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Four major strands of work: communication, research, technology, and collaboration
Five dimensions of learning:
December 2008
I hope that this semester has been a good balance to the first part of our semester together. Your work with your literature circle 8th graders as literary coaches has seemed rewarding as a learning experience. Your weekly reflections are evidence of your thinking and adapting your lessons for learning. I have respected your work as literary coaches and left you alone to your own independent teaching and learning. Although we always needed more time, we made time to debrief and plan for your next week sessions. As educators, there will never be enough time; this is an important reality of teaching that I grapple with each semester and you have had the opportunity of experiencing in working within your literature circles. I witnessed your attention to making your literature engagement a beneficial experience cognitively as well as affectively, as you sought ways to bond with your students. Building relationships is an integral part of teaching, as you know, and you sought ways to encourage this communication dynamic.
The technology, oh the technology, we all weathered through the glitches resulting in pages that represent each of you in very stylistic, individual ways - your pages reflect your voice and persona. They are intellectual property you should be proud of sharing with others and using for your own educational references. May you continue to play with available and innovative technology for your teaching and learning.
Our poetry performance was a memorable highlight and I am proud of you for taking it on in such a short amount of time. Giving and performing are synonymous, just as sharing a story is a gift. I am happy you have experienced this dimension of bringing story and poetry alive for others! It is magical and I will cherish that time together.
Our genres and literary elements should have been presented earlier. I agree and next semester I will make that adjustment. I will also have all students learn about each of the genres and a list of literary elements and be responsible for presenting one of each.
Of course, we did not get to do all that was planned but we were successful in achieving the most important aspects of our course content. We know our genres, some literary elements, literature circles, World War II, how to fabricate the truth and tell stories for ourselves and others. Hero's journey is a story form and censoring of stories does happen.
This is an overview of children's literature and you did achieve this goal by reading according to your reading pleasures and interests and sharing stories along the way. Continue to read children's literature throughout your career and incorporate across the curriculum. Remember to tell improvised stories as well as printed stories to keep you on your storytelling toes!
Remember that stories are who we are and so use them as a tool for coming to know about ourselves, the world and each other. When you have the chance, help your children to bring stories alive through role playing and poetry. You will learn a lot more about them this way as I did about you this semester!
Thank you for the gift of you and your stories this semester!
Frances
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