I actually have asked all of my classes to read the Language of the Trees # 1 post. They know that we have our online community here, and they like to hear what we are talking about from time to time. It makes them feel part of a larger group of people trying to make stories work in the world than just themselves. I’m big on metacognition and all my classes seem to be too. Today, for example, I mentioned conjugating verbs and my star laughed loudly and derisively. He gets it. Ooops? Did I offend anybody? Sorry!
Today you could have heard a pin drop when these middle school kids were reading that first Trees post. I had just given them the 25 minute Invisibles challenge and just projected it from here to get them even more psyched up for the story. It made a few of the less focused kids uncomfortable. Others clearly got it at the level I intended. One class said it was “emotional”. But as a rule they read and thought about what I wrote, something I would not have predicted.
If you have a class coming in later today, you might want to try doing this. I would like to know how they react. Kids are more aware of what is going on in our classes than we think.
Here’s the link if you’ve got a class coming in and you want to try it. Just tell them that this image of a grove of trees portrays an image of what you want your class to look like:
https://benslavic.com/blog/a-grove-of-trees/