Every now and again I have to take comments and make them into blogs so that they can be searched. So sorry if they’re on here twice. Jim’s stuff below about illustrating stories (I asked him to expand on an earlier comment) expands on the original thought of how, mechanically, to get the kids into illustration mode from a story:
My question was:
“…now I have a whole book full of stories that the students illustrated…”.
Could you expand on how that happened? I get that the illustrations came from stories that came from summer props, but how exactly did that happen? Did the kids illustrate when the actual reading was done, so that the illustrating occurred at the end of the process, or exactly how did that happen?
Jim’s response:
How I did it this year is below. Scroll down to the (**) at bottom to read how I will probably do it in the future.
Once we have enough stories to be illustrated (I like 1 story per pair of students, unless the class is smaller, then 1:1 ration works), which is usually at the end of a semester for me, I print out the stories and give them to the students. They work on them in class, supplied with the paper and some colored pencils. I had my student aide put the books together, using a binder and plastic sleeves, complete with a class picture in the front.
It’s important to show students some positive examples of the illustrations before they start, and have them kind of plan out their illustrations beforehand based on the paragraphs in the story. I usually recommend the four-frame illustration, but some kids get creative and do some different formats. The books are really good for showing off to parents also. And when the class knows that their stories are going in a book for all to read, I think it will be incentive to amp up the creativity.
I may requisition for next year to have all of my classes’ stories made into individual books through a website like snapfish.com, maybe a little more inviting to read than a 3-ring binder.
**This just came to me, and your questions above Ben made me think of it. Perhaps it would be much better and easier to assign each pair a story right after the story is read in class, that way they could be up on the wall for other classes to read almost instantaneously. Yeah, I think I may like this idea better.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
