Category: Litropolis

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The Section 5 Project is a CORE Literacy

Aesthetics is a set of principles that inform the outcome of a work of art. It taps into that part of our being that connects with beauty. At the heart of this concept is imagination, and imagination is where ideas are born.

There is a trend in all sectors of education to not only discount the reading of pure fiction, but to undervalue the  power of the arts to speak in a way where words fail. This is not wise. Arts education is inextricably linked to English Language Arts.

Section 5 provides an opportunity for students to practice communicating an idea in a visual language. Because great stories offer fodder for the imagination, each and every Literature + Writing Discovery Guide (the CORE of our language arts offering) sets aside a full week to create and celebrate.

Don’t wait until week 5 to begin thinking about your Section 5 idea!

Make a plan.

During Section 2, begin brainstorming. Download our free planning worksheet to begin. Write down your ideas and, since your Section 5 will include a visual component, create small sketches demonstrating different ways you imagine your idea might take shape and what materials you might utilize.

During Section 3, choose the idea you like best and make a full-page sketch with labels that will help you prepare.

During Section 4, gather all the materials you will need to complete your project build.

After all this, when Section 5 rolls around, your student will be prepared to focus on creating a meaningful project. A project that your student will surely be proud of for years to come. Check out our Student Project Gallery to be inspired. Send us photos of your completed project so we can add it to the gallery to inspire others.

This past fall, during our Professional Development offering, I walked teachers through the following little project connected to one of my favorite childhood reads—The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. With a cardboard box, some printed images, paint, pencil, markers, a tiny linoleum sample, and a bit of glue… voilà!

This story that has stood the test of time (published in 1967) and is, in my opinion, powerful proof why we all need to read across many genres, read all kinds of stories. Every time I’ve led students through this purely fictional story set in a very real setting—The Metropolitan Museum of Art—they engage at once in the mystery, but also gain an appreciation for visual art as they wander the museum with Claudia and Jaime Kincaid.

This past fall, during our Professional Development offering, I offered some tips and tricks to elevate the Section 5 Project Build. Click through to a recording of the session.

Happy Project Build!

~Kimberly Bredberg

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Getting to the HEART of Literacy

What is meant by Core & Application?

 

Our English Language Arts program is built around a simple structure of Core and Application materials.  When it comes to literacy, integrating the act of reading and the art of writing gets students thinking independently. Our unique scaffolding supports students as they gather information from books, both fiction and non-fiction, and challenges them to respond with original, authentic ideas. Our longitudinal Discovery MethodTM motivates students to work through the processes of writing: brainstorming, drafting, re-reading, editing, conferencing, and polishing of the final work. While engaging in our Discovery Method, students will gain, and put into practice, skills that will make their ideas shine.

Both our CORE + APPLICATION materials provide opportunities for students to:

1. Read to discover
2. Write to catalog thoughts and insights
3. Think to spark curiosity, ideas, and imagination

Core

Our Core offering is literature based, but is much more than just a literature program. Core is an integrated literature & writing program that uses great writing to model, inspire, and springboard students into becoming great readers, writers, and thinkers.

Application

Our Application offerings provide focused opportunities to develop the specific tools and skills needed for successful writing—vocabulary development, sentence construction, parts of speech, punctuation, rhetorical device, etc. These skills are explored alongside the specific domains of writing—narrative, persuasive, descriptive, imaginative—within various forms—paragraphs, micro stories, research, essays, poems.

While interleaved instruction is used throughout our materials, our Application offerings fall into two broad categories:

• Application 1: Grammar, Mechanics, Style
• Application 2: Research, Composition, Creative Writing

When applied over time, our Core & Application materials lay solid foundations and build strong students that not only have the ability to read well, write well, and think well, but also have the desire to do so.

 

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October-Focus-on-ELA-fest

It’s October.

Fall is here and we are, most of us, 6 to 8 weeks into the 2023/24 school year.

What now?

First, please CONGRATULATE yourself for completing the first cycle of CORE Integrated Reading & Writing units, and likely introducing APPLICATION materials such as Calendar of Days, Operation Lexicon, One True Sentence, or Tools of Style. Be encouraged! Take heart!

“A power of Butterfly must be –
The Aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty concedes
And easy Sweeps of Sky —”

~Emily Dickinson

This butterfly, a California Buckeye, was spotted this week when I took a moment to enjoy a lovely fall day in the garden. And I thought of Emily Dickinson’s  amazing observation of the butterfly’s aptitude to fly.
And this got me to thinking of education and childhood.

A power of Childhood must be –
The Aptitude to fly—

It’s October.
Your students are stretching their wings.
You are likely getting ready to add Earlybird Introduction to Animals or your first Research People of the year or one of the Research Science units on top of the second CORE unit. And you might be a bit overwhelmed. You are not alone!
Sometimes, after the delightful anticipation and early days of back-to-school fades, fatigue sets in.
You may be experiencing that oh-so-familiar desire to countdown to the holidays!

