Meet the students of 4M

The fourth graders are deep into the Civil Right Unit. The classroom teachers are reading The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine. 

Our experience using this book last year was a valuable in many ways. You can read what my 4th graders learned during a visit with Kristin Levine.  You can listen to my students talk about the book. You can read this student's review:

A student's response from two year's ago led us in a new direction of focusing on character traits.

"I learned how to describe characters without saying or writing how they look. This is useful because there is no "right" or "wrong" of how characters look, (for readers) but you still know what personalities they have.  I learned how to do this because the author of "Lions of Little Rock" wrote that in her second book.  The character Marlee describes other characters as beverages.  I can't wait to use this in my writing!" 

As Kristin Levine does in The Lions of Little Rock, the students described themselves as a beverage and then brainstormed different character traits that described them. 

They each created a Tagxedo of their beverage:

They each then used Wordle and brainstormed character traits/beverage descriptions for themselves:

Meet the students of 4M: