Category: writing

Diary of, writing

Diary of an Animal – Digital Storytelling

Pernille Ripp
I love the “Diary of…” series by Doreen Cronin and knew my first year that I wanted the kids to write their own diary of something.  Last year, my fantastic technology teacher Myrna found a way to combine this project with digital storytelling.  So today, I am excited to unveil our next writing project; Diary of an Animal.  This project focuses on the traits of voice, organization, ideas and presentation.

The process is easy, and not one that I created but simply one I borrowed and then tweaked to fit us.

Build Up:

  • I build excitement by reading aloud “Diary of a Fly” and “Diary of a Spider.’  Most students have seen these books but love hearing them again.  I also put them all out on display for the kids to flip through whenever they want.  
  • After this, it is time to unveil the project.  Kids usually cheer when I tell them about studying a particular animal, and then I show them the final product.  I still have some of my old students’ projects and they love to see what they will be making.
  • I also scaffold by reading aloud a couple of example diary entries written by former students and there is always time for questions before we move on.

Process:

  • Then it’s time to get started, I give the students a couple of minutes to brainstorm a top 3 of animals they would like to study and then we are off to the library!  I encourage students to pick different animals so we learn about as many as possible.
  • Otherwise they may choose whichever one they want to, as long as it is one they are interested in.  They check out books from the library to find their fun facts.
  • The trick with this project is that they have to write their diary as that animal, so instead of a normal research project they really have to understand how that animal works and would think.
  • Students use this sheet to find fun facts that they may use in their final product.
  • Once they have all of the facts needed, and some extra ones, they start on the pre-write.  We have this great graphic organizer for that as well that students may choose to use.

All of this has been taking place during our literacy block up untilnow.  Now we get tech involved.

Tech Piece:

  • Students type all of their entries in keyboarding and then copy and paste it into a storyboard template.
  • For pictures, there are two options:  either draw their own using a drawing program or import them from the internet.  This may also depend on your student, sometimes this can take way too much time.
  • If searching the internet for pictures, students are also taught how to cite the source and put this into their digital story.  
  • When both of the above are completed, students are then shown how to import into Digital Story, add titles, record the story and then put in transitions and music.  

This whole project usually takes a couple of weeks in technology but only about a week and a half in literacy.  The end result is very creative, funny, and something the students love to share with their family.  This is also a great introduction to Digital Storytelling.

In the end we evaluate through peer review and we share these projects with our 1st grade reading buddies as well.

students, writing

A Child Argues Against Sledding

Pernille Ripp
I had to teach persuasive writing this week for a mandatory writing assessment so since we had gone sledding this week, I asked my students to try to persuade me to let them go again.  One child, Erik, decided to go another route; I love it when they get creative.

Dear Mrs. Ripp,
I think you shouldn’t let us go sledding.  First because it’s dangerous.  You crash multiple times every time you go down the hill.  Also, people might flip over in their sleds.  Lastly, (for this reason) kids might try to go down the hill on their feet.

Second, it might get us in trouble because we aren’t allowed to sled in the big hill.  The teachers might yell at us to be quiet.  Also, you have to go up the wrong side and could get hit.

Third, it will make other kids jealous.  They might bring their own sleds from home because we did it.  They might also try and stop us from going down and that might get people get hurt.  Kids might throw snowballs at us to stop us sledding.

That is why we shouldn’t go sledding again.
Your friend,
Erik

If you would like to leave him a comment on his post, please do so!

Literacy, Martin Luther King, Reading, writing

A Study in MLK Jr. Day

Pernille Ripp

We discuss Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the year, however, in order for the students to understand why they get Monday off, I decided to do a little mini lesson today during literacy to remind them.  I am a huge Patty Griffin fan and knew that her song “Up to the Mountain (the MLK Song) would be an incredible piece to study on our Music and Poetry Tuesday’s.

I started out by asking the students why we get Monday off, thankfully most of them knew why and they also knew a little bit about his life.  I minored in history so I took the kids back to pre-Civil War times and told them a little bit about Jim Crow Laws.  (I don’t want to go into too much detail because we explore it in social studies later this year).  Once the background had been set, we talked about the time of MLK and what they knew about him and the Civil Rights Movement.  This was at most 10 minutes of my class.

