Around here I have a piece of butcher paper on the classroom wall titled “Fridge Papers.” These are papers I’d put on my refrigerator if at home to show off to my friends and family if I could. My students just finished working on Research Portfolios, and these are snippets of their projects. One student studied photography and used what he learned to take a picture of his own. Another did the history of fashion and created a visual that represents the evolution of a woman’s dress. Still another took a look at different ethnicities in baseball. All of them were quite impressive, but maybe I’m biased.
Around here we’re doing Book Club, one of my favorite ways to talk about a story. Each student gets a job (Discussion Director, Passage Picker, Illustrator, or Quiz Maker), reads the assigned story, completes the job, and then gets together with his or her group to discuss. Right now we are reading When I Was Your Age, a collection of Creative Nonfiction essays by children’s authors like Katherine Paterson, Avi, and Mary Pope Osborne.
Around here we’re studying Creative Nonfiction, and if there is nothing else I want my students to see when they leave my classroom is everything they have to write about is all right here in front of them. CNF is all about taking note. It’s all about attending to what is there. Goodness, their lives are so rich with confusion and wonder right now, what else can you do but write? Anyway, I put up a paper mailbox for everyone (including, ehem, me) and when quiet work time rolls around, writing notes to someone is always an option.
Around here I have a bulletin board with my favorite lines of Emily Dickinson’s on it. I’ve scattered a few of the students’ words around hers. I’d like to have an entire collage of words by the time the year is up; all of them pulsing with new life, ready to begin their story.
I still have that bookmark you made me with the Emily Dickinson quote in the middle of your board! It’s a good reminder of the power of words.
I love that you’re teaching “creative nonfiction”–in just those words–to your students. I don’t think I’d ever heard the term until I was in my 20s. I so admire the creative projects you come up for the classroom. Your students are very lucky. Do you have “Tell the truth–but tell it slant” on your Dickinson board. (You must, given our old textbook!)
You are one hard working teacher.
Sounds like an awesome classroom! Those look like really cool activities.
those envelopes totally take me back to 2nd noordewier and finals! 20 years ago right now….
You know where I got the idea from then. 🙂