As the class was lining up for science today, Sascha L. asked me, "Has our classroom ever been this messy, other than when we did clay sculptures or the mural?" No, it has not. Let me tell you, though, it's a beautiful mess! Our room is positively covered with books, papers, markers, colored pencils, Post-It Notes, tape and more books. It's glorious!
Last week, students brought in a pile of their favorite things to read. They marked favorite excerpts, brainstormed their favorite characters, authors and settings, and thought about why they like the things they like. Today, they began to synthesize all of that work into a reading reaction where they are the text. Their work is to look across everything they collected and think about what it tells them about themselves as a reader, which will ultimately tell them about themselves in general. They're analyzing data.
The reaction itself is a way for students to process, not present their thoughts. As they begin to build their reading brains on paper, connections and new ideas appear, and they get recorded, too. Halfway through their work today, I asked how many people felt like they'd discovered something new about themselves, and nearly every hand went up. We're in the middle of a beautiful, messy process! Check it out:
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| Self Portraits |
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