Read and hear the work of our young writers!
Viewing entries in
Uncategorized
By Connie Yowell
Take a moment to read this awesome Huffington Post article. It's a timely and important look at the paradigm shift that could bring education up to speed in an increasingly technological world.
It's all about food writing this session, and we're having some yummy fun! One lesson focused on personifying a type of food (give it human traits and characteristics). Josie (4th grade) created a character called Bartholemew Bacon:
Bartholemew Bacon had greasy red hair and a wiggly body and lisped on his s's. He drove a pink volkswagon bus that looks like a pig. He has a sister who is named Bertha Bacon, a dad named Bob Bacon, and a mom named Betsy Bacon. Oh yeah, and old Grandpa Bert Bacon. But nobody really cares about him. Bartholemew Bacon likes pigs but is dead because I accidentally ate him for breakfast.
We're working on using juicy adjectives, metaphors, similes and alliteration to make our writing more appetizing (or disgusting). Maddie (5th grade) described some particularly bad fried chicken like this:
The "fried chicken" was a disgrace to the world's chickens . . . My screaming starved stomach severely scolded my mouth for even allowing it to cross my tongue. The foul, slimey, rotten surface emotionally scarred my tastebuds and the wave of atrocious awfulness hit my tongue and the plasticy pandemonium paralyzed my palate and it was all I could do not to send it spewing across the restaurant and getting a tongue transplant.
We began this session in January with a "getting to know you" exercise -- I asked the students to write about what matters most to them. Here's some of what Ruby (4th grade) had to say:
It matters if your mom isn't telling you to eat your veggies . . . It matters if your best friend forgets your birthday . . . It matters if the oldest sister in the family isn't yelling at you every 2 seconds!
And 3rd-grader Jillian says:
Playing baseball with my dad and brother on a hot summer day matters . . . It matters when my best friend moves to Texas . . . It matters when my dog eats chocolate, gum or raisins . . .
This Winter session, we have been using our pencils as a utensils and digging into food writing!
Read some of the delicious results:
Sarah
Recipe of Me
Ingredients: 1 lb. fashion, 4 cups swimmer, 2 1/2 lbs. wacky, 2 1/2 cups writer, 1 tbsp. clean-ness, 2 tsp. of tobiko, 2 cups of student coach, 1 lb. student council, 2 lb. of technology, 2 lb. of friendship, 20 lb. of smiley faces
Instructions:
Take the fashion, swimmer, technology and writer and put in a large bowl. Mix until purple or lavender. In a flat pan place friendship, clean-ness and wacky. Place in oven for an hour at 350 degrees. Let cool. Spread the first mixture onto the second. Sprinkle tobiko over it slowly. Store in freezer overnight.
Best served as a midnight snack with hot cocoa, never milk.
_______________________
Molly
Ode to Especial Surtido (a mexican bread)
You're sweet and gooey. I love you. I can't stop eating you, you warm, delicious thing. Your sweet smooth texture is like a spring flower opening up on a hot summer morning in Hawaii. I want you everywhere I go! Your warm, delicious smell, your texture melting in my mouth - you are like two pots of gold on each end of delight.
_____________________
Justice
Ode to Pancakes
Flip the pancake twice on the pan, the fire on at full heat, resting in oil, bubbling. As fast as I can, there's no way to stop the temptation that I have in my mind, sizzling in my face with no end. The smell is so tempting...almost ready to eat...as flat as a piece of paper, getting fatter and fatter as fast as possible, preparing for its fatal death, but loving it's life while it can.
The pancake sitting on a plate waiting for the syrup to cool and the butter to melt...the pancake looking at me with a frown. I told him I was going to eat him already so flip the frown upside down. Fluffy brown; just the way I like it.
1, 2, 3 - Prepare for death! Munch, munch, munch, gulp, all done...kind of waiting for the right moment to say, "I love you pancake."
_____________________
Rachel
Ode to Caprese Salad
As the soft mozarella with a delicious juicy tomato underneath, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, meets your tongue your taste buds go to a different world where everything is perfect.
Then you eat another tomato with mozarella, olive oil, salt and pepper and then you eat another, and another and another until there are no more left.
After you've eaten all of them you have to go back to a world where not everything is perfect.
Check out this short interview with Maurice Sendak from "To the Best of our Knowledge."
“In all my books, there is a critical moment in a child’s life that he has to figure out what to do without the aid of logic or experience.”
Support Literacy!
This is an awesome opportunity. Sign up before February 1st for a chance to give twenty people a renewed love for books on World Book Night.
Follow this link to for information about how you can spread your love for the written word.
http://www.worldbooknight.org/
Teacher Diana Laufenberg talks at the TED conference about how kids learn.
