This Week in LL38....

     I hope everyone had a great weekend!  We have a busy week coming up.  Just a reminder that we do not have school on Wednesday as we observe Veteran's Day. 

Reaching Our Goals...
     
     Last week during RtI some of the kids reached their Reading Goals.  We met to talk about whether or not they felt that they met their goal as a reader and what effective effort strategy they used to meet that goal.  Many of them realized that meeting their goal required a lot of time and focus on the goal.  
      They were able to move their goal over to their ACCOMPLISHMENTS page in their Reader's Notebook.  We then talked about a new goal that they could work towards.  Congratulations to the kids who have worked hard to meet their goal.  I can't wait to post more pictures after meeting with more readers this week!  

Proud to be accomplishing our Reading Goals!

Achieving our Goals through TIME and FOCUS,

Reading Workshop

     Last week we started to think more deeply about the characters in the books we are reading by thinking about how characters change throughout a book.  We read The Bat Boy and his Violin and thought about Papa and how his feelings changed throughout the book about his son playing the violin.  To help us keep track of character change we use a story arc.  A story arc is a way for the kids to picture "how" a fictional story goes.

Here is what the kids learned:
1.  A character is introduced in the story
2. There is a problem
3. The problem can get worse
4. The heart (climax) of the story-  the character learns a lesson or changes
5. The problem is solved.

Below is an example of a story arc:

(This isn't the exact one that we use, but it shows a visual similar to what we have talked about in class.)

                                              

This would be a great tool to use at home if you are having a conversation about the book that your child is reading.  You could have your child choose a character and think about how the character's traits, thoughts, or feelings change from the beginning of the story to the end.

Writing Workshop:

     In writing we are continuing to draft our first literary essay.  The kids worked hard last week to get all of the evidence (words from the text) collected to back up their reasons in their essay.

     This week we will continue to work on drafting our first literary essay and begin to talk about how we can "lift the level" of our next literary essay.