it is your favorite book; is it the plot, or maybe the characters, is the description of the action...tell your connection to the book, how did you feel as you read it?" These were some of the directions that H.P., the 6th grade teacher, gave her students for a writing project. Students were to name the book and its author. After naming the literary feature that they claimed as the reason for choosing the they were told to give three examples from the book to support their claim. Included in these examples were to be their personal reactions as they read that section. When this assignment was complete they wrote a rough draft of a paper, book report, which they first shared with other students for critique. After changes were made based on that critique H.P., or I, helped them proof read for spelling, clarity, punctuation and grammar. The final step was writing the paper either longhand or on a computer.
These students are receiving a wonderful basic education in how to write. Some of them are gifted writers while others really struggled. All of them were exposed to the basic elements of writing a paper..a foundation on which they can build.
"The context you ask?" Noble Academy, the Hmong Charter School were I volunteer. Some charter schools get a bad rap but at Noble academics are taken very seriously. In fact, the Noble school day is an hour longer than that of the Minneapolis Public Schools. In addition about 75% of the students voluntarily attend summer school which concentrates on reading and math.
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