Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Final Chapter


As we finished reading The One and Only Ivan, all of us were eager to hear what would happen to Ivan. We wanted to know how he would do with his new friends, and how he would see his old friends. Students took some time this week to write an additional chapter which was not included in our book. Written in first person, as Ivan writes, my class has captured a lot of perspectives about how readers around the world must have felt as they closed this wonderful book. Below in the comments, are the final chapters which my students have written.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

A wordle to represent character feelings.


As we read the final few chapters in The One and Only Ivan, students recorded feelings that came to mind for any of the characters. For me I was thrilled to see the variety and built a lot of conversation about how so much could come from just a few characters. If I wanted to build this more, I would ask students to all list these for each character separately - then draw connections between them.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Thinking about perspectives

If we take some time to think about the characters we have gotten to know in The One and Only Ivan, we can start to understand their feelings. Please take some time to share what you believe their perspectives are on what is happening. Are they happy, content, or do they have any resentment about the life that they are living. Choose one character, and share what you believe their perspective is on their life, and the life around them. 

Monday, October 8, 2012

Our Thinking While Reading

While reading last week, we opened a Wallwisher wall, where students were able to post any thoughts that come to mind as we read aloud.



As you can tell by the number of posts, we were thinking about a lot!

The next time we read aloud we wanted to structure the use of the wall more, so we wrote in our notebooks, then when we were done reading for the day, students chose one significant comment to share on the wall.


We followed this with a discussion about the uses of sharing our ideas, and students almost all agreed that the second way we used Wallwisher was more advantageous because, "We thought more about what we were going to share." Our conversation also highlighted that it might be even better if we can organize our posts.

After spending some time in class addressing the questions and comments that had been posted we continued reading, and writing about our thinking. Students continued to write their thoughts in their notebooks, and after I finished reading they discussed headings for the next wall, then we began posting. Here is what our third wall looked like!


As you can see, we grouped our ideas. This will help us as we have our next discussion about Ivan, Stella, Ruby, Mack, and even Bob.

Identifying with Ivan

In an effort to start to see the world through the eyes of an animal we know, we spent time in class introducing ourselves as an animal we know. Much like in the first chapter of The One and Only Ivan, students tried to include the personality of the animal they introduced.
Students have shared their writing in the comments below.