As the end of the year comes crashing down on us (doesn’t it always come faster than we think?) I took some time to reflect. If you are a regular reader you know I attended P!nk last week. It was amazing. Monday my students had a field trip for another class and then Wednesday I had a meeting. I have been gone a lot. We have been working so much on writing lately that aside from their daily independent reading we have not looked at other text very much. I decided we need a break from the push so today I broke out the picture books.
A good selection with only one task attached. Identify the conflict. Something we have been working on with other texts, students partnered up, read books, shared thinking and presented to classmates.
This isn’t a long post. Just a celebration of a good time talking books in junior high. The highlight, of course, was students INDEPENDENTLY going back to the picture book piles to read INDEPENDENTLY. This happened throughout the morning as different students finished other tasks. “Mr.Gilson I need a break can I just read I picture book?” YES everytime YES. There is a power in picture books that can not be recreated anywhere else. Students grow with text that is complex in message and theme but not in difficulty. They learn to think more about the text when the struggle to read the words becomes smaller. I will always choose joyful learning and my land my new favourite book Perfectly Norman is joyful.
Things Mr.G says 