Aliens Don't Wear Braces

This week I chose to read "Aliens Don't Wear Braces" by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones.  I believe that this is the second book that I have read in The Bailey School Kids Series, and I once again absolutely enjoyed the adventure that the authors create in the story.  Unfortunately, I just found my "Among the Hidden" book, so maybe next week I can continue to blog about my progress in that book.

Dadey and Jones take us on a mysterious adventure with the Bailey School Kids as they work to figure out who this new substitute art teacher is, and why she is so strange.  They begin to notice some odd things happening throughout the school.  First, the lights go out and their art teacher is MIA, then the pictures in the hallway are losing their color, and so are their clothes and hair.  They begin to think that the new substitute teacher is the one behind this strange phenomenon.  The children eventually work up the courage to follow her home, only to discover a strange spaceship looking object that is holding all of the colors that are missing from the school.  Well after they are discovered by the substitute teacher, one thing leads to another, and a wrong button is pushed.  Needless to say, the next day everything is back to normal.  The color has returned and so has the art teacher, but the substitute teacher has vanished.

One thing that I love about The Bailey School Kids books is that the authors always to appeal to the adventurous side in their reader.  They come up with clever characters and story plots that will catch the attention of young readers, and keep it.  They incorporate friendship, school, and mysteries all into one book.

As I thought of ways to correlate this story into a classroom, I realized that through the exaggeration and adventurous fiction aspects of the story, it would be a great way to teach students to write their very own fictional pieces.  I believe that having students write stories of their own is a great way to not only build writing skills but also get to know your students.  You can find out things that interest them, through topics they choose to write about, and this can help you build better relationships with your students.  By giving students the ability to come up with their own crazy stories to write about, it helps engage students in writing.  Just like anything, writing takes practice, and I think that having students create stories similar to The Bailey School Kids books, could be a great way to make them want to write.  You could create a unit in class reading these books, and then have students brainstorm possible story ideas that they have.  This could even be incorporated into a Writer's Workshop!

As I work to add to my future classroom library, I hope to be able to find more Bailey School Kids books to add to my collection.  I cannot wait to start recommending them to my students!

Until next week,
Ashley

Among the Hidden-Read Like A Writer

This week I decided to pull a book off of my shelf that I read during fifth-grade Battle of the Books.  I am reading "Among the Hidden," by Margaret Peterson Haddix.  I am only about a third of the way through this book, but if I was not so busy, I definitely would want to just sit down and read this book without putting it down.

This week I have been asked to "read like a writer."  I was not really sure how to go about this, but as I began my journey of learning about Writer's Workshop, and watching a video about a teacher implementing this in the classroom, my eyes were opened to a whole new world of reading that I had never really deeply thought of.

In "Among the Hidden," Haddix grabs the reader's attention right away from the very first two sentences.  The author says, "He saw the first tree shudder and fall, far off in the distance.  Then he heard his mother call out the kitchen window:  "Luke!  Inside.  Now." (p. 1).  As a reader, this automatically made me begin to question, why are the trees falling down?  Is it a storm?  Why is his mother yelling?  Is he in trouble?  As the reader proceeds throughout the novel, they discover that the reason that Luke's mother told him to come inside is because of the fact that he is a third child, and the government has forbidden families to have three children.  His family is hiding him, and takes all the necessary precautions to ensure that he is never seen, nor heard.  But now there is a new housing district moving in beside him, which means he is never allowed to go outside again because the safety of the woods is gone.  At this point in the novel, Luke has discovered another third child that just moved into the new housing district, and he gained enough courage to venture out to meet her.

After reading these few chapters, and watching the video of the teacher implementing writer's workshop into her classroom, I realized that one of the crafts that she taught her students about fits this story really well.  If I was working with upper elementary students, I could create a mini-lesson discussing ways to intrigue readers to want to continue to read their writing.  I could also incorporate a way to teach predictions by allowing students to create pieces of writing and share excerpts with their peers to allow their peers to practice making predictions about what they believe the rest of their peer's writing will be about.  I have never really thought about pairing reading and writing lessons together, but I can definitely see how this story could be used to accomplish both.

My lesson could begin by reading the first excerpt from Haddix novel, that I included in my summary of "Among the Hidden."  I would then ask students what they think is going on in the story (practicing making predictions).  I would also discuss with them that just by reading these short two sentences, I really want to read more so I can find out why Luke's mother is so adamant that Luke come in so quickly.  I would want to tell my students that just like Haddix caught our attention with her introduction, they also can capture reader's attention in their own writings.  Students could then brainstorm different ways that they could pull readers in, and then share them with the class.  They will then revise their writing to make it more intriguing, leaving their peers wanting to continue reading, and find out if their predictions are true.

I cannot wait to continue reading this book because I will be honest, I have kind of forgot how it ends!  Though this mini-lesson is very similar to the video's, I realized ways that I could incorporate reading and writing into the same lesson, and that has been very beneficial for me.

Until next week,

Ashley