Saturday, June 24, 2017

Celebrate: Student Writing

We've all been there. We have what we believe to be the ideal lesson plan, but something unexpected happens and we find ourselves brushing up on our tap-dancing while we scramble for Plan B. Just such a thing happened this week during our final week of summer school. Suddenly finding myself without the technology that was the foundation of my lesson (of course), I sprinted to the workroom to make copies of Ray Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day.

I had never read the story before but had it sitting on my desk "just in case." The first time I read this somewhat dark piece of fiction, I was struck by its abrupt ending. I was convinced that I had forgotten to print or had lost the last page. When I learned that I did, in fact, hold in my hand the entire tale, I was breathless... and haunted. So were my students.

After reading, analyzing, and discussing the story, my students and I wrote our own endings to Bradbury's stunning piece. I had a preconceived notion of what their narratives would be like, but one by one, as each student read his/her piece aloud, my assumptions were shattered. The seriousness with which they wrote stunned and moved me.

This lesson, totally unplanned and done on a whim, turned out to be my favorite lesson of the summer school semester, as well as my students'. I was so touched by a couple of my student's pieces that I asked permission to share them here so that I can celebrate their writing. (These pieces are unedited.) Allow me to set the stage with the closing lines of Bradbury's original text:

Behind the closet door was only silence. They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.

Angelina G.
"She was heart broken, but she wasn't mad or sad. Just heart broken. When she was out of the closet, she just looked at them and walked away crying. After that, she was never seen again. William would go to the closet everyday and think, what have I done?"

Melanie T.
"Margot steped out of the dark closet. She walked back to the classroom without a single word. Everyone was saying sorry, they were begging for forgiveness. Margot broke the silence by saying 'I feel bad that all of you were jelouse that I have seen the sun many times, but I feel more bad that every seven years you have to wait while I'll be enjoying the sun' she laughs then walked away. The rest of the school year she didn't talk and eventually her time came she went back to earth. When she was gone everyone noticed Margot was the sun. She was the one who kept on telling us it will come, but now we have the clouds."


13 comments:

  1. What an amazing experience with your summer school students! I love the incredible writing that came out of a spontaneous teacher move. This makes me stop and ponder that fact this is in a summer school setting -- perhaps the more relaxed atmosphere lent itself to allowing students to be that much more reflective to dig deeper into the thinking process this kind of activity requires. Happy summer to you!

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    1. Good point about the relaxed atmosphere. Several of the students commented about how much they enjoyed the smaller group size. We definitely were chill!

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  2. What beautiful writing from your students. I love the image of teachers tap racing, because that is what we do in many situations!

    Just curious...what other short stories do you use for 6th graders. I am also a 6th grade ELA teacher and need to add to my collection of texts. Any suggestions?

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    1. That is tap dancing...not racing...although we do that many times too!

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    2. Two of my other favorite short stories are in our literature textbooks, but here are links to PDFs. "The Circuit" by Francisco Jimenez is a fabulous story about migrant farm workers based on the author's childhood. This opens up to doing a short research project on Cesar Chavez and the life of migrant farm workers. Another story we read and love is "The All-American Slurp by Lensey Namioka. This is a humorous account of a Chinese family adjusting to their new life in America.
      http://www.warrencountyschools.org/userfiles/2605/Classes/82664/The%20Circuit.pdf

      https://d3jc3ahdjad7x7.cloudfront.net/AJ0bHRfxr0QgcIaVndenziktFDzYuEDo3YonV6zjo5FrTLRA.pdf

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  4. Sometimes the best comes out when we least expect it. I was just at TCRWP's Summer writing institute and some of the participants analyzed this text. I love how you had your students write potential endings. It says so much about how they internalized this piece.

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  5. I am so jealous that you were at the summer writing institute! I would love to hear about it!

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  6. I'm not familiar with this story, but "The Sound of Summer Running" is a favorite Bradbury story that I used to share with my sixth graders. I read your first post and wanted to welcome you to our writing community. Glad that you accepted Jennifer's triple-dog-dare! Summer's a great time to find your writing voice and we're glad you found your way to celebrate with us.

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    1. Thank you, Ramona! I must read "The Sound of Summer Running." I know my now-retired mentor teacher used this in years past; however, we have not used it for the last couple of years. I hope I like it as much as I enjoyed "All Summer in a Day."

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  7. I have never heard of this story and I am celebrating reading it through your classroom. Plan B lesson plans typically are the best because they are student driven.

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  8. I really enjoyed reading your celebration of student writing!

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  9. As soon as I saw the title of the story I looked it up before continuing with your post. I can imagine how fascinating the discussion and reading the student created endings were.

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