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My ‘getting to know you’ activity. They investigate my classroom and make three inferences about my personality based on the evidence. After we discuss (and I reveal personal info. About me), they write their own paragraph: If someone walked into your space, what would the evidence lead them to infer about you? This is a review of 3.8 paragraph structure, I see common writing errors, and I get to know the kids on a more personal level.
I wish I'd seen this sooner, I LOVE THIS. What a fun activity
I start the year with something called The Truth Project. We memorize & recite the poem "The Truth" by Tom Joan's, which is all about how poetry is meant to be a truthful writing form. Then we watch a modern poem, usually Rudy Francisco's "My Honest Poem", to see how poets are truthful about themselves & how they see the world in creative ways. Then the students write their own "honest poem", all about the truth of how they see themselves & their place in the world. I usually give them some sentence/line starters based on the kinds of things Rudy mentioned about himself in his poem (i.e., I am from, I have heard, I like, I wonder, etc.). They can choose to share theirs with the class or not, but I repeat the writing part at the end of the year to see how they have changed.
Today, I asked students to describe a conflict that they had with another person, which needs were not being met, what they did to solve the conflict and how the relationship is now. In all, I asked what they learned from the situation.
Having students write their own works of science fiction always gets pretty far out there with creativity. However, it comes after we've done work analyzing different works of science fiction for the impact of setting, elements specific to the genre and how they impact the text, etc.
I wish I'd seen this sooner, I LOVE THIS. What a fun activity.