ReedALOUD: Her Right Foot

I got emotional the first time I read Her Right Foot with students, and as a testament to the powerful message in this book, I felt equally as emotional when I shared it with the eighth and final class this week. This book is a call to action and my students and I are inspired to heed that call. 

Dave Eggers conversational approach quickly engaged my students and kept them tuned in until the end.  Facts about the Statue of Liberty are sprinkled with humor that elicited the appropriate chuckles along the way. Her Right Foot is a reminder of our history as a nation and a call to ensure that this monument to liberty is able to fulfill her role as welcomer to those who come to our shores. We are a nation of immigrants and the multicultural landscape represented in the art reminds us of this history. The art created by Shawn Harris is evocative and powerful, yet also matches Eggers' humorous moments. The mixed media collage brings additional depth to moments both serious and light.  

These collage figures feel somehow more alive and active.

Here you can see how effective Eggers' conversational approach engages the reader. I enjoyed playing up the fibbing aspect.

I love that this Parisian is not impressed or affected by that looming statue.

A perfect marriage of narrative and art. The students loved the body language of these French workers and the absurdity of the task.

My students appreciated the new science knowledge here. Harris' art is so interesting here. The collage, color, and way the art spills beyond the art makes it all feels more three dimensional and real.

I love this spread. Enough said.

And here, Eggers received the laugh he hoped for and deserved. They completely connected with his humor. These two pages, with their absence of art draw the reader into a space that feels intimate, almost like we are leaning in to hear better.

This moment of zeroing in on her right foot begins the shift in the narrative, from conversationally informative to thoughtful ponderance.

Once more. Love this. Enough said.

Eggers invites readers to wonder why she is on the move, and after exploring theories and facts, offers this reminder.

You're emotional too, right? 

This book is a call to action to help others. I used it as a way to get students talking about one of our school rules: taking care of others. I reminded the students that we are a community of learners, but more than that we are a community of diverse learners and a diverse community of learners. I asked them, "What action will you each take to ensure that our community is a welcoming, safe, and comfortable space for all learners? What will it look like and sound like when you are taking care of others?"

Here are some of their responses.

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On having dinners in interesting spaces

A cool connection that I made the first time that I read the book, and which I shared with my students, is this idea of having dinners in sculptures. In 1853 or 1854, about thirty years before Bartholdi held his dinner in the Statue of Liberty while she was being constructed, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins held a dinner in his partially constructed dinosaur. You can read more about that meal in The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins.

ReedALOUD: Thunder Boy Jr.

My kindergarten students and I read Thunder Boy Jr. this week. This completely wonderful read aloud was written by Sherman Alexie and illustrated by Yuyi Morales. 

Sherman Alexie's narrative meets Yuyi Morales' art in a beautiful fusion of energy and expressiveness.

Thunder Boy Jr. is a celebration of the individual and that desire to be known, known for what makes each of us the unique individual we are.

Thunder Boy Jr. is a celebration of love, a love that every child, in an ideal world, would experience.

Inspired by Thunder Boy Jr. (aka Lightning), my students shared their name ideas as well as some history behind their names. 

5th Graders' shark research yields many interesting facts...

My fifth grade students spent the few weeks leading up to the break researching sharks while also learning about being good digital citizens. You can read about the project at its outset here. 

Working in pairs or small groups, the students crafted a researchable question about sharks. Using our library resources they worked to find answers to their questions. This project provided an opportunity to practice using our note taking and sources documents: 

They then presented what they learned on a Google Slide (or more if they wanted). The students used Britannica ImageQuest to find an image that reinforced the content of their slide. Being good digital citizens they also worked on presenting their information in a clear and concise manner. (We talk a lot about not letting the message get lost in the medium.)

A huge thank you to Heather Lang for the inspiration for this project. We started off by reading her new book, Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark. 

Both narrative and art shine in this very cool and engaging biography.  I had never heard of Eugenie Clark prior to reading the biography. The students in my school are likely tired of me talking about the power of the picture book biography to inspire and inform. Heather Lang does a wonderful job of balancing her narrative by providing enough details about Eugenie's life to understand her contributions while also giving insight into the personality and character traits that made her successful in her ventures. The author's note fills in a few more important details about Eugenie's life, details which got a few of my students fired up about the obstacles she faced.

Jordi Solano's beautiful (in both depth and detail) illustrations make the reader feel as if he or she is swimming with the sharks, bringing us right into Eugenie's world. The images of Eugenie portray her as the serious scientist she was.

Below are the slides my students created. Thanks for taking the time to watch!

Please share your feedback. What did you learn from them? What did they do well? 

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Student reflection and feedback on this project:

 

What else should I know

to make this project better in the future?

I would like this project to be a little longer

Let people choose their own partners.

I think we should use powerpoint in the future.

Make sure that everyone is doing work and including each other and letting everyone do the work.

Nothing! Just do it more in the future

Choose a different topic

Cool effects such as music and other things 

Cool effects such as music and other things

Give more time to create the slide but otherwise the project was great.

You should have more time to make it.

well I loved the idea of letting us feel more free, but I think next time we should have a more engaging topic.

nothing

I think the topic we were researching (in this case shark) should be something else. I already know a lot about sharks because of my sister

larger slides!

more freedom

to have everyone use the same source

I think you should give us a bigger project to complete and more time.

Make this project more fun.

nothing

More freedom 

We should work on something we want to research on and get to pick our partners

Use google images from the research tool

Maybe a little more time to develop presenting/more practice time

A little bit more explaining but otherwise I really enjoyed it!

I think the project would be even better if all the computers worked. Thanks!

To get all the computers to work

you should let us pick the topic that we research and pick our OWN partners that we will work well with.

Let people pick the subject they want

It wasn't my favorite project.

I can see that this project helped students feel more confident as digital citizens and that we need to spend more time on citing sources. Opening up the topics would have made many of them happier, but I think keeping it contained for this project was a good choice.