Help a class plan a trip!

He has a learning chart

He leaves notes

My friend is an awesomely creative third / fourth grade teacher. Her class has a third grade student named Alex. He is like many other students in her class. He forgets to use apostrophes and struggles to get stars on his learning chart. He is also imaginary.... I told you she was creative.

Right now, Alex is planning a trip around the world to go with the term theme of journeys. She is looking for help from around the world, and I think this is an AMAZING opportunity for you to be part of an authentic exchange.
Basically, she is looking for people to convince Alexander to come and visit where they live.

As a class, you could: Write him a letter, make him a video, or send a postcard telling him why he should visit where you live. Messages might include: 

• What cool sights he would see? 
• What food would he eat?
• Where might he sleep? 
• Would he see any cool parties or festivals? 
• What languages would he hear? 
• How would he need to dress? 
• Does he need different money? 
• What do you think is different where you live than where he comes from?

Whatever you send, he and the class will send you back in kind. That means, if you send them a letter, they will send you a letter back!

If you send them a video...they will send you a video! I am sure you get the idea here. The messages can come from one person or a group of people.

You may send messages via snail mail to:
Alexander Jackson
Summers Knoll School
2203 Platt Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
USA

Email and videos can be sent to ajackson@summers-knoll.org

They are available on SKYPE between the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00pm EST. (9:00-15:00 New York time) Username: andaiye.spencer

The class is going further than just reading your messages. They are also taking this information and using it to plan Alex's trip! They'll create a route, figure out the price of traveling (tickets, etc) and budget Alexander’s money, as well as learn about different cultures around the world.

What an AWESOME way to make school come alive!

Halloween Readings

I was thinking about what to prepare for Halloween when I realized that I never wrote about the fantastic Skype class we had with Jess Hartley! She writes great short stories that are usually supernatural in nature and often a bit creepy! Though most stories at WilyWriters are worth a shot I particularly like hers. 

In my classes we don't get a chance to do much reading over a page, and a lot of it is essay or non-fiction (newspapers, magazines etc.). That's all fine and dandy, but I really love teaching fiction.

So, for one of the short story assignments we read "Baby" a quick short story by Jess herself. Then we were lucky enough to have her agree to do a Skype class with BOTH of my classes. 

We did Vocabulary first: Boyhood, Blamed, Blur, Creaked, Crumpled, Drone, Fins, Fitful, Glimpse, Grills, Hauled, Haze, Joints, Slid, Sparkle, Slumber, Subsided, and Whisper.

I told a story, "In my father's boyhood we lived in a small house with a floor that creaked (eeeeh)" etc. After I told the story we went through the vocabulary.

We randomly had students draw pictures of the words and then we tried to figure out who drew what. I took these pictures to scan the best for review PowerPoints later (you could also save them for a game of flyswatter).
 
For homework they read the story and had a quick quiz the next day, "How did he treat her? Where did the man live at the end of the story? When did she come back? Who is she? etc."

Then we talked about how the author gave the story the ending that she did.  What techniques did she use? Did they expect the story to have the twist that it did? What clues did the author give?

Then they had a short story writing assignment.
1. In a SOLID well written paragraph (Main Ideas, Details, Impersonal, No slang, etc). Explain if you were surprised by the end of the story? If yes, explain why. If no, explain why not? (20pts) 
2. Re-write the story IN YOUR OWN WORDS so that the man is pining over something else. Try not to give away what until the very end (there is no word limit). (20pts) 
3. Do you find it odd that the man loved his Baby more than his children? What example can you think of from your life (personally or from stories, TV shows, legends, the news, etc.) that are similar? How so? (10pts)

BONUS If you could ask the author any question what would it be? We WILL be talking to the author so make it good! One good question is worth 5 bonus points. ONLY five points will be added regardless of the number of questions, however if you would like to ask more than one question that’s OK.

The day the assignment was due we Skyped Jess! Students had great questions about her inspirations, if she believed in the supernatural, etc. Jess was great she talked about herself, her background, and offered to help students if any of them wanted to pursue writing. Since the students had their questions prepared before (and weren't just talking to their teacher) they actually got pretty excited about talking in English.

In short, "Baby" is probably not Jess' best work, but I LOVED it for my class because it was short and had a great twist! Plus, Jess was AWESOME. Everyone should check out the story (and others) by Jess if you are looking for a Halloween story (or any story really!).