We say: Not yet!!!

Don’t give up!

Take a moment in the garden. Enjoy the sights of fall.

Now is the time to take a breath and join hands with the teacher built in to your materials!

Let October-Focus-on-ELA-fest begin!!!

Here’s how:

1. Look back on your student’s first completed CORE unit. Make note of the small steps of progress.
2. Read about the 5-Minute Conference in preparation for the second CORE unit of the year.
3. Read (again) through the “How to Use this Guide” in the front of the student workbooks.

Primary (Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade)

At the primary level, foundational skills are introduced and reviewed, and put into practice. This is where students learn to delight in the joy of stories and the taming of ideas begins. Watch the Professional development for parents and teachers from August session for inspiration this October.

Elementary (3rd, 4th, and 5th grade)

Elementary readers and writers are becoming confident with grammar, mechanics, and form—sentences and paragraphs—and style! Writing at this level involves learning to craft an amazing Hook and working through the process of crafting an idea the happy way. Watch the Professional development for parents and teachers from our August session for inspiration this October.

Middle School (6th, 7th, and 8th grade)

and

High School (9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade)

The goal is for middle and high school writers to transfer their creativity and courageous ability to write an idea to more advanced forms—poems, literary, descriptive, and persuasive essays, and longer research. Watch the Professional development for parents and teachers from our August session for inspiration this October.
During the months of October, watch for weekly festive posts to boost you on toward November!

Your students will take flight!

 

~Kimberly

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The Character of Characters

When readers open the cover of a book and enter the pages of a story, they begin a journey.

Each of our Literature and Writing Discovery Guides, Earlybird through Level 4, is a personal journal of that journey. Each section of the journal begins with the observations the reader makes about the characters. Over time, students will encounter diverse characters who introduce them to themes common to real people. At first, at the Earlybird level, the way students describe the characters they encounter will be very simple, single words—kind, happy, silly. As they progress , readers will discover that the character of the characters is complex and will want words at their disposal to accurately communicate what they observe.

How does this happen?

Beginning in the 2nd grade, we inspire our students to begin collecting words. What better way than to follow characters in beautifully illustrated books as they collect words? Operation Lexicon provides 10 years of word collecting for students in grades two through twelve!

In the 3rd grade, with Operation Lexicon: Character Traits, word collecting is specifically related to the characters we read about and the people we encounter in the real world!

Additionally, we have created FREE downloadable character trait flashcards tied to our Levels 1, 2, and 3 for students to have a collection nearby as they construct observations.

*****

As students progress in their journalling skills, they will learn to defend their observations with examples from the story. Overtime, it is important to teach students to discover a wide variety of traits—both permanent and transient. Sometimes situations that characters encounter determine character in the moment, other times we observe characters growing and changing.

During the first two sections of The Westing Game, this student was attending to momentary reactions which is not wrong, but narrow:

When encouraged to step back and observe Turtle Wexler’s overarching traits, the task was easy because of a treasure trove of specifically descriptive words:

It’s difficult to describe the power of integrating reading + writing through journalling, but it is easy to SEE, and wonderful to be a teacher whose sole purpose is to stand beside and truly mentor students in the important work of becoming literate.

 

~Kimberly

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Comprehension is Comprehensive

Students working in our CORE Literature and Writing Discovery Guides will, each week, respond to “comprehension” questions that chronologically review the plot points from the week’s reading. But here, “comprehension” is an exercise that both draws students deeper into the heart of the story and the art of writing. Comprehension is a comprehensive exercise!

Comprehension is the act of making meaning from something heard or read.

Comprehensive includes all or nearly all elements or aspects of something.

There are many skills embedded into this complex activity beyond demonstrating that a passage has been well read. The act of responding to questions with a complete, detailed statement, is an opportunity for students to slow into the story details, but perhaps more importantly, to press into the work of constructing sentences.

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Following are two examples of the vast comprehensive nature of this weekly comprehension activity.

As a teacher, I scan the following sample from a student new to CORE Level 2,  and notice common spelling errors—their, there, they’re as example. Capitalization too—Communists, Navy. But what I notice first is that each response is a complete, simple sentence construction that parallels the question asked. And this confirms to me this is not the place to be heavy handed with the red pen. Refer to the Teacher Helps for more information on complete sentence responses. I might however, write a little note in the comment space on the Assignment Checklist at the front of the student guide for this section:

Here’s a trick I use to remember the difference between this set of homonyms. Here the correct spelling is used in a correct setting:  “their dog” AND “go there” (remember the’re is a contraction: they are)”they’re friends” … create your own trick and memorize the spelling of these!

When a question is asked, students are free to respond independently:

How does Winn-Dixie make Opal’s Father laugh? 

