While reading Regie Routman's book this week, I was interested in the section that talked about letting the students become authors to share with other children. I decided to try this and , OH BOY, I hit the jackpot.
" The texts students write themselves are highly motivating and engaging." My students began creating books about the sun, moon, daytime, and night time sky and we have now put these in two different book baskets in the room. They have been so interested in reading their peer's work and have wanted to be better writers themselves. The excitement the children are having over this has been phenomenal. They have read these over and over. You can reach your most disabled reader this way because he/she will be proud of their little books. " Shared writing texts are a great way to differentiate instruction".
Making classroom books, as Routman talks about, is not only fun for the younger children, but they find success reading these as well. She states to type them out and send home for the children to read to their parents. These scripts of "their" books are powerful and they are excited about becoming authors. The message we give students when we help them become authors of their own texts is this: " Your language, knowledge, experiences,interests, and culture matter."
Parents love to receive these books at the end of the year as well!!
I love that you took an idea from Routman's book to implement an idea in your classroom! Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteI love that you took an idea from Routman's book to implement an idea in your classroom! Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteI remember making our own books in elementary school, and it was one of my favorite things to do! It is great to see yourself as an author, and to help students enjoy reading by being "on the other side."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great idea and I enjoy hearing about the excitement of your students. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteHi Jenni,
ReplyDeleteYou are speaking to my heart right here with your blog post on book making. I am thrilled that you are providing your students with the opportunity to create their own books in their sun/moon/stars unit and allowing them to not only create a book but to also share their book with their peers in the book baskets and read others. Sharing through modeling our own process as writers can help students not only see an example of the finished product but see the "process" of how a writer goes through the decision making process of generating ideas, drafting, editing, etc. I want to suggest considering opportunities for students to create books on free choice topics as well. Sincerely, Dawn
Jenni, I love that you "hit the jackpot" with recognizing the connections between your students as readers and writers! Marie Clay talks a lot about how closely these two areas are related. We write so others can read--what a great way to parallel that meaningful, authentic context in your classroom. Engaging families in this reading experience by typing student-authored texts to send home is a wonderful way to increase access to engaging texts at home!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter loves doing this! Her teacher is big on this aspect of writing and I can tell it works by how she expresses herself when she gets home!
ReplyDelete