Reuben is a gifted young French teacher in Denver Public Schools at George Washington High School. His kids are all about proficiency and, of all the teachers in DPS, he is the best at getting into and staying in the TL. He dropped me a note a few weeks ago about how his kids are writing and I thought I would share it here. By the way, Reuben and any other DPS teachers reading this, we need your bios. We are about 2/3 of the way there on getting all the bios. A lot have come in this past week and thank you! They are in the queue. Anyway, here is what Reuben sent:
So our department is focusing on writing this year, and I had my French 1 students do their first free-write… one of my students wrote 106 words, using 13 different verbs, and the story line was logical and easy to understand. She’s never had French before and she’s already performing at the Novice-High level! I also had another student use 12 verbs (although not as eloquently as the first one), and a kid on an IEP write ~40 words using 8 different verbs! I’ll send you a copy of the first one’s writing soon if I get a chance, but I was just so excited that I had to share!