After that I knew I needed to recapture their attention because I had done a lot of talking.  So I played them a clip from MLK’s Last Speech also known as his “Up to the Mountaintop” speech.  The students were amazed that they were able to watch him speak. 

We discussed how he was a preacher so he used biblical text to express his desire for his followers.  The kids completely got the duality in his speech once we had mentioned this.  I then played them a video of  Patty Griffin’s song while they got a print out of the lyrics to follow along with.  Having the lyrics was helpful for them since she can be hard to fully understand.  Finally, I played the speech clip again without saying anything.  Quiet.

I asked them, “What did Patty Griffin use in her song from the speech?”  Multiple hands shot up with different answers.  They all saw the similarities.  And what is more, they understood more how powerful MLK was because they had seen him speak “live.”  I ended our viewing with this short video montage from the “I Have a Dream” speech, which never ceases to amaze kids.

We finished the lesson with the students journaling on the topic:  Has MLK’s dream come true that we only get judged by our character and not by how we look?

inspiration, writing

I Once Met Angela Johnson

Pernille Ripp

I once met Angela Johnson
That poet author, who takes you there, makes you live, makes you feel.
I touched that hand that wrote those words and she turned to me and said, “And what do you want to be when you grow up?”
So I felt like a kid, wishing, dreaming and thinking about all of the possibilities.
And I said, “I want to be like you, a sayer of words, a magical creature, who makes you feel, makes you think, makes you live.”
And she turned to me and smiled and said, “You must find your voice to be you, not to be me.”

S I searched within me.
Dug down into the layers, not knowing what it was was looking for but knowing it was somewhere.
Because Angela Johnson told me so.
And one day, there it was, found beneath the layers.
A tiny voice with no direction, but this urgency that meant I could not hold it back.
And I so I tried to become the slayer of words, to make the people feel, to take you there.
Until I realized that I was not Angela Johnson, I was me.
I had found my voice voice but not my thoughts.
So the search continues because
I once met Angela Johnson.

blogging, students, writing

So Blogging is just for Fun?

Pernille Ripp

In the past 3 weeks my students have finally gotten to start blogging on their own. We did not take this endeavor lightly and therefore first had to discuss safety of blogging and being on the Internet, see this post on the lesson used.  We also had to discuss how to properly comment on other posts through the use of paper blogs, a lesson I wish I had come up with but which I absolutely borrowed from some fantastic educators and its creator Leonard Low, and how to solicit comments on one’s own; after all, these blogs were meant to be starts of conversations and not solitary pieces of writing.  Finally, we were ready.

Our first blog post was tied in with the Global Read Aloud Project and if you visit our kidblog you will notice that many of them do tie in with this.  However, I hope you will also notice something else; how the students have started to type using paragraphs with topic sentences as well as how their blogs appear visually.   See, I am all for creative writing but I also have a writing curriculum to teach so I therefore combined the students’ passion towards blogging, and believe me they are blogging in their free time, with my requirements for writing.  So one week was dedicated to the fine tunings of a paragraph, discussing not just the how (they mostly know that already) but also the why.  The result of that week’s focus was these introduction posts.  This week we are discussing types of sentences and you will notice, hopefully, later this week how students have to use different types of sentences in their blog posts.

So to those educators that still think student blogging is just for fun, I say, not in my classroom!  Of course, blogging is a blast, after all, how often do kids beg to write more over the weekend or groan when time is up?  Yet blogging is so much more than that; it is writing for an actual audience, not just the teacher, it is learning how to engage in a written conversation, how to constructively criticize writing, as well as appreciate other people’s skills and abilities.  Blogging has brought my fantastic students even closer as they reach out and cheer for each other.  Blogging has taught us that it matters that our writing makes sense because otherwise we may not get many comments or questions.  It is teaching us that we are not solitary writers and hopefully never will be.  Blogging for us is a life lesson of communication, writing, connections, and internet safety mixed in with conventions, crafts of a writer, and as well as the writing process.  To us it is how writing is taught with the added bonus of portfolio creation.  So to those that think student blogging is just a fad,  a way to amuse and use some technology, think again; blogging can a revolution in writing if you let it.  Don’t stand in its way.