Yesterday morning Hamorah Sarah and I played a trick on fourth graders…
We told students that it was time for Guided Reading. Then I pretended to be beginning a Guided Reading lesson. A few minutes into the “lesson”, Hamorah Sarah stormed into the classroom seemingly looking for something. She was opening and closing desk drawers (very noisily), shuffling through the students’ bins, sighing unhappily, and just generally being very disruptive.
Students kept turning around to see what all the noise was about. Pretty soon, I lost every single student’s attention. At this point, we told students to freeze. We told them to go to their desks and describe everything that had happened since Guided Reading had started. We asked for as much detail as possible.
When students were done with this short write assignment, we returned to the rug, where they had an opportunity to share their work with the rest of the class.
The activity was a fun way to highlight for students the importance of writing description by using the 5 senses. Last week we had talked in depth about LOOKING for detail. This time, we talked about all the sounds and noises students had heard. Together we brainstormed ways to describe these sounds.
In doing this exercise, students came to realize that describing what they HEAR is just as important as describing what they SEE.
Soon we will explore writing about other senses. Stay tuned…
Best,
Hamorah Eliza