Inspiration from Cynthia Lord

For the past three years, we've been lucky enough to have author Cynthia Lord visit our school.  Her visits are always inspiring, and it's certainly a treat to see my students' reactions to meeting a REAL AUTHOR for the first time.

Authors are mysterious people.  When beginning a new novel with my kids, I always introduce the author by explaining what little information I can dig up about him/her.  But how often is it that you really feel like you KNOW the author, or that you have a true connection with him/her?  Don't authors typically seem to feel like a figment of your imagination?  Like they can't be real?  Well, as I walked up to welcome Cynthia to our school once again, I stuck out my hand for a formal handshake.  Instead, she wrapped both arms around me and embraced me with the most sincere hug.  Her hug was a gentle reminder that she's just that kind of person, both in her writing and as a person in general.

Weeks ago, when I began reading Cynthia Lord's novel Rules to my students, I found myself withholding information about her, in fear that I would ruin the surprises that I knew were to come in her presentation.  Needless to say, I know that my students weren't disappointed in her presentation.  I can't say that they have been many times that my students attentively listened for an hour straight, but this was definitely an exception!  She spent an hour with my students discussing how she came up with her plot for Rules, the ways she developed her characters and settings, and she even taught my students a formula that seemed to fit in perfectly into my plans for realistic fiction writing:

The WOW Formula

• Want? 
• Obstacles: What is in your character's way?
• What does he/she do, trying to get it? 
• Win?

Although I feel like I've been trying to teach this structure to my students, I know that my students will take advice from an author over their language arts teacher.  I'm excited to bring this formula into my workshop lessons as my students begin drafting their stories.  After we got back from Mrs. Lord's presentation, my kids were eager to continue developing their ideas for their story, and the energy in the classroom was at an all-time high.

I wish we had the opportunity for more authentic learning experiences like this week's author visit.  It's days like this that encourage me to continue to look outside the box to find ways to inspire my students to be writers.

Realistic Fiction Writing

As much as I tried to make character analysis essay-writing fun for my students, it was SO refreshing to move on to our realistic fiction writing unit this week!  I love to hear my students respond, "YES!" when I ask them to get out their writer's notebooks for workshop.  But I have to say, I was a bit nervous to teach realistic fiction writing because I haven't taught it since my first year of teaching FIVE years ago.  This year, the unit was added to our writing calendar, and with the craziness of the school year, I decided to jump on TpT to see what I could find.  I knew that I wanted a variety of resources that mirrored our realistic fiction reading unit that we just concluded.  I also wanted something that I could easily copy for my students to glue into their writer's notebook.  So far, I've really enjoyed using these resources from TpT along with other mentor texts and activities.

Students started the unit reviewing the components of the realistic fiction genre, then jumped right in to brainstorming for their stories.

The real fun began when students were able to explore their characters by coming up with their external and internal character traits.  Since we studied characters so deeply in our reading unit, I was excited to see that the kids were eager to transfer what they had learned to their own writing this week.  

The kids were able to quickly brainstorm character traits and were excited to sketch out how their characters will act, look, and feel throughout their story.

Next Wednesday, Cynthia Lord, author of Rules, will be visiting our school, and will speaking to all fifth graders about the process of writing a book.  This is the third year that we've been fortunate enough to host Mrs. Lord, and I'm so excited for her to share her passion for writing; it's simply contagious, and I know that my students will be inspired to write even better stories after meeting and hearing her speak!  

Until next time!

Writing About Reading

Throughout the past few years, I've centered my reading and writing time around creating engaging book clubs for my students.  The idea of a book club is the perfect way to differentiate in the classroom, and I'm so excited that my students have been amping up their reading ever since I launched my first book club a few weeks ago.  Each book club unit focuses on a different theme or skill.  For this specific unit, my teaching partner and I chose books that focused on strong character development.  Before I began the unit this year, I took a look at last year's list and decided to revamp it.  I traded some of the "not-so-loved" books from last year for ones that I hoped my students would fall in love with.  I'm excited to say that many of my students (and even some of my lowest readers whom NEVER read!) are flying through these books!  My guidelines for book clubs are pretty simple:

1. Students must choose a book from the list provided that meets their reading level (Students are given a Fountas & Pinnell reading level; they're asked to say within two reading levels of their letter.)  For this book club, there were 10 different book choices.  Most students have anywhere from 2-5 books that fall within their reading level.  
2. If a student realizes that he/she has chosen a book that does not interest him/her after the first few chapters, he/she may trade it in for another book club book.
3. Students are encouraged to read as many of the book club books as they wish, but they are only required to read one per unit.
4. Once students have read at least two book club books, they may choose any book that they'd like to read.  (Although, with the high-interest book list this year, many of my students are on their fourth of fifth book -- and we're only on the third week of the unit!)

Students are reading their character book club books at home and at school.  For reader's workshop time, we read a mentor text together and I teach a lesson specifically about character development. Then, students are asked to try that lesson on their own book club book using guiding questions, graphic organizers, etc.  For the past several years, I've been using Rules by Cynthia Lord as our mentor text.  We're so lucky to have Cynthia Lord coming to our school at the end of the month!  Even though this will be my third year hearing her talk about her books, I'm beyond excited!!

Although the kids seem to enjoy their independent work with their book club books, this year they have been looking forward to Friday book club meetings the most.  My teaching partner and I decided that we would try our best to allow students who are reading the same books to meet every single Friday.  Each Friday, we have an activity that allows them to discuss and analyze the characters in their book.  The kids love working with students from another class, and it's great to see the kids discussing their books on such a deep level.  

This past Friday, my teaching partner suggested that we try a Fakebook Character Analysis activity that she found on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I loved watching the students really "get into" their book's characters.  This was such an engaging activity, and every single kid was involved throughout their work time.  They were super disappointed that they didn't have enough time to finish their pages, but we promised more work time for next Friday.

Sample Fakebook Page

Students working on their Fakebook page. (Hoot by Carl Hiaasen)

Another book club group: Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass

A work in progress.

Overall, I'm excited that book clubs are going well.  I think it's going to be a great year for reading and writing!