Megan has a question and as usual I like to get multiple opinions rather than just my own answer, so here it is:
Hi Ben,
I have to say, I am confused about a piece of advice I have read in TPRS in a Year where it says that you can’t let the students suggest ideas that take the story too far off its original course. I thought stories kind of had a life of their own? How do I curb the cute ideas in order to stay true to the story?
Here is what has been happening in my class (and keep in mind that my classes go in six day rotations and I just started implementing this four school days ago – so most of this is theory)
I practice the structures with PQA and this tends to turn into its own stories with the 2-5 age group. They are very different from my original story. I do make sure to accept ideas that are relatively in line with our chosen structures though. If the ideas can’t work with the structures then I don’t accept them. My plan for the next class meeting is to just type up their story for our reading, or if the story they created is over before class is, we read the original text that I wrote because it’s in bounds.
Is this not good? I was also thinking of doing the pop meaning quizzes at the start of the following weeks class before the reading. Does it matter if I do the quiz first or the reading?
Are there any other vital steps I am missing to the TPRS process because I really want this to work and I have an observation coming up soon.
Thanks,
Megan Mascenik