At first, sentence responses might be simple in nature copying the syntax of the question:

Winn Dixie makes Opal’s father laugh because he opens his mouth in a funny way.

[Here the teacher might suggest ways to smooth rhythm and add descriptive details: “Winn Dixie makes Opal’s father laugh when he opens his mouth in a funny way like he’s laughing.”]

Later, as students become more confident, sentences become more fluid, adopting more sophisticated syntax as in this dependent and independent clause:

When Winn Dixie opens his mouth to copy Opal’s father, he laughs.

[Here the teacher might suggest word choice: “Where you use the word “copy” you might try “mimic” instead.”]

The teacher does not need to correct every single sentence stylistically, but rather look for opportunities over time to inspire the writer to try new things. The best writing teacher will look for small opportunities over time to help students elevate their ideas. One or two suggestions modeled to the student over time is more effective than completing years and years of skill worksheets because this activity is the meaningful of work polishing students ideas.

Each year students using CORE Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 Literature and Writing Discovery Guides will compose over 250 true sentences as they comprehend stories in comprehensive ways.  Ultimately the work—the confident, beautiful, fluid work—will speak for itself!

 

~Kimberly

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On Fairy Stories and Fear

“If you want your children to be intelligent read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

                                                                                                ~Albert Einstein

I recently came across some of my daughter’s old writing. I believe she wrote it when she was 12 or 13. She is now 15 and a sophomore in high school. She was answering the prompt: “Why is writing important?” She learned that writing is more than just words on a page, it’s how people express how they are feeling. She believes for writers it’s like painting a blank canvas.

Words help us learn and feel or maybe better said, to learn how to feel.

The other night I read to my son Grady before bed. We read one of Grimm’s fairytales, “Rapunzel”. Grady lay fully cocooned in his blanket, over his head, listening. As you probably know Rapunzel was taken from her family as a punishment for stealing the green, leafy, vegetable, rapunzel, from their neighbor’s garden. The garden belonged to a very powerful and wicked witch. The girl, Rapunzel was raised by the witch and was sent away from all people to live in a tower she could not escape, all alone. A prince heard her singing from the tower. He watched the witch visit her and saw her let down her long hair for her to climb. He did the same and soon after many months got to know Rapunzel and they fell in love. The witch discovered that the prince was visiting. She cut Rapunzel’s hair and then sent her far away, alone in a desert. The witch hung Rapunzel’s hair at the tower and let the prince climb up, but once he did, she was there to greet him. She scared the prince from the tower into a thorn patch far below, where the prince’s eyes were torn out. He wandered for years blind and alone until he wandered far enough. He found Rapunzel at last, drawn by her beautiful singing. This fairy tale ends well with the prince being reunited with his love, Rapunzel’s tears healing his eyes and them living happily-ever-after back in his kingdom.

Whenever I read Grimm Fairy tales to my children as they were going up, I always wanted to change what happened. I would naturally edit—the prince losing his eyes and wandering alone, the wolf eating Grandma. What I started to realize over time is that children, like being scared. But there is a difference being scared by books versus movies or television. With books readers can take it as it comes, with language aimed at a child’s imagination, suspense and simple elements building the world of the story. What if it’s actually important to hear that bad things can happen? We can feel pain. We can get hurt.  We can become resilient human beings.

Sometimes in life, in many ways, we wander blind for a period before we find the good, before we can see.

I want stories to end well. I want to eliminate the scary in the world because I don’t want to acknowledge the fear, I feel for my children in the world we live in today. As my daughter wrote so eloquently, these stories have taught me how to feel.

I recently read an article about the importance of being scared. Einstein was quoted: “If you want your children to be intelligent read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” The intelligence that Einstein is referring to is existential intelligence.

Existential intelligence is defined as the sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why do we die and how do we get there. The skills are reflective, deep thinking and design of abstract theories.

I saw an interview with President Obama years ago who discussed his great fear for young people losing this ability to be deep, reflective thinkers. In our fast-paced world we are encouraging more and more people to skim through reading material on electronic devices and not to sit and contemplate deeper meaning in what they are reading. In retelling Hansel and Gretel, nearly a century later, author Neil Gaiman asserts:

“If you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up.”

The great polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska, wrote a reflection on the first edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales which revolutionized storytelling:

“Children like being frightened by fairy tales. They have an inborn need to experience powerful emotions.”

Andersen took children seriously. He speaks not only about life’s joyous adventures, but about its woes, its miseries, its often-undeserved defeats. Andersen had the courage to write stories with unhappy endings. He didn’t believe that you should try to be good because it pays, but because evil stems from intellectual and emotional stuntedness and is the one form of poverty that should be shunned.

I have realized that throughout my life I have gone to great lengths to not feel or face fear. It’s not just the evil in the world but the great unknown. The what ifs. What if I am not smart enough, strong enough, talented enough, liked, or loved enough? What if I am not good enough?

