Modeling is a No-Brainer

This is the first year that I have taken part in the Slice of Life month long challenge, and I invited my students to join me. They are familiar with SOL because every Tuesday they participate in the weekly SOL on our class wiki. It has been hard to help them understand that a slice is just a sliver of their day. They want to write about more than one little piece because they have so much to say. This challenge has been wonderful for them because they are finally understanding they can write a lot about one specific piece of their day.

I have been sharing my online slices with my students and offering them challenges. A few weeks back it was to try to write a slice in poem form. They then had to try, if they were up for it, a found poem. A few days back I shared a number poem and that became a challenge. Yesterday I  shared with them a post that I had commented on. It was called a book poem. I had never seen it before and thought it was neat. We talked about how to do it and although it looked simple, thought it would be very difficult.

This group of students have frequently told me they really like when I "show" them how to do things. It helps them understand the task at hand better. For me, modeling is a no brainer. I incorporate it into every lesson I teach. If I didn't model various types of writing, I wouldn't be seeing and hearing all that I have this month in their SOL notebooks.

For this month long challenge, my students are using a pencil/paper format.  Each morning they talk to me about what they wrote about the day before. This morning, as I was checking in my slicers, one student took on the book poem challenge. She told me that as she was riding her bike, she noticed a lot of things outside and decided she was going to create her book poem about that.

You can find it below.

I thought she did an incredible job.

Now. Time to find another challenge for them!