Well, this wasn’t just “my” project, but I had a hand in it, and I feel good about both the planning process and the execution of the unit. I am quite proud that I worked outside my comfort zone in many areas this year, but this particular project was both the most challenging and the most satisfying intellectually.
I worked with the stidkid’s 6th grade Language Arts teacher to pull together a writing unit based on sense of place. We tried to work on both the creative side (how you express a sense of place and have it be both personal and comprehensible) as well as the “conversational” side (working with partners, we asked the children to describe a place they have lived, to take notes as their partner spoke, to reflect back how the writing made them feel). We worked on both free-form writing and the process of personal revision and editing other peoples’ work (I volunteered a section of my writing from the NaNoWriMo project last year as their guinea pig). We talked about how oral histories are taken down — as part of a conversation of a person’s history, often grounded in place as well as in time. We compared oral history to other oral traditions (myth, poetry, legend) that are passed down, and how those also convey a sense of the way people see and interact with their environments.
Finally, I gave a “quick and dirty” two-day unit on poetry, asking the children to write their own poems about place. You have already seen my attempt. The poetry actually was a thread we wove throughout, pointing out nearly every day how the prose that we read or produced included descriptions that were poetic, and talking about how poetry can exist within prose. The teacher and I read the kids several poems over the two weeks, including poems from some 6th graders in Houston that had been compiled into a book my friend Robin sent me. For information about the program Writers in the Schools, you can go to the WITS Alliance page.
Our class writing will be published in a book for the school library — something that intrigued many of the kids, and scared a couple. The grade will be based more on whether the student made a good attempt to write than on form or content. These are personal works, and we tried to emphasize that part of the art of writing resides in the author’s intent and choice of words. A good editor can help eliminate redundancies and inaccuracies, but in works of fiction or personal recollection, ultimately it is the author who makes the decision about whether a work is “done” (long enough, clear enough, eloquent enough).
I am so proud of the work these kids did! Many of them had to step FAR out of their comfort zones (as I did, just to be in their classroom — though they didn’t know that part). All of them had to work through somewhat (or in the case of the poem very) vague instructions to find their own voice and their own subject. Some of them produced exquisite works. All of them have managed to create something that reflects their personal ability to connect with their environment and express their understanding of it to others. I hope we have demystified writing a little bit, and helped them to find their own voices — in writing and in life.
As a side note, when I looked at the Essential Learning requirements for 6th grade in Washington State, I was pleased to see that we not only touched on reading and writing skills, but also communication.
Last of all, I want to encourage parents — and other interested adults — to get involved. Not everyone can help directly in the classroom as I was (finally) able to do this last year. But everyone can do something. Some parents help in the library, or make bulletin boards for halls or classrooms. Some parents help with the behind-the-scenes clerical duties that teachers usually have to do on their own (copying, collating, mounting art to backing…). Some parents help with sports or academic teams. Some parents provide transportation so kids can get to their activities.
Kids need to know that adults care. They need role models to show them how it’s done so they can grow into kind, involved, responsible citizens. If you are a parent, it is good for your children to see that you extend yourself for them in hands-on ways, doing more than providing the necessities, taking an interest in their actual lives.
And, I have to admit, most of the time it is FUN!
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