Children’s author-illustrator Jon Klassen was asked how he comes up with ideas for his books? He says, “It’s just born of fear—of creating. It’s been a way of avoiding something I don’t want to do. And the solution to that avoidance lends itself to a story.”

My daughter went on to say that one of her favorite words she learned more about is the word, dumb. She learned it can mean temporarily unable or unwilling to speak. My daughter has a learning difference. She did not learn to read and write at the same developmental stages as her peers. She often felt dumb, as in stupid or foolish. My biggest fear was her feeling this way. So motivated to protect her and put her in her own tower far away, I kept her out of school and chose the path of homeschooling.

My fears came to reality as I realized I did not make her tower high enough.

The beauty in it all, like in our fairy tales that can be scary, is that we see resilience being born, we see paths that can have obstacles, we see hurts and feel fears. My daughter has been hurt, afraid to try, plagued by words. But she has also grown strong, wise, mature, forgiving and compassionate.  Fear comes with gifts.  Fear ear can bring us closer to faith. Faith brings hope, in the good, in mankind, in our individual skill sets. Fear and faith seem to go hand in hand and to be sheltered from one keeps us separate from the other. Today, I read to my kids the whole fear filled story of “Rapunzel”. I don’t have to fix stories for them, and I don’t have to fix life. Life is, we are in it right now, and I wouldn’t change a thing, because if I did, I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I happen to like me. Keep reading fairy tales and all stories that end in tragedy. Let your faith be bigger than your fear and enjoy the journey.

 

~Clare Bonn

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It’s April… Read and Write Poetry!

Try Douglas Florian.

Winner of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and recipient of an ALA Notable Children’s Book Award, Douglas Florian is the author and illustrator of many children’s books. He believes there is only one rule when it comes to poetry, that there are no rules. Douglas Florian gives credit to his father as his first art teacher, who taught him to love nature. He begins his poems with research of the real thing and then uses that information to create an imaginary poem. Douglas Florian lives in New York City with his wife and five children.

Try Love That Dog.

What is a poem anyway?

I don’t want to
because boys

don’t write poetry.

Girls do.

Meet Jack, who tells his story with a little help from some paper, a pencil, his teacher, and a dog named Sky.

Although this guide includes many of the same elements as the other Level 1 guides, such as vocabulary and comprehension, the format is unique.Each week, your student will be encouraged and guided to write poems in the style of each poet being introduced in the story.

Try Locomotion.

When Lonnie Collins Motion – Locomotion – was seven years old, his life changed forever.

Now he’s eleven, and his life is about to change again. His teacher, Ms. Marcus, is showing him ways to put his jumbled feelings on paper. And suddenly, Lonnie has a whole new way to tell the world about his life, his friends, his little sister Lili, and even his foster mom, Miss Edna, who started out crabby but isn’t so bad after all

Poetry bundleTry Exploring Poetry.

Discover the poet within you!

This unit will help you discover the craft of writing poems and the delight of reading poetry. Over the course of seven weeks you will be introduced to some of the basic techniques used by poets, explore excellent poetry, and practice writing original poems. Each section is designed to be completed in about two, one hour sittings.

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Let’s Talk Section 5

Each and every Literature + Writing Discovery Journal (the core of our language arts offering) sets aside a week to create and celebrate.

Don’t wait until week 5 to begin thinking about your Section 5 idea!

Why not start imagining during Section 2?

Make a plan.

During Section 2, begin brainstorming. Download our free planning worksheet to begin brainstorming. Write down your ideas and, since your Section 5 will include a visual component, create small sketches demonstrating different ways you imagine your idea might take shape and what materials you might utilize.

During Section 3, choose the idea you like best and make a full-page sketch with labels that will help you prepare.

During Section 4, gather all the materials you will need to complete your project build.

After all this, when week 5 rolls around, you will be prepared to focus on creating a meaningful project. A project that you will surely be proud of for years to come. Check out our Student Project Gallery to be inspired. Send us photos of your completed project so we can add it to the gallery to inspire others.

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It’s Nearly Spring!

The first day of Spring is right around the corner.

Celebrate spring with your students! Blackbird and Company’s Early Bird Spring Stories Thematic Unit will help do just that! You’ll have 5 weeks of great reading and writing and projects at your finger tips.

First book in the line up is, It’s Spring by Linda Glaser. The cut paper illustrations are so adorable! It’s quite a fun project to paint a wide selection of colorful papers with tempera paint then after they dry use them to cut out a spring scene. Think of all the colors of spring like blues and greens and browns for trees and animals. Use the illustrations in the book as inspiration for your collage.

Or, another idea to celebrate the arrival of spring, from our very own blog archives,  write a haiku and make some blossom cards.

 

Whatever you decide, be sure to celebrate the blossoming!

~Kimberly